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Buying an expiring domain? Might want to check this

by — Expired Domains 3 Comments

The domain could already be subject to a UDRP.

logo for Solverde Casinos with a green background and image of a sun

A domain investor bought an expired domain that Solverde had already filed a UDRP against. The casino company won, and the domain buyer is suing to retain the domain.

Domain investors review a lot of data before buying expiring domain names. The more expensive the domain, the more data they check.

Sometimes I’ll Google the domain name to see how it’s used. I might even check a trademark database if the name seems like it might be a trademark. What I’ve never thought to do is see if the domain is subject to a current UDRP case.

After all, if a company decided to file a UDRP against a domain that was about to expire, wouldn’t they at least work with the registrar to make sure the renewal fee was paid?

Apparently not.

Turn Invest Group Ltd. bought SolVerde.com for $665 on NameJet in January after it expired. But the domain was already subject to a UDRP filed in November 2020. Despite being notified by the registrar of the pending expiration, neither World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the Complainant, casino company Solverde, S.A., apparently did anything about it.

So the domain expired and Turn Invest Group won a competitive auction.

According to the WIPO panel, the domain buyer should have searched to see if there was an active UDRP:

…The Respondent is a sophisticated domain name investor, and has been in this business since 2009.

Despite providing a detailed declaration, the Respondent did not provide any details of searches or due diligence the Respondent undertook prior to acquiring the disputed domain name at auction. A Google search of “SOLVERDE” conducted by the Panel resulted in many search results for the Complainant on the first page of the search results. Moreover, if the Respondent had searched the UDRP SEARCH database at “www.udrpsearch.com”, the Respondent would have seen that the disputed domain name was subject to an “active case”…

OK, I can buy searching Google to see if these two Spanish dictionary words are a well-known trademark used exclusively by one company. But checking for a UDRP?

The panel found in favor of Solverde, S.A.. Now, Turn Invest Group is suing to block the transfer.

The company filed a lawsuit (pdf) in U.S. District Court in Florida yesterday. It’s asking the court for declaratory relief that ownership of the domain is not infringing on Solverde S.A.’s trademarks and a finding of reverse domain name hijacking.

Howard Neu is local counsel for the plaintiff.

An in-depth look at aftermarket sales at Web.com last month

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

Joseph Peterson takes a deep dive into sales at NameJet and SnapNames last month.

The word "Sold" in big letters in quote on red background

Domain auctions at NameJet and SnapNames during July were neither record-shattering nor sluggish. And that alone is significant during a pandemic that has hobbled the worldwide economy.  By some measures, July’s performance was weak: Only 2 domains surpassed $20k; and the high was $38.3k, which is lower than we’ve seen in other months.  But twice as many domains sold for 5-figure prices in July compared to June – 10 in all.  Altogether, the 2 auction houses racked up 91 new sales above $2000.  That’s on par with 89 during June.

I think the overall volume of sales is a better indicator of market strength than a few high prices.  Those fluctuate from month to month – not only due to chance but also based on the decisions of particular sellers to entrust their premium assets to the auction process.  During times of economic uncertainty, reluctant domain owners might prefer to hold and wait.  Arguably, the very best indicator of domain market health would come from expired auctions rather than seller listings.  But I don’t think anybody has continued reporting that data once I stopped writing weekly articles on the topic several years ago.

Let’s dive in!  Last month’s top seller was a numerical .NET: 5555.net ($38.3k).  DNW readers will know by now that China loves numerical domains and repeating patterns.  Even so, this .NET sale is striking, given the price, because .NET has never been China’s favorite.  But this wasn’t alone: AX.net ($16.5k) was the 5th-highest sale in June. Click here to continue reading…

Reviewing NameJet and SnapNames sales from last month

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

Joseph Peterson does a deep dive on domains that sold on NameJet and SnapNames last year. Oh, and turn up your volume.

