In this week’s Expired Domain Report, Joseph Peterson reports on the sale of Tadpole.com, plus a comparison of .us domain sales to the asking prices on new TLD premium domains.
Once upon a time — specifically, once upon 22 April , 1992 — there hatched a Tadpole. Like many a domain, it began as a primitive website but mutated as it matured. Tadpole Computers supplied the world with “rugged … UNIX work stations, thin client laptops, and lightweight servers” before being bought out by General Dynamics a decade ago (Wikipedia). Recently, Tadpole.com expired. Whatever the brand becomes next, it ought to be good, based on the purchase price of $20,239.
Premium domains are like that. They outlast companies, retain value, and reinvent themselves.
I’m going to show a longer than average list of GoDaddy expired domain auctions from last week because an interesting pattern emerges in the lower price range:
| Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tadpole.com | 20239 | 1mi.com | 9022 |
| Liaise.com | 4101 | ConsumerCreditReport.com | 4051 |
| FluShotsUSA.com | 3125 | AutoInsuranceCompany.com | 3050 |
| BlankMedia.com | 2950 | Skaau.ws | 2676 |
| Blue.us | 2605 | PersonalCreditReport.com | 2425 |
| BitcoinBox.com | 2225 | OpportunityEquation.org | 2176 |
| McGregorHomes.com | 1750 | VIPPorn.com | 1727 |
| EU8.com | 1338 | MadisonCountyLibrary.org | 1275 |
| OviGaming.com | 1275 | Rentech.com | 1250 |
| SkylineNewspaper.com | 1025 | DailyGotham.com | 1009 |
| Leninology.com | 1000 | BitcoinOnline.com | 950 |
| Hotels-List.com | 800 | AffordablePainting.com | 780 |
| Z43.com | 762 | AirStream.net | 748 |
| AtlantaConsulting.com | 711 | FrontierGroup.com | 711 |
| GlacierCentennial.org | 710 | HomeTuneup.com | 710 |
| StyleAvenue.com | 710 | AdvancedTCASummit.com | 660 |
| BabbleSoft.com | 660 | GZDefenseFund.com | 611 |
| Reducers.com | 611 | BurningBrides.com | 610 |
| DragonLabs.com | 610 | Investors.us | 610 |
| SportsGreetingCards.com | 610 | FreeMoviesAddict.com | 568 |
| NasherMuseumBlogs.org | 565 | SuperfluitiesRedux.com | 561 |
| LandInSight.org | 560 | VimBox.com | 560 |
| 61121.com | 510 | BirthdayFund.com | 510 |
| EatThisCity.com | 510 | Emken2012.com | 510 |
| EverybodyInNobodyOut.org | 510 | NSHost.com | 510 |
| Murro.com | 500 | MMAFightGear.com | 480 |
| QuickFlipFormula.com | 475 | Boots.us | 460 |
| ReallGraphics.com | 460 | BlueDot.us | 459 |
| GoodLuckBet.com | 455 | CourtModernization.com | 443 |
| WhatIsCredit.com | 440 | SEMBC.org | 430 |
| Getriebe.com | 420 | AustinMedia.com | 415 |
| InDefenseOfData.com | 411 | Furious.net | 410 |
| AnimeUTD.net | 405 | FreeFox.us | 405 |
| Lobsters.us | 405 | OnlineGames.us | 405 |
| RyleeHitchnerPhotography.com | 405 | CFECA.org | 404 |
| LifeNetworks.com | 404 | TurnOffTheGlory.com | 404 |
| MCA.us | 403 | Phimtructuyen24h.com | 385 |
| RecoverySDCounty.org | 361 | SalsaBand.com | 358 |
| MYYU.com | 355 | VisibilitySquad.com | 355 |
| 22675.com | 350 | SmartSoda.com | 340 |
| Moon.us | 337 | Rex.us | 326 |
| Mirror.us | 323 | 50399.com | 305 |
| Hairdrenalin.com | 305 | OnlyScreenSavers.com | 305 |
| MarketingMadeSimple.tv | 294 | 31GR.com | 271 |
| Comedian.us | 271 | Meme.us | 265 |
| Wiggling.com | 260 | WilsonWhirligigFestival.com | 260 |
| YourDeveloper.com | 260 | PHDN.com | 256 |
| Clown.us | 255 | iPhone-TopSites.com | 226 |
| HealthHookup.com | 225 | QTRO.com | 216 |
| ServerGurus.com | 216 | Si-K.com | 216 |
