Expired Domains: Gambling, CHIPs and more

Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name sales.

Money attracts money. What I mean is this: The closer a topic sits to getting paid, the more people want to sit on that topic’s lap. And the higher they bid for its keywords – whether in PPC advertising or in domain auctions.

Casinos are temples to money. So it’s no surprise that gambling-related domains can command top dollar. Last week’s top expiry auction is an example: CasinoTitan.com ($9.5k) may be nothing more than a backwards version of “Titan Casino”, but people still query Google for [casino titan] 3,600 times per month – compared to 6,600 for [titan casino].

This may reflect our habit of narrowing a search by appending afterthought keywords. Or it may be due to customers whose native language places adjectives after nouns. In Spanish, French, or Arabic, “Casino Titan” sounds more natural than the reverse. Either way, with a full third of searches matching the “backwards” version of your brand name, owning the mirror image is worth considering. Currently there are at least 3 “titan casino” websites – .COM, .CO, and .US. – built as online gambling portals.

Domain	End $	At	Domain	End $	At
CasinoTitan.com	9500	SN	ZKZK.com	6588	NJ
HG218.com	5411	NJ	NORT.com	5000	NJ
77876.com	3900	SN	PictureCards.com	3447	SN
FSHN.com	3203	SN	Caterina.com	2905	SN
2W2.com	2201	NJ	LinModems.org	1950	SN
CMCG.com	1877	NJ	MCDK.com	1800	SN

Even HG218.com ($5.4k) is likely earmarked for a Chinese gambling site. Betting seems to be the driving force behind the many “HG” numerical domain sales we’ve seen throughout the past 2 years. Witness HG267.com, which sold in January and is already being put to use. Last week, I wondered if the “HG” category might be past its prime But, at $5.4k, this latest “HG” domain suggests it’s still going strong.

No such luck for LLLL.com “CHIPs”. That $6.6k sale for the repeater, ZKZK.com, is impressive but atypical. Meanwhile, FSHN.com ($3.2k) is probably meant for the West rather than China. Multiple universities have dedicated an “FSHN” subdomain of their website to their Department of “Food Science and Human Nutrition” – fshn.illinois.edu, for instance. Plus, a fashion magazine called “FSHN” might use this domain as an upgrade.

Apart from those 2 marked exceptions, the CHIPs fall between $1355 and $1877, as you can see. Now, some LLLL.com owner will probably want to dismiss that low $1355 sale by declaring that SnapNames gets less action – or, at any rate, fewer Chinese bidders. Let me preempt that argument this time by pointing out that both the high sale and the top Chinese numeric – 77876.com ($3.9k) – came from SnapNames. Meanwhile, there were non-expired CHIPs selling at NameJet as low as $1401. So the floor price really is that low. This category has been declining steadily since December and has so far lost more than half its value.

Domain	End $	At	Domain	End $	At
DCBL.com	1725	NJ	BSCD.com	1701	NJ
JQLX.com	1700	NJ	VisionAir.com	1666	NJ
Tekom.com	1655	NJ	MZMT.com	1600	SN
Muliu.com	1530	NJ	SNBank.com	1510	NJ
NQBN.com	1508	NJ	TeachRKids.com [sic]	1360	NJ
RQDN.com	1355	SN	Supen.com	1309	NJ
IVEE.com	1200	NJ	World-Schizophrenia.org	1155	SN
JARV.com	1150	NJ	Repix.com	1063	SN
M4X.com	1063	SN	MEYS.com	1010	NJ

Although SNBank.com ($1.5k) might be used by a number of different banks, 1 in particular stands out – State Nebraska Bank, whose current domain is StateNEBank.com but whose logo clearly shows “SN Bank”. Tekom.com ($1.7k) addresses an international audience better than Tekom.de, which describes itself as “the largest global event and market-place for technical communication”. Global? Not as a .DE.

With brands like Flickr playing fast and loose with spelling, it’s unclear whether TeachrKids.com ($1.4k) is meant to be “teacher” or “teach our”. Probably the latter. In Norway, you can book Supen.no as a venue for parties; but that’s too local to explain Supen.com ($1.3k). Strike 1! In Costa Rica, SUPEN stands for the “Superintendencia de Pensiones”. But only los costarricenses – the citizens of Costa Rica – are entitled to a government pension; therefore a ccTLD suffices. Strike 2! Hmm … The Chinese buyer is unlikely to be thinking of anything but a Chinese meaning. What that may be, I don’t know. Strike 3! I’m out!

