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GoDaddy to host NamesCon auction with ROTD, submissions now open

by — Domain Sales 1 Comment

Submissions open for January’s domain name auction, which will take place on GoDaddy’s auction platform.

Hands holding bid cards in auction

The annual live domain name auction at January’s NamesCon will be hosted on GoDaddy’s platform rather than NameJet. Right of the Dot (ROTD) is organizing the auction as in past years.

This year’s auction will include names such as laptop.com, arcades.com, offices.com, lasers.com, and calories.com.

Anyone can submit domain names for inclusion in the auction through ROTD’s website.

There will be about 120 names in a live auction that takes place on January 30, 2020 in Austin. A further 500 names will be included in an online auction that ends February 14.

As usual, there will be pre-bidding. Potential buyers can start placing bids on December 1.

End user domain sales led by $50,000 for a .Org

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

A baby furniture company, a London-based publisher and a yoga studio in Asheville bought domain names.

Picture of bundles of 500 euro notes with the words "End User Domain Sales" and the logo for Sedo

This week’s end user sales list of domains sold at Sedo is led by two .org domains. It’s not clear yet what the buyers will do with them, but I’m particularly interested in Dawn.org. It sold for $50,000.

Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought. See prior end user lists here.

Dawn.org $50,000 – The domain resolves to a page that shows the word Dawn and “the new beginning.”

Cats.org $15,000 – An Ohio company called Lands LLC bought this domain. It sells t-shirts.

JobScan.com $12,500 – Forwards to JobScan.co. This service helps optimize your resume and LinkedIn profile to increase your chances of getting hired.

SafeReach.net $9,500 – SafeReach provides emergency alerting systems for companies. The domain forwards to its website at SafeReach.net.

DeltaBaby.com $6,735 – This domain was bought by Delta Enterprise Corp., which does business as Delta Children’s Products Corp. and currently uses DeltaChildren.com for its website. They are a manufacturer of children’s and baby furniture and products such as bassinets, mattresses, pillows, storage and decor, walkers, and strollers.

CLIG.com €5,000 – Forwards to GetClig.com. Click provides an expense management product. Nice upgrade.

Dennis.group $3,500 – Bought by the Dennis Publishing Group, an international media company based in London.

EmailExpert.com $3,250 – A beta preview shows that this site will connect people with email marketing vendors, agencies and consultants.

MER.ch €2,950 – Forwards to shoppingcity.ch/kosmetik. This is an online cosmetic store index for listings within Switzerland.

CypressConsulting.com $2,880 – This domain was purchased by a consulting firm by the same name.

ThreeB.com $2,875 – Three B is a real estate company in Iowa.

Wohnung-Berlin.de €2,500 – A luxury vacation apartment rental and property management company in Berlin. Wohnung translates as “flat”.

DigitalRatgeber.de €2,500 – Wort & Bild Verlag Konradshöhe GmbH & Co. KG acquired this domain and forwards it to Digital-Ratgeber.de. Dropping the hyphen is a nice upgrade.

ByteGrowth.com $2,275 – This was purchased by Beijing Bytedance Network Technology Co., a Chinese internet technology company operating several machine learning-enabled content platforms. It is headquartered in Beijing.

AshevilleYoga.com $2,000 – Forwards to YourYoga.com, a website for Asheville Yoga Center in Asheville, NC.

Who bought domains at Uniregistry this week

by — Domain Sales 5 Comments

A hardened modular building company, customer service SaaS provider, and scanning software company bought domain names at Uniregistry.

Screenshot of CoverSix website. It shows a modular building with mountains in the background.

CoverSix Shelters acquired CoverSix.com, which it forwards to its longer domain name.

Uniregistry released its weekly top sales today, and a surprising number of them already link to active websites. Here’s a look at who bought what.

1. gorgias.com $34,500 – Gorgias.io bought the .com to forward to its existing website. It provides a customer service platform for e-commerce stores.

2. go2greece.com $21,000 – According to a splash page on the site, the owner of Malia.co.uk is relaunching its website.

3. vuescan.com $10,000 – Hamrick Software offers Vuescan, which is scanning software that works with over 6,000 scanners. The company previously tried to get the domain via UDRP.

4. only.fans $9,490 – OnlyFans is a service for social media that lets you earn from subscriptions. It uses the domain onlyfans.com, and forwards only.fans to its .com.

5. agyl.com $8,800 – Appears to be a domain investor.

6. vegasluxuryhomes.com $8,500 – The buyer is in Nevada, so this seems like an end user.

7. werank.com $8,000 – Someone in Hong Kong.

8. dreamview.com $8,000 – Someone using DreamHost for hosting acquired the domain and has a coming soon page. Maybe DreamHost itself?

9. autis.com $8,000 – Autis is an engineering firm that uses Autis.es. It forwards the .com to the .es.

10. toysforgood.com $7,600 – The buyer is in California.

11. zweck.com $7,500 – Zweck is a Miami company that does vehicle sales, performance, projects & parts focused on Porsche automobiles, as well as storage for all collector cars.