| M-Rooo7.com | 215 | TheDollars.com | 205 |
| Uno.us | 193 | AccessWifi.com | 191 |
| HomeInspection.us | 182 | Next-Ten.org | 180 |
| Music-Skull.com | 170 | 7-up.us | 160 |
| Off.us | 151 | Moom.us | 138 |
| GetRichCity.com | 125 | RentToOwnHomes.org | 123 |
| Magnet.us | 122 | QROX.com | 121 |
| River.us | 116 | EqualDreams.com | 113 |
| BestCasino.us | 106 | Cream.us | 106 |
| NorwayBaseballMuseum.com | 106 | Lick.us | 105 |
| Open-Site-Talk.org | 105 | BradTuckerBadTrucker.com | 97 |
| GameRaiders.com | 97 | Uproarious.com | 96 |
| Cub.us | 95 | Fapiaos.com | 87 |
| BasicBinaryOptions.com | 85 | Tat-ology.com | 80 |
| Sarah.us | 76 | DinnerCraft.com | 75 |
| StockBroker.us | 74 | AlarmPlanet.com | 70 |
| Sketch.us | 60 | TheGunMaker.com | 60 |
| Doberman.us | 56 | Groom.us | 56 |
| HeadSets.us | 54 | StockBrokers.us | 51 |
| Rapper.us | 41 | HomeInspections.us | 38 |
| CityOfBarstow.com | 10 | SpeedSurf.us | 10 |
Do you see it? About 3 dozen .US sales — the top 14 of which fall between $255 and $2,605. Now, granted, .US domains sell at some level all the time. While this is more .US activity at GoDaddy Auctions than I’ve seen for awhile, I still wouldn’t call it a trend. What these sales do show, however, is that .US domains don’t die without buyers ready to scavenge them.
Years from now, will the 11-letter .ENTERPRISES have the staying power of our 2-letter .US? While you’re mulling that over, compare this sale of Investors.us at $610 to the unsold Investor.guru ($3,300), Investor.build ($2,250), Investor.buzz ($2,310), Investor.luxury ($3,000), or Investor.systems ($7,368). Alongside those, .US looks promising to me. Oh, and to be fair, less than 0.1% of my portfolio is .US.
“Credit report” had 2 sales adding up to $6676 — “consumer” and “personal”. You can add WhatIsCredit.com ($440) to the pile for good measure.
Bitcoin continues to sell domains with $3.2k divided between BitcoinBox.com and BitcoinOnline.com. Binary options have been another lucrative niche for some domainers — represented here by BasicBinaryOptions.com at just $60. Before I leave “B” behind, what’s up with the tongue twister, BradTuckerBadTrucker.com?
Also worthy of note are several not-quite-nTLD sales: ServerGurus.com ($216), Tat-ology.com ($80), and RyleeHitchnerPhotography.com ($405). The last buyer made 2 mistakes: (1) buying such a bad .COM; (2) not buying the equally bad .PHOTOGRAPHY.
At NameJet, the highest bids I saw were for Bid.net:
| Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bid.net | 8900 | Farallon.com | 5800 |
| 1588.cc | 4200 | JosiahMacyFoundation.org | 2200 |
| NeoMed.com | 2122 | Caker.com | 1801 |
| DHMC.com | 1600 | UrbanConcepts.com | 1311 |
| Fiberglass.net | 898 | Bomex.com | 720 |
| IrishTours.com | 660 | ROPH.com | 545 |
| AUVIcom.info | 530 | InjuryLaywers.com | 500 |
| FCCD.com | 465 | SDHI.com | 365 |
| GreatProgs.com | 360 | FoundryMusic.com | 310 |
| Julpan.com | 281 | SLSF.com | 280 |
| BBNPlanet.com | 260 | OurSavings.com | 230 |
| 60772.com | 220 | VideoMovies.com | 217 |
| MotorcycleRepairShop.com | 160 | ReformedTheology.org | 160 |
| CourierServices.net | 120 | Vereor.com | 104 |
| FindHikes.com | 77 | Gobblin.com | 72 |
Every week, I do my best to exclude non-expired domain auctions. This week, I filtered out 51 owner auctions from NameJet and 12 from GoDaddy. The same issue complicates my recommendations for the week ahead.
