Company reports improved domain name sales compared to previous quarter.

Marchex’s Archeo, Inc. sold 50 domains in the first quarter of this year for a total of $1.4 million.

Archeo, Inc. is the domain name division of Marchex, which the company hopes to soon spin off into its own publicly traded company.

The results were much better than in Q4 2012, when the company sold 31 domains for $863,000. The average price per sale was about the same in both quarters, at roughly $27,000-$28,000.

The company also released a list of the top 20 sales it made during the quarter, although sans prices.

1. Swash.com
2. Aprons.com
3. ProLabs.com
4. Ideally.com
5. Colette.com
6. AffordableInsurance.com
7. ProTrader.com
8. WebFleet.com
9. GlobalJourney.com
10. DreamProducts.com
11. IraqiDinar.com
12. APNetwork.com
13. OnlyMoney.com
14. MovingDirectory.com
15. BusinessMan.com
16. CoolGift.com
17. WebWatcher.com
18. Hakka.com
19. Poliya.com
20. Diatomaceousearth.com

Notice the #1 sale? That’s an interesting one.

A look at Archeo’s revenue numbers.

Marchex just reported earnings for Q4 2012 and the full year.

It sold just $863,000 worth of domain names last quarter, which gave it $6.3 million in domain sales for the year.

Had it already been spun out, its Archeo domain name and directory business would have generated $5.5 million in revenue last quarter without domain sales, which was about the same as the prior quarter.

With domain sales it would have generated $6.4 million in revenue.

Marchex provided unaudited numbers from the would-be Archeo business going back to 2011, and it certainly hasn’t been heading in the right direction.

Revenue in Q4 2011 attributable to Archeo not including domain sales would have been $10.7 million, so it has dropped in half. Revenue with domain sales in 2011 was $54.4 million. In 2012 it was $32.7 million.

Of course, the idea behind spinning out the business is that it will receive the attention it needs and reverse the trend.

As a result of the spin-off, the company will take estimated pre-tax $16.7 million non-cash impairment charge.

A belated look at more of Marchex’ end user domain sales.

Last month I created a three part series about Marchex’ end user domain sales. I was on the road in NYC and scheduled the third part to publish on November 7. But, as WordPress often does, it “missed schedule” and I didn’t notice it until now.

Call it delayed gratification.

Here’s my final list of end user domain buys from Marchex’ top 500 list. You can see see other sales here.

I did the best I could to pin down the actual buyer and sales date with the help of DomainTools’ historical whois.

Publishing giant Hearst paid $45,000 for LittleAngels.com in 2010 for Roma’s Little Angels show.

Herbal Zone International Sdn Bhd, owner of HerbalZone.net, bought HerbalZone.com for $27,500 in 2012.

Marchex sold UltimateRewards.com for $120,000 in 2009. The whois record showed MediaMarket before changing to JP Morgan in 2010.

I’m confused by the sale of DentalInsurance.com for $40,000. As far back as I can see in whois, this domain has been owned by Kelsey National Corporation.

Another one that’s interesting is Giggle.com at $250,000. It’s currently owned by Lloyd Group. But the whois as far back as I can see shows the domain was owned by Anything.com.

Insurance company Mass Mutual bought RetireSmart.com for $50,000 in 2010.

Publicly traded publishing company Meredith Corporation bought DIYadvice.com for $35,000 in 2009.

Microsoft bought GetLive.com for $30,000. It’s hard to pin down this transaction, but I’m betting it was in 2006.

NC2.com was acquired by Fathom Communications in 2009 and is now owned by Navistar, Inc. This may have been a transaction on behalf of Navistar. It sold for $10,000.

NewEgg.com now owns EastMall.com. It briefly traded hands to someone in China before landing with NewEgg this year. Sales price: $25,000.

Noodle Education Inc, a startup by one of the founders of Princeton Review, bought Noodle.org for $28,000. Its whois record was protected by a privacy service for many years, so I’m unable to determine when the sale took place.

Norwegian Air now owns Norwegian.com, but I can tell who first bought it and when. Marchex sold it for $700,000.

Does Oversee.net count as an end user for acquiring CreditCards.org for $125,000?

Marchex sold LoveToLearn.com for $50,000. Pearson Education became the owner in 2012, but the whois record showed a different company last year.

