Company buys “typo” of its misspelled brand.
There was only one explanation for why so many people bid on the domain BlueDot.com in a GoDaddy auction this month: the popular furniture company BluDot.
The dust settled at $33,100 and it appears BluDot was the winning bidder.
As Nikul Sanghvi observed, the domain now forwards to BluDot.com and the URL includes tracking code.
You nailed it Andrew. https://t.co/Aj0jZ7tt76 now forwards to https://t.co/XrIP24dpOz. The redirect also includes some custom campaign tracking for Google Analytics so the company must be analysing the type-in volumes of the acquisition.
— Nikul Sanghvi (@hypernames) June 21, 2019
The tracking code is ?utm_source=godaddy&utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=bluedot-com. This shows that the company is tracking the “typo” traffic that BlueDot.com gets.
BlueDot.com was registered in 1995, two years before the furniture company was founded. The previous owner let the domain expire.
The Whois record for the domain is under privacy.
snoopy1267 says
It is a great name regardless of any furniture company. They were lucky to get this at a wholesale price.
Andrew Allemann says
There’s no way anyone can say this is a “wholesale” price with a straight face.
snoopy1267 says
The name has the potential to be sold well into 6 figures, I’m sure the other bidders were thinking that.
Morgan had a similar thread where he and his commentators didn’t seem to understand the name. They thought it was overpriced at 10k!
https://morganlinton.com/auction-for-expired-domain-name-bluedot-com-breaks-the-10000-mark/
Todd says
10k would be closer to wholesale but still high. To say at 33k this sold at wholesale is laughable.
Todd says
Exactly. I knew it was BluDot a mile away at that price.
Mark Thorpe says
@Andrew Exactly!
Mark Thorpe says
Figured it was an end-user who bought the domain.
Mike says
A retail sale. Not wholesale by any stretch.
How did this domain drop in the first place?
Did BlueDot negotiate to buy it in the past?
And frankly, is Godaddy the appropriate recipient of the $33,000 here? Is that really the optimal outcome in this case? BluDot is a decent company and making them cough up $33k to Godaddy and the original owner getting nothing really stinks.
And who was bidding BluDot up to $33k? A domain investor pushed the domain for bluedot.com up to $33k? Really? Who would go that far for this kind of name knowing there was a potential UDRP waiting for them? Who would they sell it to? BluDot? No other company would use that domain with BluDot out there and already branded on those words. So the only buyer to sell to was BluDot. That is truly squatting. Very dubious.
Does anyone question the expired domains auction system or is it all pretty much accepted as BAU that Godaddy and the other registrars/auction platforms are going to keep grabbing the big prize all the time?
Lots of questions here…
Snoopy says
Strange to me that people see this as legally risky. This furniture company has decided to brand on a typo and lots of companies use the real spelling. “Blue Dot” isn’t exactly some highly unique or made up term.
Richard says
You‘re asking the right questions, Mike. The current expired auction system is a joke and a steady windfall for the big registrars like GoDaddy. They lobbied hard to get these changes signed off by ICANN. In the old days backorder tools and private investors would compete against each others but an expired domain HAD to go through the full cycle and become free for registration again. Much better solution. Of course GoDaddy, Enom, NetSol and Co. didn‘t make any money out of this so it had to be changed.
Original Mike says
Thanks for the elaboration Richard. The expired domain system is a topic well worth discussing and look into further.
Mike says
Is this a joke, I have owned some of the biggest keywords with dot at the end in .com, and they are a hard sell.
This is no way a wholesale price, what are they putting in that water in WA state Paul?
Snoopy says
It got 33k at auction, pretty obvious it is wholesale. Adding “dot” to the end of popular keywords doesn’t sound like a good idea unless the combined term actually means something.