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Cloud.ai Sells for $600k via GoDaddy DBS

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This afternoon, James Booth announced the $600,000 sale of Cloud.ai. The domain name was acquired anonymously by the buyer using GoDaddy’s Domain Broker Service (DBS). The buyer was represented by GoDaddy broker Tim Perkins.

$50k .AI Sale is Now Just Noteworthy

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Tim Hargis alerted me to a LinkedIn post by Kushal Byatnal announcing that his company, Extend, had acquired the Extend.ai domain name for $50,000. The company had been using Extend.app, but it chose to spend mid-five figures to acquire the .ai domain name. You can see the rationale in the LinkedIn post:

Instead of covering this acquisition with a standalone article, I opted to post about it on X. I think this domain name sale was noteworthy, particularly because the Founder shared insight about the domain name and its importance to the company rather than simply sharing the acquisition price.

Google Change Should Reinforce .com Dominance

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Google has operated its search engine on many different domain names. Of course, Google.com is the company’s primary domain name and the one that is most commonly referenced. Google also operates its search platform on many different local domain names throughout the world. Canadians might visit Google.ca, French citizens might navigate to Google.fr, and Danish citizens might find themselves on Google.dk.

These individual ccTLD domain names that Google operates may be some of the most well known and highly trafficked websites in their respective countries. In fact, each time someone visits Google.ccTLD, it has been a tacit reminder of ccTLD identity for citizens of those countries.

Not Chasing the Longtail of .AI

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The aftermarket for .AI domain names has grown tremendously over the last several years. A look at Namebio shows the growing annual dollar volume of sales that were publicly reported in the aftermarket.

  • 2018: $420.8k
  • 2019: $1.1m
  • 2020: $1.1m
  • 2021: $1.2m
  • 2022: $878.7k
  • 2023: $5.6m
  • 2024: $11.7m
  • 2025 YTD: $3.2m (my guess is $20m+ for the year)

These aftermarket sales figures do not take into account the number of domain names that have been hand registered by buyers for the registration fee. The .AI registry requires a 2 year registration, and the cost is approaching $100/year. By all accounts, the number of .AI registrations is also growing at a considerable rate.

Big Changes for .AI Expiry Auctions

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall has shared many .AI domain name sales over the last year or so. NameBio lists more than 1,000 .AI domain name sales at Namecheap in its database.

This afternoon, Richard shared a handful of high value .AI domain name sales. He also shared some pretty big news about .AI expiry auctions going forward. Expired .ai domain names will now be auctioned exclusively at Namecheap. In addition, the auctions will be conducted daily rather than once a month as they had been running previously.

My Portfolio is Now 7.5% Non .com with a 10% Goal

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For years, I would almost never touch non .com domain names. Reflecting changes I have noticed across the aftermarket, my viewpoint has been evolving. My portfolio now consists of approximately 7.5% non .com domain names. My goal is to increase that to 10% by the end of this year.

I believe the top 3 extensions I own beyond .com are:

  • .CO
  • .XYZ
  • .VC

I am primarily an opportunistic buyer for domain names in alternative extensions. I don’t go out seeking to privately buy non-.com domain names like I do with .com, but I will bid on good opportunities I see in expiry auctions. I believe I have only spent low four figures on one non .com domain name. Everything else has been below $1,000 and mostly below $500. I am strictly a vulture non .com buyer, so there’s no need to pitch me your domain names.

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