Image that says Top Domain Sales with NameJet and SnapNames logos

A couple of features leap out at me while looking at the top June auction results from NameJet / SnapNames.  First of all, 4 out of the 5 highest sales – which were coincidentally the only 5 results with 5-digit prices – were single English dictionary words.  Look at Bartenders.com ($50.0k) and Joggers.com ($23.0k).  While many of you will say that stands to reason, inasmuch as this category of domain typically fetches a premium price when sold, it’s actually not true that single-word domains always dominate the auction charts.  May and April showed a more diverse mixture of domains at the top, including big-ticket defunct websites, 4-digit numerical domains, and 3-letter acronyms.  Those were absent last month for whatever reason.

Secondly – and much more strikingly – 2 .ORGs made it into the top 5: Psychotherapy.org ($10.3k) and Galaxy.org ($10.1k).  Both topics have associations with non-profit research, which makes .ORG a natural branding choice. Click here to continue reading…

What sold (and why) on NameJet and Snapnames last month

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

Joseph Peterson takes an in-depth look at Web.com’s aftermarket sales in May.

Screenshot of WebMonkey in 2002

Webmonkey circa 2002. The domain sold for $65,500 last month.

Once upon a time, people learning how to build websites and perform SEO went to a Lycos-owned tutorial site called WebMonkey.com.  It had its ups and downs, shuttered in 2004, reopened and re-closed in 2006, etc.  In 2008 the property was purchased by Condé Nast, which operates Wired, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, among other brands.  Even though WebMonkey has reportedly been inactive since 2013, it’s still surprising that such a high-profile company would allow the domain name to expire rather than pay roughly $10 to keep it.  But evidently they did.  And the property sold for $65,500 at auction last month.  Oops?

Another defunct brand, MartianWatches.com, sold for $8.3k.  Meanwhile, TataDocomo.com ($2.1k), was or is a mobile network operator in India.  As recently as 2019, the company merged its customers with Bharti Airtel.  So it’s shocking that they’d allow a domain, which was in use as a website until very recently, to expire.  But inattention to corporate domain portfolios is face-palmingly common.

When the domains that branded once thriving websites are abandoned, the market will often compete to preserve them for the sake of old brand equity or back links.  Independent of the former owners, such domains have value.  But if there’s a suspicion that the old owners dropped the ball and will want their domain back, I daresay bidders will compete for the chance to sell it back to them – with an added profit margin.  All too often, the company that lost the domain is itself bidding to regain it.

Personally, I wouldn’t touch a domain that is narrowly identified with a single well known brand – not least because of the risk of losing it through the UDRP process.  A cursory glance at last month’s auctions shows a few where bidders didn’t share those scruples: NBCSN.com ($2.4k) corresponds to NBC Sports Network, which rebranded as NBCSN in recent years; HaaretzDaily.com ($9.0k) looks a lot like the longest running Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which is based on Haaretz.com; BarclaysBank.com ($3.0k) is more than a bit like the British investment bank, Barclays, found at Barclays.co.uk; StMarysMadison.com ($2.6k) clearly refers to St. Mary’s hospital in Madison, Wisconsin; SpheralSolar.com ($2.0k) is far too close to the solar-power company, Spheral, found at SpheralPower.com; DeaStore.com ($2.6k) must surely refer to TheDeaStore.com; etc.  One can make an argument that GNLaw.com ($2.0k) can be used for a law firm other than the one found at GNLaw.co.uk.  But how many web monkeys typing on how many keyboards does it take to come up with AntonyAndTheJohnsons.com ($3.8k) by sheer coincidence?  The band has been active for 20+ years.  Who bids in such an auction?  Fans, I’m sure.

Whatever the prudence or ethics of such purchases, successful domain investment usually focuses on names with broader utility. Consider how big a market / subject is embodied by ChinaArt.com ($6.3k).  And how many investors are looking for WholesaleRealEstate.com ($2.3k).  Jewish families in countries as far flung as the UK and Argentina might look for a JewishSchool.com ($3.0k) in which to enroll their children.  People everywhere move house and ship items from time to time, and we tend to get price quotes online.  That makes ShippingCosts.com ($2.3k) and MovingCosts.com ($2.1k) potentially great lead generators.  ROSystems.com ($5.3k) is a natural authority site for reverse-osmosis water purification, especially given the fact that many companies that provide this service already write about “RO systems” on their websites.  To me, the plural of CookiesDelivery.com ($3.8k) seems a bit awkward; but I expect it does reflect how people actually type the 2 words into search engines – beginning with “cookies” and adding “delivery” as a qualifier.  So perhaps it’ll work.  Hey, whatever gets cookies to my doorstep!

