Domain name Iran.com at auction for $735,000; one suitor so far.
The domain Iran.com is up for grabs at Sedo after receiving a $735,000 offer. The auction runs through January 4 and the reserve has been met. If the sale closes this will be a heck of a way to kick off the 2008 year in the domain industry. According to DNJournal, Iran.com sold for $400,000 in June of 2007.
Iran is an important country, but it’s not the only geography domain to sell for big money lately. Earlier this month, Zimbabwe.com sold for $130,000 at Sedo. Sedo also sold Chinese.com — not a country but a geo-related domain — for €810,001 in July.
Other top geo domain sales of 2007 include:
Melbourne.com $700,000
Gibraltar.com $360,000
Buckhead.com $250,000
Perth.com $200,000
Chinese.net $180,000
BoiseIdaho.com $175,000
[Update: the auction has been removed at Sedo, likely due to fraudulent activity.]
That’s a solid price for Iran.com and, in the right hands, it can be monetized. However, it’s true monetization will come the day when the US and Iran normalize relations. When that day comes (some think it may be never), 750K will seem like a bargain.
My only concern is that if this is really a legitimate bid. Iran.com failed to sell at both Moniker auctions at TRAFFIC and the GeoDomain Expo, and it seems very strange that Iran.com met its reserve on its first bid with four days still left in the auction.
If this 750K bid is legitimate, kudos to Sedo for a job well done.
There’s a thread over at NamePros with a member claiming his account was hacked and someone placed a bid on Iran.com.
I feel as if this is not “the real deal.”
Likely so. Good point about not meeting the reserve at the Moniker auctions. Sedo has the reach to find end-user buyers, but the NamePros thread likely means this is a non-starter.
I would think sedo would call them personally on such a high bid to make sure its not fake. Other notable bids mymobile.mobi 2 bidders at 15,500 with 4 days left. Psychic.org looking nice also..
Buckdomainer, that is an excellent point.
In fact, all bids over 50K on any on-line auction should be verified. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
And after the .Mobi debacle, the last thing Sedo needs is any more negative press. My intuition tells me the 735K bid is probably bogus. For many reasons, no serious or experienced bidder would post a bid this high this far out. Regardless, Sedo should have checked it out the moment it came in.
I think the main issue here is that the system is automated. An offer is automatically sent to the owner, who can automatically send it to auction. David makes a good point. How about adding some logic to the system:
If offer > $50,000, and if seller sends to auction, hold for approval by Sedo manager.
“If offer > $50,000, and if seller sends to auction, hold for approval by Sedo manager.”
This is a great suggestion. There is an increasing amount of bogus bidding going on and the auction leaders need to adopt some new and better safeguards before the current systems lose further credibility.
Sedo has a problem – unfortunately for them (and everyone else in Web-based businesses – the internet is on 24 hours a day every day – and Sedo is not. These same issues happen when you send a “comment” on their offering system – if the comment is on a weekend – then you are out of luck until Monday….
If you are going to run a live auction with live bidders someone has to be somewhere all the time (and available). The idea above of approval needed on a bid higher than 50K is excellent – but it only works if someone is there 24/7 to make these approvals in a very timely manner.
Time for Sedo (and anyone else doing 24/7 auctions for high value domains to wake up….or better yet to stay up 24/7.
I say the bid is legit, with the kind of money kicking around the mideast right know, 700K is pocket change for some of these cash rich people, who are riding the oil highs etc… If you ever been to Dubai you will know, maybe some rich iran citizen ponied up 700K for bragging rights who knows.