Here are expired domain names that sold within the past week.
Here’s something you’re going to see more and more as brands contend with the vagaries of foreign pronunciation and transliteration: Tesila.com ($14.0k). As you must have guessed, that price was based on an electric car company. But it’s not a typo.
In Romania, there is a town called Teșila – evidently too small to appear in the list of cities with 2000+ residents. Small size notwithstanding, you can book a luxury ski hotel there. Plenty of ski resorts own their name in .COM. And it’s not inconceivable that Tesila.com might have been purchased for this reason, as LaPlagne.com was just 2 weeks ago.
For all I know, this town’s name may share a common origin with Nikola Tesla, the Serb-born inventor and eponym of Tesla Motors. After all, borders in the Balkans jump about like grasshoppers. Even today Serbian is spoken in parts of Romania. Tesla’s birth place has belonged to multiple nation states since it produced that genius. So Tesila may simply be a European variant of “Tesla”.
Ha! That’s all a red herring, a dead end; and I’ve misled you unconscionably. In fact, TeSiLa.com is Chinese. Well, sort of. First we had Nikola Tesla’s name in the Cyrillic alphabet, “Тесла”. Then it passed through our Latin alphabet as “Tesla” (when he emigrated to the USA in 1884). Then it went into Chinese ideograms as “特斯拉” (after the man became world famous). Finally, it bounced back to the internet’s default Latin alphabet, slightly distorted as the Pinyin “Tè Sī Lā” (once domain names for electric car companies found big market value in China).
Yep. “Te Si La” is Chinese, and it means simply “Tesla”. Lawyers for Tesla Motors will have a hard time proving their company was targeted by this purchase. After all, TeSiLa.com denotes “Tesla” in every sense – the man himself, the electric car, even the unit for magnetic flux density: 1 Tesla = 1 Weber / Meter^2 =1 Kilogram / ( Amp * Second^2). Such meanings predate electric car companies; for “Tesla” went to China along with AC electricity long ago. Actually, while Tesla Motors doesn’t yet own Tesla.com, the company has a history of buying domains for brand protection. If they plan on selling many cars in China, they’d be wise to acquire TeSiLa.com.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesila.com | 14,000 | SN | OldPirateBay.org | 4544 | SN |
| PotLocker.com | 4444 | SN | MegaBits.com | 3450 | SN |
| TedTalk.com | 3433 | SN | AAndD.com | 3120 | SN |
| Vandelay.com | 3099 | NJ | EverCode.com | 2815 | NJ |
| NewState.com | 2609 | SN | DDST.com | 2600 | NJ |
| Toptanci.com | 2600 | NJ | GreenStream.com | 2300 | NJ |
| QFWM.com | 2240 | SN | Maxwells.com | 2205 | NJ |
| GSBT.com | 2107 | NJ | RMRP.com | 2047 | NJ |
Speaking of automotive companies, AAndD.com ($3.1k) is a potential upgrade for AandDTech.com, which develops tests and simulators for vehicle power trains – including electric cars. “A + D” is also a skin ointment for diaper rash.
While I’d love to believe that Maxwells.com ($2.2k) is an homage to another giant of electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell, that fellow didn’t provide the name for anything as trendy as a Tesla car – just the backbone of modern technology, Maxwell’s equations, without which nothing from electrical power to the internet would exist. Time for my inner electrical engineer to shut up, huh. In the real world, Maxwells.com will probably upgrade 1 of half a dozen bars, bakeries, or restaurants with websites like MaxwellsECE.com, MaxwellsNYC.com, Maxwells-Market.com, MaxwellsNJ.com, etc.
If Vandelay.com sounds familiar, then that’s probably because George Costanza lied to you about “Vandelay Industries” in the show “Seinfeld”. Still, there are a couple of real sites named Vandelay – including a genuine IT company called Vandelay Industries, believe it or not.
PotLocker.com ($4.4k) should upgrade PotLocker.me, which (despite its name and logo) is a site for videos not marijuana. OldPirateBay.org ($4.5k) was a P2P file-sharing site that ran afoul of Swedish courts for copyright infringement. Clearly the site was quite popular, since its clunky 3-word .ORG ranks 2nd out of hundreds of auctions for the week.