It’s an election year in the USA.  Perhaps that explains the sale of CityManager.com ($7.0k) and CityCouncil.com ($4.0k).  CordlessDrills.com ($2.6k) is self-explanatory.  Chainless.com ($3.6k), however, wasn’t immediately obvious until I saw nothing but chainless bikes in SERPs.  These last 2 are perfect for e-commerce.  So is BeeHouse.com ($4.3k) for all the beekeepers out there.  HealthLawyer.com ($4.0k) seems overly broad, but it is memorable.

There is also a long list of 2-word “brandables” among last month’s top-performing auctions: DataMatrix.com ($9.6k); BuildingWorks.com ($9.6k); GenerationNext.com ($7.4k), which refers to the youth of today; CollegeView.com ($7.1k); ApartmentFinders.com ($6.3k); BlueRaven.com ($4.0k), which sounds like a pub;
BankFreedom.com ($3.9k); InfoScan.com ($3.6k); HoneyHill.com ($2.2k), which is also the site of a battle during the American Civil War; PixelSoft.com ($2.2k), which is a few decades late to be imitating a name like “Microsoft”; and PornHunter .com ($2.0k).  Some make use of bland positive adjectives, which works well for AgileSales.com ($3.5k) but seems rather vague for SuperiorBank.com ($2.9k), InnovativeHealth.com ($2.9k), and SageAnalysis.com ($2.8k).  Sometimes the simplest combinations – like adding the prefix “my” or “your” – outperform much more inventive names.  Just look at MyAdvocate.com ($18.5k) or YourTour.com ($7.1k).

Other “brandables” are so short than they look and feel more like single words: Certik.com ($10.5k), DataGo.com ($5.3k), EverGo.com ($3.8k), Outlanders.com ($3.0k), Musican.com ($2.5k), to name a few.  Breedr.com ($2.8k), of course, is just 1 “E” short of being a real word.  So is Musican.com, but it would be pronounced differently.  At least 3 are related to finance: FinServ.com ($3.0k), FinShop.com ($2.5k), Financeable.com ($2.2k).  UMark.com ($2.7k) corresponds to a brand of software for photo watermarking, which protects the image’s copyright.  Nevertheless, someone acting in good faith could use the name in a completely different way.  Caino.com ($3.2k) might look like a neologism, but it’s actually a commune in northern Italy.

Just because a domain matches a pre-existing brand name, that doesn’t mean the brand is being targeted unfairly if the domain is offered for sale.  Frequently, many websites / products / organizations share the same name (or very similar names) without conflict.  And a matching domain could be purchased by any 1 of them or used by a newcomer to brand a non-overlapping project.  Examples of such domains include Antea.com ($4.8k), which might be an upgrade for antea-int.com, anteaprevencion.com, anteagroup.com, et al.  Corpy.com corresponds to an AI company based in Japan, which already operates sites in English and Japanese at Corpy.co and Corpy.co.jp.  They’d be the most likely buyer, but it’s easy to imagine an unrelated project using this name.  As for NamasteYoga.com ($3.0k), the brand name is so cliché that there must be dozens of small local companies called “Namaste” offering yoga lessons.  Take namasteyogastudio.net, namaste-yoga.net, namasteyogastudio.com, ilovenamaste.com, just for starters.

One prime niche for domain investors has always been single-word .COMs.  That includes the national currency of Israel / Palestine, the Shekel.com ($15.0k).  Not a bad price, if you ask me, for something in daily use by millions of people and directly tied to money.  It could be used for Forex, banking, finance in general, or even as something non-financial – as a stand-in for place and culture, perhaps for a local magazine.  Incidentally, StandIn.com ($2.6k) also sold.  That’s not the only dangling preposition that could be classified as a single word: CarryOns.com ($2.8k), which refers to small luggage at an airport, was a great bargain.  That’s another domain ripe for e-commerce.