You could interpret MobileDevelopers.com, iPanama.com, Shirt.org, iShirts.com, Lassy.com, and dozens more like them as bona fide expired auctions. Of course, they seem to show up in NameJet’s featured lists again and again, year after year, every May. Your odds of winning at auction are better if you ignore the publicity and look at something like ForeignTravelInsurance.com, which has 2 backorders instead of 186. Here are a few others to glance at:
| Domain Name | Venue | Domain Name | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| AsiaPower.com | GD | BallSports.com | NJ Pre |
| Belex.com | NJ Pre | BestLandscaping.com | NJ Pre |
| BigDifference.com | NJ Pre | Dividual.com | NJ Pre |
| DomainNameCheap.com | NJ Pre | Epee.com | NJ Pre |
| Fernandos.com | NJ Pre | GetGame.com | PD |
| GreenSide.com | PD | GuideToGuys.com | GD |
| NeoCity.com | NJ Pre | Nianji.com | NJ Pre |
| Nitches.com | NJ Pre | NJN.net | NJ Pre |
| Norwegian.net | NJ Pre | Ropita.com | NJ Pre |
| TheDrama.com | NJ Pre | TheOrigins.com | GD |
| TryOnline.com | PD | ZAIF.com | GD |
Yes, I realize Nitches.com is misspelled. But the people who will misspell it won’t.
I was the buyer in the Tadpole.com deal as I believe this domain fits my definition of a brandable domain name perfectly. It can be branded by almost anyone in any industry.
Fits it to a T. Tadpole.com is short, clear, familiar, memorable, and meaningful. It’s easy to spell, hard to mishear; and (like many animal names) automatically triggers visual associations, which make the name nearly unforgettable.
And it’s not just meaningful in the technical sense of being a word from the dictionary. It’s meaningful in the right way, since Tadpole.com symbolically says growth, youth, activity, change, and transformation. So, yes, it’s versatile enough to brand a computer company or just about anything else. But the brand name also has a very specific tone, which companies want to believe in and convey.
It also comes with a pedigree, which I think adds to the value for whatever company eventually acquires the brand name.
Even at $20k, Tadpole.com is bound to sell for a profit.
Congrats on your purchase, Rick. This is the type of domain that will sell for a lot of money if you’re willing to wait for the right buyer. That fits your Modus operandi perfectly.
Interesting study in “honesty” for me here – I did not see that it was Rick S. posting at first because I did not even look at the pic there and only saw the post. Before I noticed it was Rick posting I was very honestly and frankly going to post that I disagree with everyone and consider this domain to be a piece of crap, especially for $20K, and including all the inventive ways of speaking well of it which probably almost any of us could do. However, since it is Rick I will revise that. Not because of any second guessing of myself about the domain or consideration of someone’s status, but because of my assessment of his abilities and despite the domain itself. I still regard the domain to be a piece of crap and that $20K is way overpaid, wouldn’t even have paid $500 for it, but I have no doubt whatsoever Rick is well able to sell it at a hefty profit nonetheless or do something valuable with it perhaps. So I guess you could call this a really back-handed vote of confidence in the person and not the domain. So in most people’s hands, yes a piece of crap, but in some people’s hands, yes I would bet on gold. A bit blunt here, but well intended and hopefully well received nonetheless…
P.S. Now that my post got past moderation I will second guess myself on the phrase “piece of crap,” however. That phrase is a tad harsh (pun on “tad” intended), but I will substitute the more moderate term “junk.” Yeah, “brandable,” schmandable, don’t get me wrong I actually love brandable though not this one, certainly in theory, yada yada, sure…But my bet is still on the man…
@John,
It’s good that you’re honest enough to admit disliking a name in spite of its price and the celebrity of its buyer.
For my own part, I love the name Tadpole.com. My opinion would be word-for-word the same regardless of who bought it. While I respect Rick Schwartz, I’m not dazzled enough by anybody to write an opinion I don’t hold.
When I recommended Tadpole.com a week ago, I seriously debated whether or not to keep it out of the list in order to bid on it myself. However, I had already budgeted $10k for specific domain purchases during the past week. Knowing that Tadpole.com wouldn’t sell cheaply, I decided to stay out and recommend it to readers. After all, I can’t just give people my scraps!
You may feel the domain is only worth $500 to you, and that’s fine. But if the timing had been different, I might have gone up to $10k myself on Tadpole.com. Obviously, a bigger fish arrived in the pond and gobbled it up.
Frankly, I’m glad it sold for more than my week’s budget. Because if I’d given it a pass only to see bidding stall around $8k, I would have felt some remorse.
Well Joseph, you’ve caught me in a mood to reject all trace of pride and ego, so not only can I admit that I might even be wrong, too, but I even hope I turn out to be wrong. That’s right, I actually want to be wrong about this, go figure.