Toptanci.com ($2.6k) means “wholesaler” in Turkish. Consequently, the word is found in the names of various drop-shipping websites and suppliers: YeniToptanci.com, ToptanciKapinda.com, ToptanciIletisim.com, etc.
TedTalk.com ($3.4k) is the sort of domain I’d recommend domainers avoid. To me it looks like cyber squatting and a UDRP risk. Not only is the “TED Talks” series a well known brand, popular enough that attempted resale could lead to bad publicity for our industry; the organization already owns TED.com and ranks first in SERPs, giving them little motivation to buy anyway.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KWHZ.com | 1850 | SN | Parenthood Web.com |
1600 | NJ |
| YEO.net | 1515 | NJ | LongLashes.com | 1515 | NJ |
| ILLS.com | 1405 | NJ | 79022.com | 1269 | SN |
| InfoPartners.com | 1242 | NJ | JiaoMen.com | 1210 | SN |
| SHQ.org | 1210 | NJ | ShuangXuan.com | 1200 | NJ |
| Satia.com | 1122 | NJ | GDStarRating.com | 1110 | NJ |
| FTO.org | 1100 | NJ | PYJ.org | 1100 | NJ |
| SalaryCap.com | 1010 | NJ | ReedLaw.com | 1010 | NJ |
| Filem.com | 1005 | SN | YiQiFu.com | 995 | SN |
JiaoMen.com apparently translates as “corner gate” (角门 / jiǎo mén), though why such a notion would be worth $1.2k wholesale … who knows? Cultural overtones are frequently lost in translation. If you know the meaning of ShuangXuan.com ($1.2k) or YiQiFu.com ($1.0k), do tell!
Just as we ended up with an extra “i” in Tesila.com after “Tesla” bounced back from Chinese, so too we end up with an extra “e” in the Malay word for “film”: Filem.com ($1.0k). Yes, the domain can be regarded as a brandable derived from the word “file”. (Think: “File ’em!”) But it’s important for the owner to know (if he doesn’t already) that the National Film Department of Malaysia is called “Filem Negara“.
LLLL.com “CHIPs” are balanced on that $2k number as if it were the fulcrum of a seesaw. After 1 item with repeating letters at $2.6k, you’ll see a trio at $2.2k, $2.1k, and $2.0k. Then there’s another at $1850. These weekly articles only show expired domains. But among non-expired inventory, at NameJet I count 2 more above $2k and 2 more below, going as low as $1720.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gene Sequencing.com |
986 | NJ | ZGD.org | 973 | NJ |
| OyunZamani.com | 929 | SN | Cartelia.net | 910 | NJ |
| LeanBeef.com | 910 | NJ | Ardesia.com | 898 | NJ |
| MetroMax.com | 875 | SN | VJNano.org | 863 | NJ |
| YZT.org | 855 | NJ | ZNW.org | 830 | NJ |
| YQS.org | 760 | NJ | Ashdale.com | 757 | SN |
| NewYork DUILawyer.com |
755 | NJ | TongSong.com | 750 | SN |
| DeLucca.com | 735 | SN | YBW.org | 720 | NJ |
| TheSlant.com | 718 | NJ | Schoenfelder.com | 694 | SN |
| MZQ.org | 692 | NJ | MQB.org | 689 | NJ |
| VDYA.com | 688 | NJ | FFAT.com | 661 | NJ |
| XZR.org | 650 | NJ | WQT.org | 640 | NJ |
| IndianMarket.com | 625 | NJ | XHM.org | 621 | NJ |
| F1Z.com | 610 | NJ | Lardy.com | 606 | NJ |
| GoldenBrick.com | 605 | SN | ITFox.com | 603 | SN |
| XJM.org | 600 | NJ | IIMMGG.com | 599 | SN |
In case you haven’t noticed by now, the Turkish domain market is exceptionally well developed and recently quite active. OyunZamani.com ($929) is Turkish for “play time”, and it can serve as an upgrade for this children’s game site built on .ORG. Ashdale.com ($757) looks like a city name, but it may be nothing more than fictional place in a video game called RuneScape, which has its own encyclopedia entry – heaven help us!