Some single-word .COMs are a bit more obscure.  An imbalance in the hormone Seratonin.com ($2.2k) has been tied to depression.  So that domain might lead to medical treatments.  Libation.com ($3.7k) is an archaic term that shows up naturally enough in placards at museums and sometimes in stilted poetry.  Also in the title of a play by Aeschylus.  It means a drink poured out as an offering to the gods – wine, blood, coca-cola, all of the above.  How do you turn that domain name into a 21st-century brand, I find myself wondering.  GangPlank.com ($3.6k) is equally archaic but more familiar due to pirate movies.  Same question there.  I’m also curious about Selves.com ($2.0k); but I see potential there as a title for a game, book, or movie.

The 2nd-highest sale was a 3-letter .COM: KPH.com ($25.0k).  Back in 2015, we used to see about 10 0f these per month.  When it comes to acronym and numerical domains, the pace of sales has clearly slowed since the Chinese surge.  But such sales have never stopped.  Last month, there were 2 other 3-character domains – 1 with a hyphen and 1 with a numeral: F-M.com ($3.7k) and BL7.com ($2.5k).  Also, there was not only a 5-digit but also a 7-digit numeric: 13320.com ($2.8k) and 5211314.com ($2.5k).  And, of course, a couple of pinyin items: BaiMeng.com ($7.1k) and HuanMao.com ($6.4k).

None of the 5 LLLL.com domains that surpassed $2k last month are in the vowelless, “V”-less style known as “CHIPs”: REAF.com ($12.7k), EHUO.com ($5.0k), KUIK.com ($4.4k), TOPQ.com ($4.3k), AQOL.com ($2.0k).  That fits the tendency we’ve been observing lately.

There were 7 sales of “Not .COMs” – none of them nTLDs, as usual.  5 were .ORG and 2 .NET: Inhalants.org ($14.5k), Nectac.org ($12.7k), FERI.org ($4.6k), AfricaAction.org ($3.5k), JE.net ($8.3k), OAK.net ($4.9k).  Having bought and sold American.org, I found the price paid for AmericanHS.org ($8.8k) to be surprisingly high; but there might be a back story to the domain.

Last month there was a surprisingly large contingent of personal names – from the unusually spelled Elanor.com ($2.7k) to Hendriks.com ($5.3k), Harter.com ($4.5k), Siger.com ($3.4k), and Pangburn.com ($3.1k).  One of them, Rowan.com ($22.7k), was the 3rd highest sale last month.  All I could think of is Atkinson – a.k.a. Black Adder and Mr. Bean.  But it’s more likely to be yarns.

Decoding last month’s Web.com aftermarket sales

by — Domain Sales 10 Comments

Joseph Peterson shares what sold on NameJet and SnapNames last month, and what the domains could be used for.

Image that says Top Domain Sales with NameJet and SnapNames logos

 

“Oh but they’re weird and they’re wonderful” – these domain sales.  B-B-B-“Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John is how I first heard the word “mohair”.  Bennie (whoever she is) has “got electric boots, a mohair suit / You know I read it in a magazine.”  So the song goes.  Electric boots may be sci-fi, but mohair is as real as the Angora goat from which the wool of this luxury textile is shorn.  It’s used in carpets, coats, scarves, socks, and of course suits.  Since mohair is a relatively expensive commodity, we shouldn’t be surprised to see the sale of Mohair.com ($5.1k) among other auction results from NameJet and SnapNames during April.

But the biggest sale was Khols .com ($81.6k).  Déjà vu?  At first, I thought this must be a repeat auction because I covered the sale of a Kohl’s typo from January: Koles.com ($73.0k).  Someone is serious about buying typos of this department-store brand name.  Each of these was the top auction during the month in question.

999555.com ($44.0k) was the runner up.  I can’t say for certain why that 6-digit domain is worth 11 times as much as 747777.com ($4.1k), which also has a repeating pattern.  But it may have something to do with the numeral “4”, which is reputedly unlucky in China.  Another 6-digit domain with a repeating pattern sold just above the $2k reporting threshold: 902902.com ($2.1k).  Short numerical domains don’t need such repeating patterns to sell high, as the 3rd-highest sale shows: 1740.com ($20.5k).