12. squama.com $7,000 – The buyer is in Russia.

13. onlinelawschools.com $6,500 – The buyer is in Iowa.

14. nickelanddime.com $6,250 – The buyer is in California. This is a great domain for many businesses.

15. eclosings.com $6,000 – Florida title company Jax Title appears to have bought the domain. It forwards to JaxTitle.com.

16. civy.com $5,000 – The buyer is in Oregon.

17. coversix.com $5,000 – CoverSix Shelters sells hardened modular buildings. It forwards the domain to CoverSixShelters.com.

18. nzevents.com $5,000 – NZ Events in Texas.

19. ananda.net $4,200 – The domain has Domains by Proxy.

20. braingame.com $4,000 – The Whois record has privacy.

18 end user domain name sales up to $35,000

by — Domain Sales 5 Comments

A real estate technology company, shuttle transportation provider and hotelier bought domains.

Picture of bundles of 500 euro notes with the words "End User Domain Sales" and the logo for Sedo

Sedo had a lot of solid end user sales this past week, led by a three character domain name with a mysterious ‘coming soon’ page.

Here’s a look at some of the domains end users bought. See prior end user lists here.

DYO.com $35,000 – A splash page says “Coming Soon, Phoenix!”

Searchability.com $12,820 – A coming soon page has a logo for Searchability.

CommercialSearch.com $30,000 – Yardi creates software for real estate firms. This one will obviously be for finding commercial properties.

PrizePicks.com $19,000 – Forwards to MyPrizePicks.com, a fantasy sports website.

ProduktVergleich.de €17,000 – Product Vergleich means ‘product comparison’ in German. This site aggregates consumer reviews and data.

TurboDial.com $7,500 – TurboDial is an autodialer that works with InfusionSoft. The domain forwards TurboDial.biz, so this is a .com upgrade.

Oyo.com.br $7,000 – Forwards to OyoRooms.com, a hotel chain in India.

HotelTransfers.com $4,700 – Forwards to ShuttleDirect.com, a European shuttle search website and airport transportation provider.

CitrusFiber.com $4,300 – This domain was purchased by CP Kelco, a U.S. company specializing in natural ingredient production. It just launched a new product line of citrus fiber.

VDN.ch €2,999 – VDN is a German acronym for “Vernetzt durch netzer” which means “networked with Netzer”. This company offers services and support to those producing their own electricity. They also provide interfaces between various companies in the telecommunication and electricity sector.

RechnungsVordrucke.de €2,500 – Forwards to RechnungsVorlagen.de which translates to “invoice templates”. This site offers various invoice templates for Excel, Word – for free.

MyBits.de €2,500 – Forwards to Telum.de, a German digital project management and software consulting firm. Maybe its for a client project.

Gulf.fr €2,390 – Ovensia, a custom web design shop, bought the domain. It currently forwards to a website about cars that it created.

Bolig.net €2,195 – Forwards to DBare.com, a Norwegian online education portal offering Master’s degree programs in Building Construction and more. Bolig translates to ‘housing’ in Danish.

Idana.com $2,000 – A medical patient information and data protection company.

Kaarisma.com €2,000 – Forwards to MXMDesign.de, which is an advertising agency offering Marketing, SEO, Social media, etc. This domain may have been purchased for a client or a new campaign.

SuedWest24.de €2,000 – Forwards to Mannheim24.de. Mannheim is a city in Germany and this website features local Mannheim news.

Why this weird domain sold for so much money

by — Domain Sales 6 Comments

It might not make sense to Westerners, but it does to people in China.

Picture of pink hearts in fabric material

Have you wondered why some mixed letter and number domains can sell for 4 or even 5 figures? Sometimes a little bit of research can reveal the possible reason. 520HB(.)com is a good example.

On November 11, Namebio reported that the domain sold for $5,600 on GoDaddy. While no buyer information has been revealed, I know from experience that some Chinese buyers like this kind of domain, so I turned to Baidu search for hints — and I found one.

520HB has a meaning in Chinese. 520 represents May 20 and it also rhymes with Wo Ai Ni (我爱你 = I Love You). HB is an acronym for the Pinyin words Hong Bao (红包 = Red Packet). All together, 520HB refers to May 20 (unofficial Valentine’s Day in China). On this day, you can send “I Love You” electronic red packets to the digital wallets of your loved ones — up to the amount of 520 yuan using WeChat as I understand.

Giving red packets of money is an age-old Chinese tradition to celebrate Chinese New Year, weddings, graduations, birthdays, and many other occasions. In 2014 WeChat launched digital red packets for the Chinese New Year, followed by rival Alipay. Since then, this practice has been extended to other events, including this invented festival on May 20.

If you look at Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, you’ll see that the domain was previously used. Most recently, it was for an adult entertainment site. The auction price was probably impacted by this prior use and any remaining search engine value the domain has.

But as I’ve explained, it’s also easy for Chinese consumers to remember this domain, which makes it valuable.