Ardesia.com ($898) matches a NY restaurant or bar. DeLucca.com ($735) can upgrade the website of either a handbag / jewelry designer named Montserat De Lucca (based in L.A.) or an Uruguayan winery. Any bets which?
Lardy.com ($606) is a nickname no teenager wants – nor any adult trying to lose weight, for that matter. Curious how that brand name will be put to use … As clear and memorable as it is, for its most intuitive application it’s quite insulting. Interesting to see $910 for what looks to be a brandable or surname .NET: Cartelia.net. The corresponding Cartelia.com is an electronics website.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MQU.org | 599 | NJ | DMMLaw.com | 599 | NJ |
| SRAE.com | 595 | NJ | VJBio.org | 590 | NJ |
| J7P.com | 587 | SN | Reseal.com | 586 | NJ |
| EITY.com | 585 | SN | SingleCell.com | 581 | NJ |
| ToggleText.com | 575 | SN | YKH.org | 573 | NJ |
| GuiterCenter.com [sic] |
552 | SN | SolarZellen.com | 550 | SN |
| CPTryOn.org | 540 | SN | YJL.org | 540 | NJ |
| YLR.org | 540 | NJ | 6518.co | 530 | NJ |
| Slonce.com | 530 | SN | LongNong.com | 530 | NJ |
| WatchCenter.com | 530 | NJ | Cawthorne.com | 529 | NJ |
| Captains Choice.com |
527 | NJ | ZLN.org | 520 | NJ |
| TXAL.com | 513 | NJ | IQAP.com | 512 | NJ |
| Socialed.com | 511 | NJ | Global TalkRadio.com |
510 | NJ |
| SNQ.org | 510 | NJ | PTOU.com | 510 | NJ |
| ZJA.org | 509 | NJ | SYB.biz | 505 | SN |
| BackPak.com [sic] |
500 | SN | Soulard OktoberFest.com |
497 | NJ |
SolarZellen.com ($550) would be photovoltaic cells in German, I believe. Reseal.com ($586) has applications for repackaging opened goods, including food. Quite a good buy. My guess (with no time for research) is that LongNong.com is Thai or Vietnamese … or a ribald bit of English.
At first, I couldn’t make hide nor hair of SLOnce.com ($530). Turns out, it’s a vital Polish word – “Słońce”, meaning the sun. CPTryOn.com ($540) is even more puzzling. Archive.org has no record of it, but it seems to be about CP = Catholic Prayers. Purchased for the back links, one would assume.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JonesDesign.com | 487 | SN | XJN.org | 483 | NJ |
| ParaGroup.com | 479 | SN | WZN.org | 470 | NJ |
| SeaPure.com | 463 | NJ | LCSU.com | 460 | NJ |
| BinHun.com | 460 | NJ | 2119999.com | 456 | SN |
| NEKJ.com | 451 | NJ | 3773.biz | 445 | SN |
| Amami- Setouchi.org |
436 | SN | MedInt.com | 435 | NJ |
| PeaGreen.com | 429 | NJ | BigEddie Radio.com |
425 | NJ |
| CiberPostales.com | 425 | SN | Camera.us | 425 | SN |
| MathShop.com | 425 | SN | IhuWai.com | 423 | NJ |
| XPU.org | 420 | NJ | YJG.org | 413 | NJ |
| Boundary Institute.org |
411 | NJ | Davro.com | 410 | NJ |
| Bankology.com | 410 | NJ | ZYM.biz | 405 | SN |
| PointerGroup.com | 404 | SN | FishingCabins.com | 395 | NJ |
Whether it’s MathShop.com or MathsHop.com that sold for $425 depends on whether you watch “sports” or “sport” … whether you’d sing “Let freedom ring!” or “God save The Queen! My hunch was the American version, but the Brits do have a consulting firm at Mathshop.co.uk that offers “mathematical modelling” (Oh, those double “L”s!) and data “visualisation” (Where did the “Z” go?); so this may wind up British after all.
Camera.us ($425) is notable for being the only expired .US domain to appear in these charts since November 2014. We Americans certainly pay less attention to our ccTLD than people in the UK do theirs.