Mould.com ($20.4k) was the 4th highest sale.  Here too, attentive readers should feel a twinge of déjà vu because DNW reported the sale of the plural, Moulds.com ($10.0k), back in December.  Notably, that was an end-user purchase via Sedo.  Did the same Chinese company pay twice as much for the singular?  This doesn’t strike me as a wholesale price, but sometimes ambitious domainers outbid end users in the heat of the moment.  Interestingly, the variant spelling was also sold as a .NET last month: MOLD.net ($2.2k).

While we’re on the subject of “Not-.COM” sales, let me point out that NameJet and SnapNames sold a total of 82 domains above the $2k threshold; and of these, 10 were not .COM – 6 .ORG, 3 .NET, and 1 .INFO.  My personal favorite was Activist.org ($2.6k).  As a rallying point, it’s ideal for branding; and the price strikes me as a bargain.  The highest sale was StatesAttorney.org ($10.0k), which is also political in nature.  Other interesting items include CreativeAging.org ($4.0k) and FuelCells.org ($3.3k).  If I mention HAARP.net ($2.3k), will a swarm of flying monkeys descend on this blog?  Conspiracy theories regarding the U.S. military installation, HAARP, are rampant.  Apparently it’s a plot to control the weather, a fiendish mind-control device, and the cause of an earthquake in Haiti.  Plausible.

When it comes to brand names, I’m not always 100% in favor of creative misspellings because they can cause ambiguity when the name is heard and not seen.  Domainers would call that the “radio test”.  And yet there are exceptions to every rule.  Fonic.com ($12.6k) is short and sweet, and it’s spelled phonetically – with “F” rather than the less common “PH”.  This can help with international branding, since many languages would use an “F” rather than “PH” for cognates.  For example, “telePHone” (English) is “teleFono” (Spanish).

There were a number of strong “brandable” domain sales: Nautico.com ($5.6k), Eventy.com ($3.6k), Digitary.com ($3.2k), Naturae.com ($2.5k), Breco.com ($2.2k), QCare.com ($2.2k), Celsus.com ($2k).  It’s tempting to think of such domains as a blank canvas, but often there will already be 1 or more brands using the name.  A good example of this is ProSim.com ($3.6k), which might be an upgrade for either ProSim-AR.com (aviation research) or ProSim.net (simulation software) or else be used for an unrelated startup.  MegaTel.com ($3.7k) seems to fit a New Zealand telecom and utilities company.

The foregoing list of “brandables” are neologisms that look and feel like a single word.  A different sort of “brandable” domain would consist of 2 dictionary words in combination.  Plenty of these sold as well: YourTown.com ($6.1k) and WeSearch.com ($5.5k); WeedTown.com ($2.2k) and CafeWorld.com ($4.7k); CareerNetwork.com ($3.2k) and CoolHomes.com ($3.2k).  The last pair hardly seem invented at all – more like an overheard phrase.

DIYWebsite.com ($2.5k) is a good name for a website builder or tutorial.  I assume the “U” in UGirls.com ($4.1k) stands for “university”, but conceivably it means “you”.  HellaWella.com ($7.3k) seems to match a health and wellness brand that was active on Twitter and Facebook as recently as 2016.  Maybe it’s being revived.  Maybe someone else just likes the name.  Or maybe there’s enough SEO value in the backlinks from an old website to justify that price tag.  It’s a good brand name, regardless.  For the benefit of non-American readers, “Hella” is a slang term common in parts of the USA.  It derives from “hell of a” – as in “That’s one hell of a car!”  And it means “very”.  For instance, “Hella good” = “Very good”.  Since “hella” sounds like “health”, transforming the phrase “health and wellness” until it becomes “hella wella” is pretty clever.  The name deserves to live on even if some prior project stalled.

IndiaTrade.com ($2.4k) has obvious uses in commerce.  AfricaTime.com ($3k) might promote tourism or be for a domestic audience.  Yakutsk.com ($2.1k) is a city in Russia.  HatYai.com ($3.4k) a city in Thailand.  Nothing against the 2nd coldest city in the world, but I’d prefer to visit the latter.  Speaking of cities, Pueblos.com ($2.5k) is Spanish for “towns” or “villages”.

