A look back at the past week in expired domain name sales.
The gossip at the water cooler this week might be WaterCoolers.com itself, which was NameJet’s top expired domain auction, selling for $25.2k. Not too far behind (at $15.1k) is the German word for “style”: STIL.com. Or is it? Perhaps it’s an acronym for people in Illinois. Or a creative misspelling of the English word “still”. Then again, if the buyer is Chinese (as buyers so often are these days), it could be an arbitrary sequence of characters. My hunch is German; but until the buyer’s identity is revealed, we can’t know for sure. In any case, in any domain auction, multiple interpretations bid against one another. Value (and sometimes price) are a reflection of all possible meanings.
AlRajhi.com ($11.2k), however, seems to have 1 prevailing meaning – that of the world’s largest Islamic bank, based in Saudi Arabia. Presumably bidders were competing for the privilege of reselling that domain to that bank specifically. In contrast, Slips.com encompasses lingerie, boat docks, and banana peels. So that auction could very well have been a boxing match between scantily clad fashion models and yachts.
Even seeing Lumbar.com ($7k) makes me correct my posture. Quite a good medical domain, as anyone with a bad lower back can attest. If you’re aching at the moment, maybe a Knapsack.com ($7.4k) would help distribute the load more symmetrically. People in some regions use this term interchangeably with “backpack”.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
WaterCoolers.com | 25200 | STIL.com | 15100 |
AlRajhi.com | 11200 | Slips.com | 9901 |
Knapsack.com | 7350 | Lumbar.com | 7000 |
HINZ.com | 6133 | CMSB.com | 5055 |
05555.com | 4930 | CCup.com | 4533 |
MoneyTrade.com | 4100 | LCBC.com | 3460 |
HotFun.com | 3400 | BrandSearch.com | 3100 |
U5.net | 2600 | DrugTreatment Center.com |
2433 |
Abcon.com | 2207 | YummyFood.com | 2200 |
Nantucket Properties.com |
2088 | ItsYourLife.com | 2011 |
Q4.net | 2000 | Illuminata.com | 1955 |
CAGY.com | 1950 | Innovate.org | 1722 |
A2G.com | 1621 | MyBarber.com | 1618 |
Shed.org | 1610 | CleanMachine.com | 1588 |
SGPC.com | 1500 | Prome.com | 1412 |
TheMessiah.com | 1377 | RYLY.com | 1300 |
TheIceHouse.com | 1225 | E-1.com | 1214 |
CirclePlus.com | 1200 | Bitcoinvestor.com | 1109 |
QuickSEO.com | 1100 | PaperClub.com | 1000 |
PaddockClub.com | 990 | Lucci.com | 972 |
DigitalThink.com | 890 | NewsForce.com | 887 |
DNGO.com | 875 | InternetFree.com | 840 |
SnowNews.com | 832 | Gosch.com | 812 |
TheKitchenTable.com | 810 | Continental.net | 810 |
EstatePlanning.net | 795 | FBAI.com | 790 |
SecretZone.com | 760 | Guitare.net | 751 |
QuoteShop.com | 710 | RootLevel.com | 703 |
DRSE.com | 700 | SDTB.com | 645 |
JMCP.com | 622 | UT3.com | 619 |
UltraMarketing.com | 610 | UpwardMobility.com | 607 |
USImports.com | 565 | JRBX.com | 560 |
Danbury.net | 560 | TUNL.com | 550 |
GreenThings.com | 530 | SoftwareMart.com | 528 |
KHFC.com | 519 | NannyFinders.com | 511 |
Cosgrave.com | 510 | wwwBusiness.com | 510 |
59556.com | 509 | MeatPackaging.com | 508 |
AnimalsMatter.org | 499 | CelticFire.com | 488 |
TeacherExchange.com | 450 | LanguageFactory.com | 440 |
68265.com | 440 | MCGT.com | 431 |
RuiHuang.com | 419 | RedCrossSTL.org | 400 |
CoverClub.com | 391 | PPOT.com | 379 |
Ecocean.org | 355 | 8Q1.com | 352 |
SRCG.com | 350 | NCShakes.org | 349 |
MeetingFacilities.com | 347 | NYCFlorists.com | 343 |
52615.com | 340 | 39579.com | 339 |
Addiction Programs.com |
331 | AmericanTourist.com | 324 |
SavientPharma.com | 324 | ABA International.com |
319 |
WMXB.com | 310 | ZWFJ.com | 310 |
PlumbingProblem.com | 307 | L3Y.com | 305 |
FGFQ.com | 300 | Q1P.com | 300 |
Illus.com | 293 | NSBH.com | 280 |
DKHH.com | 279 | Fidic.com | 279 |
0NP.com | 272 | PortableLifts.com | 266 |
LastOrders.com | 260 | UnionDeBloggers Hispanos.com |
251 |
DailyVietnam News.net |
250 | ChappellGallery.com | 250 |
Peakaboo.com | 242 | BelfastDaily.com | 237 |
66430.com | 230 | WIEO.com | 225 |
PixelSlot.com | 222 | PDFE.com | 221 |
Leptospirosis.org | 221 | 14655.com | 210 |
Couponat.com | 210 | ExpertGym.com | 198 |
EddieDaniels Clarinet.com |
180 | WhoisOnline.net | 175 |
Youth2000NY.com | 175 | PensionReform.com | 170 |
StudenTalk.com [sic] | 169 | PPCLeads.com | 166 |
ElectraCash.com | 160 | MexicanPacific.com | 158 |
HDGraphics.com | 152 | MISBTDC.net | 151 |