Domain	End $	At	Domain	End $	At
LEOE.com	960	NJ	Romantic.org	919	NJ
ChannelNine.com	913	SN	PS3DevWiki.com	833	SN
AdultEscorts.com	781	SN	RoyalGuard.com	730	SN
Doggers.com	701	NJ	47008.com	700	NJ
YoBingo.com	681	SN	IDDS.org	636	SN
AuctionExhange.com	625	NJ	YPRO.com	620	NJ
ZhaoPeiJian.com	615	SN	41510.com	611	NJ
OurTravel.com	572	NJ	Theatrica.com	570	NJ
RockWorld.com	565	NJ	43632.com	560	SN
OPTR.com	555	SN	InternetRegister.com	550	SN
Aspim.com	529	SN	SaiSha.com	525	SN
GeoPlay.com	515	NJ	Aevita.com	511	NJ
FreeFund.com	506	NJ	VietScape.com	505	SN
女鞋.com (xn--vusy85l.com)	504	SN	CDEMusic.org	485	SN

ASPIM.com ($529) matches a .FR website for “L’Association Française des Sociétés de Placement Immobilier” – real estate investment companies, that is. There’s also an Aspim Europa. Although ther .COM website is in Italian, their ambitions include a farm as far afield as Cambodia.

The Chinese IDN trend I spotted in late January continues with 女鞋.com ($504), which means “women’s shoes”. Although Saisha.com ($525) is a woman’s name in India and elsewhere, seeing a Chinese buyer suggests a Pinyin meaning instead. With shā (杀 ) meaning “kill” / “murder” / “counteract” and taking sài (赛) as “competition” / “excel”, I suppose SaiSha could be… anti-competition? Then again, this can be read as sāi (塞) for Serbia – a nation no stranger to killing. How plausible is it that a Chinese buyer spent $525 to commemorate genocide in the Balkans? Not very. “Sai Sha” must mean something else.

Domain	End $	At	Domain	End $	At
EuroCrowd.com	479	SN	Buraka.tv	478	SN
NeptuneThemes.com	476	SN	Ximeta.com	475	SN
BusyFlow.com	475	SN	Houston HomeBuilders.com	465	NJ
Mishin.com	459	SN	PlayHead.com	442	NJ
AspireNow.com	435	NJ	TextMoney.com	430	SN
ACLUKSWMO.org	411	NJ	Kaninchen.net	410	SN
IFCBiol.org	406	NJ	KnowPlace.org	388	NJ
1122555.com	380	SN	DandeMutande.com	380	SN
MedEdit.com	379	SN	572727.com	379	SN
ToughGlass.com	375	SN	CCSVI.com	375	SN
GeoWork.com	370	NJ	Harket.com	360	SN
51AM.com	360	NJ	LEAW.com	353	SN
SpeedVR.com	350	SN	InterBeauty.com	350	SN

Ximeta.com ($475) manufactures data storage devices. If you belong to the EuroCrowd.com ($479), then you may be familiar with the music group Buraka Som Sistema. In 2008, they won Best Portuguese Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Buraka.tv had been their website until it expired.

DandeMutande.com ($380) matches a .ORG website for Zimbabwean music. German for “rabbit”, Kaninchen.net ($410) is cousin to the English word “coney”; but it’s actually French not German in origin . Oddly, Kaninchen is the name of a Dutch hardcore band as well. Harket.com ($360) is a surname. A few of you may remember the Norwegian synth-pop band, A-ha, from the early 80s. Their lead singer, Morten Harket later pursued a solo career; and his website says they’re reuniting to tour the UK in 2016.

A-ha received more nominations and won more awards from MTV than anybody until Peter Gabriel. “Take On Me” has been played to death on the radio, but here’s a different take on A-ha.

Now it’s my privilege to present the award for last week’s worst acronym: ACLUKSWMO.org ($411). 9 letters … Sounds like a Sumo wrestler in a chicken costume … And it means – or was meant to mean – the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri.