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NameJet sales in August up to $57,000

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

A slow month but some solid sales at NameJet.

August is generally a slow month for domain sales, and that showed at NameJet. The company had 69 sales of $2,000 or more, totaling $339,000. Here are some of the sales that caught my attention:

AMZ.com $57,000 – This non-expiry sale was obviously aided by the similarity to Amazon.com, but it doesn’t seem that Amazon bought the domain.

YouCar.com $9,100 – This used to be part of YouTravel.com.

Genitalherpes.com $7,027 – Names that drug companies can buy are usually good bets.

AutoLife.com $5,647 – This domain can have two meanings; one with life being a generic modifier for a site about cars, the other is auto and life insurance.

Stylism.com $2,800 – I like this name for a clothing seller or style blog.

CustomPrints.com $2,795 – A solid name for customized photo products or designs.

GreatPyramid.com $2,050 – Makes me feel a bit better about EgyptianPyramids.com.

Here’s the full list of NameJet sales over $2,000 last month: Click here to see the full list…

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Domains used by China’s Top 100 internet companies

by — Domain Sales 6 Comments

Studying these domains will help you understand what types of domains China’s biggest internet companies prefer.

Researching domains used by top Chinese internet companies.

Spectacular domain sales to China have been reported in recent years, and many of them were bought by internet companies, such as 360.com for $17m, JD.com for $5m, and Mi.com for $3.6m. This should not surprise domain investors because internet companies are the new leaders in this internet age.

With China poised to become the largest domain market supported by its 800 million internet population, studying domains used by the best internet companies in China will help investors understand what domains to sell to this market. The opportunity came recently when the “2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report (2018年中国互联网企业100强分析报告)” was jointly published by the Internet Society of China and MIIT in July. Based on the report and with help from Baidu search, I have created the following list.

RankChineseEnglishFoundedDomain
1阿里巴巴Alibaba1999Alibaba.com
2腾讯Tencent1998Tencent.com
3百度Baidu2000Baidu.com
4京东Jing Dong1998JD.com
5网易Netease1997Netease.com
6新浪Sina1998Sina.com
7搜狐Sohu1998Sohu.com
8美团Meituan2010Meituan.com
9三六零(奇虎360)360 Total Security1992360.com
10小米Xiaomi2010Mi.com
11今日头条(字节跳动)Toutiao2012Toutiao.com
12网宿Wangsu2002Wangsu.com
1358集团58.com200558.com
14金山软件Kingsoft 1988Kingsoft.com
15携程Ctrip1999Ctrip.com
16二三四五2345.com20112345.com
17美图Meitu2011Meitu.com
18新华网Xinhua Net1997Xinhuanet.com
19苏宁Suning1990Suning.com
20汽车之家(北京车之家)Autohome2005Autohome.com
21用友网络Yon You1988Yonyou.com
22咪咕文化Migu2014Migu.cn
23三七互娱37 Games201137.com
24凤凰网(天盈九州)Phoenix 2000iFeng.com
25恺英网络Kingnet2008Kingnet.com
26东方明珠Oriental Pearl Group 1991OPG.cn
27昆仑万维Kunlun2011Kunlun.com
28多玩(华多)Duowan2005Duowan.com
29易 车 网Yiche2000Yiche.com
30快 乐 阳光(芒果 TV)Mango TV2006MGTV.com
31鹏博士Dr Peng1985Drpeng.com.cn
32唯品会 Vipshop2008VIP.com
33央视网China Central Television1996CCTV.com
34四三九九(4399)439920024399.com
35凡普金科Finup2016Finupgroup.com
36网龙网络NetDragon Websoft 1999NetDragon.com
37波克城市Poker City2010Pook.com
38米哈游Mi Ha You2014Mihayo.com
39朗玛信息Longmaster2010Longmaster.com
40幻电(哔哩哔哩)Bilibili2014Bilibili.com
41巨人网络Giant Network2004Ga-me.com
42猎豹移动Cheetah Mobile2010CheetahMobile.com
43同程旅游LY.com2004LY.com
44龙采科技Long Cai2004Longcai.com
45科大讯飞Iflytek 1999iflytek.com
4621CN(世纪龙信息)21CN199921CN.com
47泰一指尚Taiyitech2012Taiyiplus.com
48光环新网Sinnet1999Sinnet.com.cn
49竞技世界网络JJWorld 2007JJ.cn
50东方财富Eastmoney.com2005Eastmoney.com
51游族网络You Zu2009Youzu.com
52斗鱼网络Douyu2015Douyu.com
53宜人贷Yirendai2012Yirendai.com
54中钢网Zhong Gang Wang2009ZGW.com
55东软集团Neusoft1991Neusoft.com
56慧聪Hui Cong1992HC360.com
57马鞍山百助Bai Zhu2006BZ.cn
58腾邦国际Tempus1998Tempus.com
59迅雷网络Xunlei2003Xunlei.com
60吉比特G-bits2004G-bits.com
61微贷网Wei Dai Wang2011Weidai.com.cn
62连尚网络Lian Shang2013Wifi.com
63钢银网Banksteel.com2008Banksteel.com
64前程无忧(前锦网络)Qian Cheng Wu You200051job.com
65找钢网Zhao Gang Wang2012Zhaogang.com
66花椒直播 (密境和风)Hua Jiao2014Huajiao.com
67好未来TAL 2003100tal.com
68蜗牛数字Wo Niu (Snail)2000Woniu.com
69游龙网络You Long Wang Luo2012YLWL.cn
70六间房6Rooms20066.cn
71东方网Eastday.com2000Eastday.com
72房天下(搜房科技)Fang2006Fang.com
73艾德Adsage2007Adsage.com
74岚悦科技Lan Yue Ke Ji2013Lanyuekeji.cn
75华云数据Hua Yun2013Huayun.com
76联动优势UMFintech2003Umpay.com
76OFO小黄车(东峡大通)OFO2016OFO.com
78途牛Tu Niu2006Tuniu.com
79创梦天地(乐逗游戏)idreamsky2011idreamsky.com
80思贝克Spek2012Spek.com.cn
81盛天网络Sheng Tian2009Shengtian.com
82梦网科技Montnets2001Montnets.com
83猪八戒网Zhu Ba Jie2006ZBJ.com
84平治信息Anysoft2002Anysoft.cn
85驴妈妈(景域)Lv Ma Ma2007Lvmama.com
86当当网Dang Dang1997Dangdang.com
87趣丸网络Qu Wan201452tt.com
88拓维信息Talkweb1996Talkweb.com.cn
89世纪佳缘Jia Yuan2003Jiayuan.com
90房多多Fang Duo Duo2011Fangdd.com
91天鸽互动Tian Ge2008Tiange.com
92创蓝253Chuang Lan 2532011253.com
93爱酷游Ai Ku You2009le4.com
94不锈钢电子交易中心Exbxg2006Exbxg.com
95沪江网校Hu Jiang2009Hujiang.com
96锐之旗Rui Zhi Qi2013Ruizhiqi.com
97风行网Fung Xing Wan2005Fun.tv
98美柚Mei You2013Meiyou.com
99世纪互联Shi Ji Hu Lian199621vianet.com
100优刻得Ucloud2012Ucloud.cn

First of all, .com is king in China. 86% of the companies use .com and only 13% use .cn. The only non-mainstream extension found is .tv. Also, short domains are preferred as 99% of the domains are 10 characters or less excluding the extension (the median is only 6 characters). So, if you want to sell to corporate users in China, focus on short .com domains.

This study breaks the myth that Chinese companies prefer Pinyin but not English domains. In the list, Pinyin domains account for only 37% of the domains and English domains take up 36%. Here, I’m using the term “English” loosely and treat names such as CTrip, iflytek, and OFO as English. (Acronym has 10% and numeric 7%.)

If you want to sell to corporate users in China, focus on short .com domains of less than 10 characters.Click To Tweet

Digging deeper, 78% of Pinyin domains are 2-pin (two Pinyin words such as Bai Du). This implies that if you want to invest in Pinyin domains, focus on 2-pin names. For acronym and numeric domain investors, note that no company on this list uses a domain longer than 4L or 4N. This means you have less chance to sell to corporate China if your have 5L/5N or longer domains.

Even though this list contains the best internet companies in China, there are still many of them not following the norm held by global brands of owning brand-matching .com domains. There are issues in brand matching (e.g. Ga-me.com), use of subdomain (e.g. Drpeng.com.cn), and misspelling (e.g. Mihayo.com). This offers great selling opportunities of the right domains.

In summary, if you want to sell to corporate users in China, focus on short .com domains of less than 10 characters excluding the extension. Both Pinyin and English names are fine. For acronym and numeric domains, try not to exceed 4L or 4N.

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10 more end user domain names sales

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

An eCommerce company, virtual reality blog, and investment exchange bought domains last week.

This week’s end user domain buyers run the gamut but feature several travel-related businesses as well as a perfume and beauty products online shop, and a few tech businesses. The top sale at nearly €16,000 went to a universal shopping basket service called Cloud Basket where users can use one account to buy from different websites.

Take a look at some of the end user sales at Sedo this past week, and you can view previous weeks’ lists here.

CloudBasket.com €15,890- Already online and operating as a universal shopping basket service where you can buy from different online shops using one account. The buyer is Q.One Technologies GmbH.

Fragrance.mx – $9,999 Purchased by the owner of Fragrance.com & Fragrance.net. Fragrance.net sells discounted perfumes and cologne along with skincare, makeup and more.

Stak.co €5,000 – A .co name makes the list as this site redirects to pupil.co, which claims to be spatial technology company “capturing and publishing 3D information about real-world interiors on an industrial scale.” So maybe Stak will be a side project or additional product offering.

PersonalWissen.de €4,000 – Translating to Human Resources Knowledge, this site forwards to www.vnrag.de which claims to be one of the ten biggest specialist publishing houses in Germany.

Ektor.com $4,000 – Showing a “Coming Soon” sign and was purchased by Maco Lighting Pty Ltd, an Australian lighting company.

VRHuman.com $3,888 – A virtual/augmented reality blog.

Bonds.de €3,500- Currently up and running as an investment portal where members can interact with other people interested/working with bonds.

Top10Hotels.com €2,999 – Travel search engine mainly focused on hotels.

Bhutan.fr €2,499 – A landing page directing visitors to other Bhutan visitor sites so I imagine this will be a travel site for Bhutan in French.

CaribbeanFlights.com $2,150 – This is an upgrade from the hyphenated caribbean-flights.com. It forwards to the website for a private charter flight company.

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Interesting idea: auctioning a domain name on twitter

by — Domain Sales 4 Comments

A domain broker auctioned a domain name on Twitter.

Twitter is a great medium to share news, interact with friends and gripe about airline delays. Could it also be a good way to auction a domain name?

Domain broker Darryl Lopes gave it a shot this week with the domain name ITQL.com. The starting bid was $50. Here’s his tweet that kicked off the auction:

The domain sold for $121. You can see the responses and bidding here.

There are a couple of things about this idea that I like. One is that you can easily reach thousands of people that follow you and pull them into the auction. Another is that the bidding is very transparent (assuming the bidder’s accounts look legit). On the downside, it’s not very scaleable.

What do you think?

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13 more end user domain names sales

by — Domain Sales 2 Comments

An AI company, a cryptocurrency business and a drone news publisher bought domain names last week.

It was a high tech end user sales kind of week at Sedo. An artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and even a portable military communications company bought domains. In addition, a German high-end pen manufacturer and a vaping delivery service bought new domains.

Two three-letter domains sold for nice prices, too: FXT.com for $150,000 and ILA.com for $125,00. Both domains are under Whois privacy and haven’t been developed yet, so it’s not clear who bought them.

AIFor.com €7,000 – AI For Commerce, an artificial intelligence-powered pricing system, bought this domain and forwards it to its main site AIForCommerce.com.

JungleVentures.com $6,000 – Jungle Ventures, a tech investor in growth markets, bought the unhyphenated version of its domain name. The domain forwards to the existing site Jungle-ventures.com.

KDG.info $5,655 – This domain forwards to the German site svb-muelot.de, which appears to be a data protection company. It’s unclear what the domain means to them, but it’s a nice sale for a three letter .info domain.

BlueSkyInnovations.com $5,580 – The domain name forwards to BlueSkyMast.com, which sells portable military network/communications equipment.

VapeBox.com $5,500 – Zamplebox, a company with a subscription e-liquid service for vaping. The domain forwards to zamplebox.com.

StilForm.com €5,236 – StilForm is a German pen manufacturer producing high-end writing utensils.

OneICO.com $5,200 – A cryptocurrency business.

FacingAddiction.com $5,000 – Facing Addiction and The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) recently merged. They use the domain FacingAddiction.org, and this .com domain forwards to the .org.

DroneIndustry.com $2,950 – Drone Network has already created a site on this domain about the drone industry.

Love-Doll.com €2,900 – The domain name was purchased by LD Europe Ltd, which might be short for “love doll”.

RestPeace.com $2,299 – The buyer is generating leads for funeral homes in the Los Angeles area.

CloudInfra.com $2,000 – IT company Super Micro out of California.

ILoveMusic.de €2,000 – The domain forwards to ILoveRadio.de, a streaming music site.

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