SeaPure.com ($463) matches the brand name of a seaweed extract used for skin care. Going now to a country that loves to eat seaweed, Amami-Setouchi.com ($436) defines the tiny Japanese town of Setouchi on the island of Amami Ōshima, near Okinawa. Apparently, they prefer a word order opposite ours – moving inward rather than outward.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TXWI.com | 393 | NJ | WildOrchid Baking.com |
390 | NJ |
| SRAU.com | 380 | NJ | ODesk-Tests.com | 379 | SN |
| 622878.com | 379 | SN | 2127.biz | 376 | SN |
| MyNetSohbet.net | 375 | SN | DongBups.com | 369 | SN |
| LombardMaps.com | 361 | NJ | LyricsCafe.com | 359 | NJ |
| XB365.com | 358 | SN | Ionta.com | 356 | NJ |
| WeightOfThe Nation.org |
355 | NJ | ClockCenter.com | 352 | NJ |
| Pornopolis.com | 350 | NJ | 7785555.com | 350 | SN |
| MaryMe.com [sic] | 350 | SN | ZFV.org | 349 | NJ |
| GLGL.net | 346 | SN | XUAF.com | 345 | SN |
| VZH.org | 343 | NJ | 0321.co | 341 | NJ |
| VGQ.org | 340 | NJ | VYU.org | 340 | NJ |
| UYP.org | 340 | NJ | UQX.org | 340 | NJ |
| UOX.org | 340 | NJ | UQS.org | 340 | NJ |
| UZG.org | 340 | NJ | XKV.org | 340 | NJ |
| UZQ.org | 340 | NJ | ZCE.org | 339 | NJ |
It’s striking how many LLL.org domains sold during the past week – definitely the most surprising feature of these charts. The week before, I could only report 1 of them at $600. This time there are 43! Price-wise, they’re all over the place, ranging from $330 to $1.2k. Really, the distribution is heavily weighted at the lower end: 3/43 surpassed $1k, but 18/43 (nearly half) fell within a narrow $330-$349 range.
Turkey strikes again! As near as I can tell, MyNetSohbet.net ($375) is English plus the Turkish word for “chat” (“sohbet”). There is still an active website called EskiMynetSohbet.com.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mudavim.com | 334 | NJ | HG0765.com | 334 | SN |
| Abedo.com | 333 | SN | ForexTrade.net | 332 | SN |
| SteakBurgers.com | 331 | NJ | XFV.org | 330 | NJ |
| UYJ.org | 330 | NJ | UYH.org | 330 | NJ |
| XVJ.org | 330 | NJ | YQO.org | 330 | NJ |
| UXV.org | 330 | NJ | VisualNovel Games.com |
326 | SN |
| Fundacion Veo.com |
326 | SN | ErongSuo.com | 325 | SN |
| 1098.co | 321 | NJ | WVNR.com | 320 | NJ |
| Pender Harbour.com |
315 | NJ | ComfortSpa.com | 311 | NJ |
| Rasker.com | 310 | NJ | 252218.com | 310 | SN |
| DingDangDai.com | 309 | SN | DVRCenter.com | 302 | SN |
| SecretPolice.com | 301 | NJ | 318088.com | 300 | NJ |
| Austin Chiropractic.com |
300 | NJ | ITAustralia.com | 300 | NJ |
| 516883.com | 300 | SN | MP3Fil.com [sic] | 294 | SN |
Mudavim.com ($334) is the 4th Turkish domain sale I’ve discussed in this week’s article. It appears “müdavim” means a “regular customer”. In Spanish, FundacionVeo.com ($326) translates as the “I See” Foundation. There’s an arts organization in Valencia going by that name; so in this case “VEO” may be an acronym.
Rasker.com ($310) is a surname. Based on PenderHarbour.com ($315) in British Columbia, Canada, it looks like our North American neighbors have stuck with the British spelling of “harbor” rather than be neighborly – “neighbourly”?