PennWell Corporation currently owns FireApparatus.com. Marchex sold it to Praetorian Group in 2009 for $55,000. As I researched this sale, I found that PennWell bought Fire Apparatus magazine from Praetorian, but then there was a trademark and cybersquatting lawsuit involving this domain name after the sale agreement.

Procter & Gamble owns ManOfTheHouse.com, which I believe was acquired on its behalf by an agency in 2009 for $25,000.

Sanofi-Aventis picked up CancerInformation.com for $35,000 in 2009 and MSOneToOne.com for $25,000 in 2012.

SAY Media bought bought ReadWrite.com for this year for its rebranding of ReadWriteWeb.

SBNation appears to be working on somethig new. It recently bought TheNext.com for $50,000.

Office supply store Staples bought MyAdvantage.com for $75,000 in 2011. It isn’t using the domain name.

Team Express Distributing, LLC picked up BasketballExpress.com for $25,000 in 2010. It owns BaseballExpress.com as well.

Popular startup accelerator TechStars bought TechStars.com for $20,000 in 2011. It also owns TechStars.org.

Tradebot Systems Inc paid $30,000 for Tradebot.com in 2009. Prior to buying the domain they used TradebotSystems.com.

TravelShark bought TelAvivHotels.com for $25,000 in 2010.

WhitePages.com bought HIYA.com for $22,500 in 2010.

Glenvista purchased DomainIndex.com for $22,500 in 2011 or 2012 and created a domain name service on the site.

Marchex is hiring domain people.

Marchex is spinning off its domain name business into Archeo and is looking for a few good domain name experts to help it grow the business.

Currently I see two domain name-specific positions listed on Marchex’ job openings page.

Senior Domain Sales Executive

Responsible for successfully selling domain names from our world-renowned portfolio of top-tiered generic domains; most efforts will be responding to inbound inquiries.

Domain Inventory Analyst

Responsible for managing and maintaining the Marchex-owned domain portfolio and providing related internal and external support for the domain inventory management department.

Both positions are in Seattle.

Given all of the low hanging fruit in Marchex’ domain portfolio, this seems like a great opportunity for someone to get in and realize quick results.

Marchex will finally focus on its domain name business.

Yesterday Marchex announced it was splitting the company in two, forming a new domain-centric business called Archeo.

Archeo will manage a portfolio of over 200,000 domain names, many of which were acquired when Marchex bought Yun Ye’s domain portfolio for $164 million back in 2005.

Despite its big domain purchase, the company has largely neglected its domain business until now.

Yesterday I talked with Marchex CEO Russell Horowitz to understand more about Archeo.

Horowitz said the impetus for splitting off the company is that its domain business has been neglected and undervalued.

“The analogy I give is it’s kind of like an oil field under the desert,” said Horowitz.

“You look at it and know there’s value there, and the time comes where it’s like, you know what, we’ve got to get the people and equipment to build wells and get it out of the ground and do it in a way that creates a valuable recurring business,” he said.

Marchex neglected its domain portfolio because it had other big opportunities that it believed were more pressing.

“At the time we acquired the domains and had plans in terms of how we would create the business…as a company we were doing like 5 things,” said Horowitz. “Our ambitions exceeded our capacity.”

Horowitz said the company decided to invest in call advertising and mobile because that opportunity had to be addressed immediately. Domains could wait.

He describes the company’s domain portfolio as an “idiot proof asset” that would retain its value even if the company didn’t invest in it right away. He said time has proven that belief correct.

To date, the company hasn’t marketed any of its domains for sale. At first it ignored sales inquiries. Then it assigned one person to respond to them, but that wasn’t even his full time job.

Now the company will do more than reactively negotiate domain sales. It plans to start marketing its domains, including some with “buy now” prices. It may develop some of its own sales tools but will also likely work with third party marketplaces, he said.

Archeo will be unlike any other domain company out there. It’s as if a domain portfolio company was founded nearly a decade ago and then frozen in time. Now it’s starting again, and there’s certainly a lot of low hanging fruit.

To get the oil out of the ground, the company is looking for highly entrepreneurial people. It will certainly find some of those in the domain industry.

“The domain industry has a lot of entrepreneurial and creative people,” Horowitz said.

(If you’re interested in working for Archeo, you may contact Karmen Chen at kchen -at- marchex.com.)

Archeo is a welcome development in the domain industry — and I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the years to come.