BasicGuru.com | 143 | CharlotteBikes.org | 135 |
PlaceDog.com | 126 | PuraVidaTapas.com | 112 |
Chilled.org | 111 | AMCVB.com | 111 |
ParentHotline.net | 110 | T2AH.com | 100 |
Glumpy.com | 99 | TheLeftHand.com | 95 |
CivilWar PhotoGallery.com |
91 | DallasMetroCare.com | 90 |
SanteFeLawyers.com | 89 | RentalTruck Quotes.com |
89 |
Excrypto.com | 80 | EasyQuick Money.com |
79 |
HLTCentral.org | 79 | Cambrosia.com | 79 |
Sunlo.com | 79 | VisitThe CaymanIslands.com |
69 |
Moonex.com | 69 | SummitColorado.com | 69 |
Blokin.com | 69 | MovingTruck RentalQuotes.com |
69 |
Too much to talk about. With Uniregistry / DomainNameSales based in the Caymans, I fully expected Frank Schilling or one of his employees to pick up VisitTheCaymanIslands.com for more than $69. Without competition from those folks (who do frequently bid up quite high at NameJet), someone got quite the deal!
USImports.com summarizes a big commercial topic for a mere $565. In a different way, so does PensionReform.com ($170). Both good buys. As you might have guessed, the 2 highest of 3 “club” domains to sell in .COM – PaperClub.com ($1k) + PaddockClub.com ($1k) –match .CLUB domains held by the registry. CoverClub.com ($390) has a .CLUB registered to someone else, whereas 2 “gallery” items above have left .GALLERY domains unregistered. TheLeftHand.com ($95) doesn’t know what the right side is up to.
CC.net domains performed well, with U5.net ($2.6k) followed by Q4.net ($2k). Slightly different is E-1.com, which fetched $1.2k. I count 5 CCC.com’s between $272 and $1621. To me it’s not clear why A2G.com is worth more than 5 times as much as Q1P.com and L3Y.com.
Among the LLLLs, HINZ.com ($6.1k) is a surname … and might also have been regarded as a typo of Heinz.com. CMSB.com ($5k) corresponds to the ticker for CMS Bancorp, Inc., which could add a second bank to our weekly roster. Hopefully CCUP.com ($4.5k) is not meant as an acronym, since the association with brassieres is inescapable. LCBC.com ($3.4k) would shorten the name of this church’s website. Some of these LLLLs are cagey and don’t give up their secrets without some interrogation – SGPC.com ($1.5k), for instance. CAGY.com ($1.9k) may be used as an acronym for Canada or California, but it resembles an English word closely enough to stand on its own as a brandable. Shed.org ($1.6k) is an actual word for storage or weight loss. RYLY.com ($1.3k) is both a CVCV and a unisex proper name (although oddly spelled) . DNGO.com ($875) is just shy of an Australian wild dog – not a bad fit for the domain name industry either.
Innovate.org ($1.7k) skyrocketed in an overtime bid war. Other .ORGs and .NETs (apart from Shed.org, U5.net, and Q4.net) ended in the hundreds. That includes high $xxx for a 2-word .NET such as EstatePlanning.net ($795). Retail could go higher, given the money at stake in that niche.
HotFun.com ($3.4k) might wind up on a tropical beach or as adult entertainment. TheMessiah.com ($1.4k) may be devoted to that most English of German musical works, Händel’s famous oratorio, which is frequently performed (with singalongs) at Christmas; or the domain may be devoted to what “The Messiah” is about – Jesus. Of course, from a Jewish perspective, the messiah wouldn’t be Jesus at all. So there are several possibilities there.
Since so many domainers dabble in bitcoins and bitcoin-related domains, I should point out Bitcoinvestor.com ($1.1k). That along with Cambrosia.com ($70) and arguably Ecocean.com ($355) are good examples of elision, as opposed to StudenTalk.com ($169). Peakaboo.com ($242) isn’t a bad pun, but it does require spelling out in conversation.
The Spanish domain, UnionDeBloggersHispanos.com ($251), makes for quite a long title. One would think so many bloggers could (between them) devise a shorter alternative. And perhaps they did, allowing this domain to expire. But it’s nowhere near as bad as MISBTDC.net ($151).
Jazz fans (of the non-basketball variety) may have seen this guy in concert: EddieDanielsClarinet.com ($180).
Bram says
I was also interested in the Stil.com auction but it went over my allocated budget. As a a side note, I speak Dutch and “stil” means “quiet” in Dutch.
Joseph Peterson says
… along the lines of Brahms’s “In Stiller Nacht” or English “stillness”.
It will be interesting to see which meaning comes to the fore once the domain is developed.