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ImageHQ.com | 292 | NJ | 51385.net | 289 | NJ |
| CYDR.net | 288 | SN | NTNN.net | 281 | SN |
| CTZJ.net | 280 | SN | BJBJR.com | 280 | SN |
| Sands RealEstate.com |
280 | SN | 755698.com | 280 | NJ |
| GNJB.net | 278 | SN | LSMW.net | 278 | SN |
| CYRK.net | 278 | SN | FJQJ.net | 278 | SN |
| ZZGS.net | 275 | SN | ArchiVideo.com | 275 | SN |
| SkillTrader.org | 275 | SN | 8223888.com | 274 | SN |
| 566397.com | 271 | NJ | FTCN.net | 270 | NJ |
| 596896.com | 270 | NJ | HeavenAnd HellLive.com |
269 | NJ |
Apparently Dante wasn’t the only guy who’ll get to see HeavenAndHellLive.com ($269). SandsRealEstate.com ($280) has nothing to do with desert sand. Most likely that’d be Fred Sands, who “sold the largest independent residential real estate brokerage in California” but “won’t quit real estate”.
Last week I described LLLL.net “CHIPs” barely holding onto the cliff’s edge at $250. Apparently, they heard me because they defiantly haven’t let go of my charts yet! The highest of these, CYDR.net ($288) looks to me almost like a brandable misspelling of “cyder”; so I expect that resemblance added to the bidding. Repeating letters tend to outperform the average; so that explains NTNN.net at $281. Thereafter, this category ranged $209 – $280. Out of more than 60 auction results at SnapNames and NameJet, the median sale price for LLLL.net “CHIPs” was $251. Right now they’re hanging on, but I still think they’re about to fall off.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WDNR.net | 267 | NJ | HarborLanding.com | 265 | NJ |
| KLGW.net | 265 | SN | TBDS.net | 265 | SN |
| CJXG.net | 265 | SN | FMHB.net | 264 | SN |
| DJRT.net | 263 | SN | XBGB.net | 263 | SN |
| 517836.com | 263 | SN | ZBLT.net | 262 | SN |
| XPJB.net | 262 | SN | LSWS.net | 261 | SN |
| CTZS.net | 261 | SN | WRKG.net | 260 | SN |
| CYCP.net | 260 | SN | YQFF.net | 260 | SN |
| LGSS.net | 260 | SN | TBWH.net | 256 | SN |
| BusinessBlog Wire.com |
255 | SN | MMBH.net | 255 | SN |
| XYJK.net | 254 | SN | TKTC.net | 253 | SN |
| MTHZ.net | 253 | SN | MXZH.net | 253 | SN |
| WDJK.net | 253 | SN | GTFW.net | 252 | NJ |
| BH-HCHR.org | 251 | SN | SKRY.net | 251 | SN |
| PRMQ.net | 251 | SN | QDGG.net | 251 | NJ |
| 819121.com | 250 | SN | 359869.com | 250 | SN |
| Anniversaire.net | 250 | SN | MNSF.net | 250 | SN |
| SAMA-KSA.org | 250 | NJ |
That’s it.
Now that Tesla Motors is getting into non-motor batteries, it really needs to acquire Tesla.com. I reached out to the owner a while back but never heard back. I wonder what he’ll hold out for?
1 thing I’ve learned in negotiations: The price an owner “holds out for” isn’t necessarily the price he gets. Hope he gets a fair price and Tesla.com gets put to use.
Hey Andrew,
If you go now to tesla.com, you’ll be redirected to teslamotors.com. The whois record was updated on the 19th of February. I guess Elon Musk is reading your site. 🙂
Brand monitoring software should have picked up the “Tesla” mentions within the article. More likely someone at MarkMonitor reading. Negotiations on Tesla.com must stretch back quite some time. Sometimes a breeze will fell a tree.
Certainly a notable coincidence – writing an article about TeSiLa.com and Tesla Motors, then Tesla.com selling within a week.
But there is another possibility. In a well executed acquisition strategy, a brand might secure a number of secondary domains prior to nabbing their primary target. Conceivably TeSiLa.com was already an indirect purchase by MarkMonitor on behalf of Tesla Motors. Planning ahead is the way I work; but most brand protection firms react to problems haphazardly, piecemeal, after the fact. Guess we’ll see if MarkMonitor did what I’d have done, or if they only go after TeSiLa.com later.