Boeuf.com ($2.4k) is French for “beef”.  Obviously, that’s something most of us buy; so there must be some commercial value in a website about it, although most of us will never choose to visit a site about beef, let alone order a steak online.  In contrast, we might well visit ElectricBlankets.com ($3.5k) to order an electric blanket.  Or check LoanRate.com ($13.5k) to get a quote.  Or even visit FuneralPlans.com ($3.1k) in order to plan a funeral.

In the age of Google, would we need a directory of local carpet cleaners, a la CarpetCleaningService.com ($2.3k)?  Possibly not.  But the domain might be used by a single local business to attract clicks in search results or as a memorable address in print or radio advertising.  Certainly, it’s a bit long, and CarpetCleaning.com would be far better.  Nevertheless, the domain gets to the point.  Similarly, LightCompany.com ($3k) is a bit dull; but it’s generic enough that it might convey some authority or be used to brand a company in a straightforward, no-nonsense way.

Touche.com ($18.7k) is a French word that has been absorbed into English.  Originally it came from fencing.  When touched by the opponent’s sword, one would acknowledge the hit by saying “touché”.  It has come to mean something like “Well played!  You got me.”  There is no obvious application for this word other than fencing (or possibly debate).  But like so many single dictionary-word .COM domains, this one can function as something of a blank canvas.

4-letter .COM sales are a bit boring.  So let me just get those out of the way by listing them: IAAS.com ($11.4k), ISMY.com ($4.9k), GAFU.com ($3.7k), FAHI.com ($3k), SHID.com ($2.5k), MAIW.com ($2.5k), CSAI.com ($2.4k), TEMY.com ($2.3k).  On the whole, these are pronounceable and/or use common initial letters from English and other western languages.  In other words, they don’t resemble the vowel-less “CHIPs” that were all the rage during the Chinese surge a few years ago.

Even so, the Chinese domain market is very strong.  The #2, #3, and #4 sales in this article all have a China connection, as do others.  JunJun.com ($18.5k) may refer to an actress, a makeup artist with a sizeable Instagram following, or even simply be the Filipino version of “Junior”.  Given the price tag – it was the 6th highest sale – I assume it’s out of range for the Instagram influencer.  WangJiu.com ($4.1k) and ShangCe.com ($4k) are both personal names, but I didn’t see any bullseyes for a single most likely buyer.  Probably not the Shangce Gao who wrote a paper on a “meta-heuristic … gravitational search algorithm”, despite his being the top result in SERPs for “Shangce”.  Not the sort of person who wor

Gambling domains are seldom absent from these monthly sales lists, and April was no exception: SlotOnline .com ($3.2k) and RaceFan s.com ($2.1k).  But profit isn’t the only motive for buying a good domain.  Policing is a hotly debated topic in the USA, given perceived racial bias and use of excessive force.  Possibly Policing.com ($4.4k) will be used for activism in that arena.  Wawawa.com ($4.6k) might go to a bistro in Singapore.  GeoDome.com ($2.6k) undoubtedly refers to geodesic domes.

When I first saw truera.com ($2.7k) written in lower case – as domains all tend to be displayed online – I wasn’t sure whether to pronounce it as “Troo eh ra” or “True R.A.” or what.  Finally it dawned on me that it’s “Tru Era” without an “e”.  And that’s the name of an agency offering everything from DJs and dancers to videography and web design.

PhiloTV.com ($4.0k) seems clearly aimed at a company called Philo, which offers packages of TV channels in the USA.  They already operate Philo.com.  There was a second TV sale as well: SpaceTV.com ($4.7k).  And on the opposite end of the chronological spectrum falls EarlyCinema.com ($2.3k)

DeepRobotics.com ($2.3k) would be about deep learning and artificial intelligence.  I suppose that domain sale is 1 more step toward the inevitable Terminator scenario of robots enslaving humanity.  But for now, I’m still waiting for some electric boots.

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