This week’s expired domain report: Got .info?

That would be Coleridge — his ill fated sailor thirstily contemplating the vast seawater. But I doubt “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was the Rime.com that just sold at GoDaddy Auctions for $12.8k. Aside from that archaic spelling of “rhyme”, we have “rime” as the hoarfrost that forms from a fog in winter. Nope. Not it either. My bet is on the Play Station game, Rime — whose trailer is oddly reminiscent of Coleridge’s poem with its sea scape, gulls, curse, and isolation. I’d go beyond that and wager that this shared mythos — far from being a coincidence — probably inspired the game’s name. Mythos.com sold for $8.4k, by the way. Oh, yeah … Another maritime masterpiece (by Herman Melville) sold a domain last week: MobyDicks.com ($510) will probably go to a seafood restaurant somewhere.

Speaking of thirst, Middle Eastern deserts had an exceptional showing in last week’s expired auctions — and all of them .INFOs. Highest of these sales stands the home of the world’s tallest building, Dubai.info ($7.1k). Accompanying that modern tourist destination were 2 more ancient: Pyramids.info ($86) and Sahara.info ($280).

Other .INFOs did well too. For starters, Brasilia.info ($570), the 4th largest city in Brazil with a population of 2.5 million. But then we have a string of non-geo domains: Remodel.info ($294), Runners.info ($166), Mushrooms.info ($136), and AssistedLiving.info ($65). Those are all strong keywords, and .INFO (which already sells regularly on the aftermarket) seems to me more promising than most new TLDs being introduced this year.

Inventor.org ($2.95k) and InvestmentBrokers.com ($3.5k) are no surprise. .ORG is perfect for the first one. I’m taken off guard, however, by a $1.9k sale of GoCanada.org. After all, Canadians would prefer .CA and .COM to .ORG, one would think. As for Suo.cc at $5.5k? Haven’t got a clue! If I read this as Italian, then it means “His / Her / Its Direct Current”. (DC = CC, “corrente continua”.) That Italian explanation is beyond far-fetched, especially when .CC is only really loved in China and the registrant’s in Vancouver. $5.5k is quite high for .CC. So your guess is as good as mine.

Remember disk drives? Well, the .COM for that outdated computer technology just sold for $723. Frankly, I think that was a decent buy. Although domainers mainly chase future trends, older technology becomes more expensive the rarer equipment and technicians become. DiskDrives.com will have its day again! E-commerce product domains aren’t dead. CameraStrap.com claimed $809.

Spanish domains did fairly well. APleno.com ($710) means “to the full” and has various end users to sell to. Dedicame.com ($510) is about declarations of romantic love, and there are a few developed active sites based around that concept and phrase, including Dedicame.biz and DedicameVIP.com. Other lower-valued Spanish domain sales (e.g. ClubEstrella.com y Retronimo.com) are scattered in the charts.

Some domain sales clump together. For instance, AWorldOfPossibilities.com ($610) + .org ($305). Likewise, this quartet of European cities: StayInNaples.net ($410), StayInZurich.com ($305), StayInGeneva.com ($265), StayInBonn.com ($115). Bizarrely, the highest of those was a .NET, while the other 3 were .COM. I suppose we can add to that list ParisShortStay.com ($355).

One clear argument in favor of some new TLDs is the ongoing pattern of awkward domain choices for movie releases. Every time I see an encumbering suffix like “-film” or “-movie” or “theMovie”, I must admit there’s room for an nTLD to step in and clean up. All the same, domains like DianaVreeland-Film.com ($210) and ThePaperBoy-Movie.com ($280) won’t simply go away. Thanks to all the back-links they accrued during promotional lead-ups to the films’ debuts, such domains retain SEO value, I guess. Names of the form ConcussionMovie.com ($175) or, better yet, KingCorn.com ($108) (without any suffix) are preferable. But movie distributors clearly understand neither domains nor SEO. Otherwise, they wouldn’t continually be letting go of domains about their back catalogue!

Waybo.com ($62) slipped right past most of the would-be cybersquatters and went astonishingly cheaply, considering the Chinese website Weibo.com is ranked #16 globally and #5 in China, according to Alexa. CannabisTravel.com was also undervalued at $150. In the grand scheme of things, marijuana-focused travel is just a transitional phase. But right now, while recreational cannabis is legal in some U.S. states and illegal in others, people definitely do plan trips around getting high; and companies exist to help them. Meanwhile, a completely different motivation for travel shows up in another good buy: EmigrateToAustralia.com ($326).

What else? 5-digit numerical domains continue selling but were down last week at GoDaddy. I counted 6 … and all between $35 and $152. VHIX.com ($94) may be short for “vehicles”. ShoreLineFloridaKeysRealEstate.com ($106) stretches a proud 30 letters long, whereas GifIt.com ($141) makes a short, ultra-catchy brand name for gif videos. UmbrellasOfCherbourg.com ($235) is a hauntingly beautiful French musical (and film) by Michel Legrand — going by its English title in keeping with performance practice. Kullanici-Eeneyimi.com anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Yes, you guessed it.  That $280 domain is Turkish for UX (user experience) design.

AskGayMen.com sold at the appropriately introductory price of $101. Buykinis.com ($93) is obviously about women’s swim wear. Less obviously, the .CO.UK is already in use. If neither of those is your image of PositiveLove.com ($290), there’s always TheShemaleTube.com ($142). But regardless of your sexual preferences, DatePeople.com ($280) might prove a handy reminder if you find yourself infatuated with pets , pizzas, or furniture.

Now for NameJet! LiveSpace.com passed $11.1k last week. Other expired auctions included 2 domains of social importance: JustLaw.com ($3.1k) and PalestineHistory.com ($360). CasinoTours.com ($2.7k) seems like a money maker to me. Unfortunately, the typo AffiliateProgams.com ($1.3k) will have to be written off as somebody’s loss.

I quite like Bumpa.com ($450) as a version of “Bumper”. It’s got bounce. RollWithIt.com has the opposite — give. Another good brand name, in my view … Boulevard.net ($381) is a strong term for housing, travel, or fashion. As for Deviations.com ($272), it’s simply one of the cheapest good dictionary-word .COMs I’ve seen for awhile. In contrast, 3-letter .NETs did consistently well at NameJet, based on SLE.net ($860) and EVR.net ($670). 

NetLondon.com ($299), SandwichClub.com ($332), and ImageGallery.com ($2.5k) afford some useful comparisons with nTLD domains on offer — .LONDON, .CLUB, and .GALLERY. So do GoDaddy’s SafeComputingTips.com ($1k) and FilesClub.com ($211).

This week’s JetBorg.com ($70) hearkens back to last week’s sale of AirBorg.com. DatingVideos.com ($180) seems like an obvious way for dating websites to push video marketing; so I was surprised by the low price. Maybe dating videos seem old fashioned. If you really want to see something antiquated, though, check out EnterWeb.org. This directory website has scarcely been updated since the 1998 version.  I don’t mind seeing directory websites superseded, but it is disappointing to see something like TheLockeInstitute.org, which dates back to 1998, displaced by PPC ads. This internet of ours doesn’t last.

I’ll end with a riddle. What do George Bush Senior, acoustic guitars, offline advertising, conventional ovens, traditional Chinese characters, analog recordings, and Coca Cola Classic have in common? Hint: It’s a particular domain found in the charts above.