Recently I thought that for me one of the most classic examples of the kind of thing I’m talking about would be a domain like Staples.com. We all know it, know how big it is, know how valuable it is because of the business and branding behind it. But on it’s own, I would say “staples.com” would have been considered good or ok, but not exactly the most desirable or valuable despite being one word, short, memorable, etc. Sure you have some brandability on the dictionary sense of “a commodity for which the demand is constant” and so forth, but not a spectacular level based on current cultural usage for a long time now. Sure you might have a small number of people deliberately looking for staples themselves, as in the nice little metal objects you place in your stapler, or even use in surgery, but still far more likely to search on “office supplies” or “surgical supplies.” But overall not a domain to get excited about, though more “top of mind” and commonly used a term than tadpole. Fast forward to what it is today, of course, and if this domain were dropping many of us would be racing to bid $xx,xxx at a minimum, me included.
@John,
I agree with you on Staples.com. Considered apart from the brand it has become, I don’t see it as an especially desirable name.
Staples (the objects) don’t have any special positive associations. They’re ugly bits of inert metal. And the commodity gets in the way of the word’s versatility. The word works to brand an office supply store in a once paper-based economy … but for relatively few other business models.
Meanwhile, a Tadpole has personality. That personality enters into a brand name like Tadpole.com. Also, I can’t buy a Tadpole in the shopping aisle. So the word is less restricted by associations with particular kinds of businesses.
The problem with domain names is the supply of short, easy-to-pronounce memorable names is limited. I read Techcrunch and Gigaom and check domain names used by new startups everyday. In my casual survey, 99% of them use .com. Now, once a .com name is acquired by an end user, it will never be available in the market until the business is sold or closed down. Like what Joseph said, tadpole.com is short and easy to pronounce and remember, so long term its value will very likely to rise. Since Rick is a long term investor, this should make a good investment. Just me 2c.
On an unrelated note, that $2,676 sale of SKAAU.ws has annoyed me into finding an explanation.
No, it’s not about Ska music or Australia (“AU”).
Apparently, it means “Students of King Abdul Aziz University”. At least, the corresponding .COM is a developed website بالعربية that includes a forum.
So is Saudi Arabia opening up a branch in Western Samoa?
http://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from/American+Samoa/to/Saudi+Arabia
Does the buyer even realize that .WS stands for an island 16,000 miles away?
I’d sell any of my .ws domains for that much. I hate to admit I own some.
What’s most disturbing about sales of bad domains at auction (as opposed to a direct purchase) is that not one but multiple people were involved in the bidding.
Two individuals (presumably) were simultaneously prepared to pay about $2.7k for SKAAU.ws. We can assume one bidder was a university representative acting in an official capacity with a large budget and no personal motivation to save money or think. But who was the other bidder? Who else on the same day wanted to give away $2666 for SKAAU.ws but stopped short and let the other guy have it for $10 more?
When I see bad domains achieving inexplicable bids, I generally write the auctions off as fraudulent — even if a sale really occurs. Shill bidding in the domain industry is rampant. But it’s mostly confined to auctions where the owner (and sometimes his buddies) have a financial incentive to inflate the price. With true expired auctions, that motivation is less clear.
I’m not saying that the bids for SKAAU.ws weren’t real. My point is that if a private sale of SKAAU.ws for $2.7k is surprising, then a multi-bid auction sale of SKAAU.ws is suprising^2.
New gTLD may even lift the popularity of .us because it is a good extension to create a meaningful phrases. By now, we may be shifting from the “me” generation to the “us” generation, so meet.us, join.us, etc. should be popular.
wow! some unbelievable buys here.
HomeInspection.us $182
HomeInspections.us $38
Sarah.us $76
i know they’re not .coms but i reckon you could turn a decent profit on those!
@Rob,
Personally, I haven’t had much luck selling .US domains in the past.
In spite of that, I’ve always liked certain kinds of .US domains as bargain-value alternatives to specific .COMs or even as names in their own right. I’d single out 3 kinds (from the list above):
(1) Investors.us … Single-word plurals in which the “dot” can be read as part of the name, rather like the “R” in “Toys R Us”.
(2) Groom.us … Verbal phrases. In these cases, however, it’s important to have the matching .COM for a pet grooming service: GroomUs.com.
(3) HomeInspections.us … Descriptive professional services where the agenda can be expressed as “Hire US”. They’re good alternatives especially when the service is localized to the USA. Home inspections seldom cross national borders.
I’m comfortable recommending .US domains like these as brand names. What I don’t know, unfortunately, is their ROI for domain resellers.