The CIA.com domain name, which is not owned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is up for sale on NameJet. The reserve price range for the auction is listed as “Between $700,001 and $800,000.” The current high bid is $700,000, which is just below the reserve price range.

The domain name is set to go to auction in a little over three days, and it will stay in a live auction for three days.

Do you think the domain name will hit reserve and sell?

Many domain sales platforms and auction marketplaces have estimated traffic stats for the domain names listed for sale. These stats are typically short term looks at the traffic figures while the domain name was parked on that platform’s nameservers. I think some platforms allow domain name owners to list traffic figures as well.

With some platforms, you can actually search for domain names by the amount of reported traffic a domain name receives. I regularly see domain names that seem to have little intrinsic value achieve higher bids than I would expect, likely due to the traffic or assumed traffic.

Obviously the reason many people care about traffic is because of the revenue potential. If a domain name receives traffic, it would also likely earn revenue either through parking or other monetization methods.

I’ve never been a big parker, and traffic stats don’t really matter to me. Yes, it’s nice when a domain name get significant traffic. It’s even better when the earned revenue is greater than the annual renewal cost – and it is a home run if it earns more than the domain name’s acquisition cost.

Do you care about a domain name’s traffic before buying it?

The Merge conference is coming up in a little less than a month. The domain industry conference, which has tracks covering other topics, will be held in Orlando, Florida September 14-19. It looks like the heart of the event takes place September 15-18. Ron Jackson published a preview of the show yesterday.

Several weeks ago, I posted a poll asking if people are going to be attending the Merge conference. The morning I published the poll, my blog experienced some technical issues which ultimately required the full rebuild. As a result, the poll was only online for a couple of hours before being lost when the site was restored. Now that we are closer to the event, we may get more accurate results.

I will not be attending Merge this year, but I know quite a few people who have already emailed me to let me know they will be there. Are you going to Merge?

I have never made much money from domain name parking revenue. In general, I typically earn low 3 figures a month from parking revenue. It’s always nice to see the PayPal payment email from Uniregistry, but it doesn’t change or impact my business.

Some legacy domain investors have domain names that produce substantial amounts of revenue. The parking income may not be nearly as good as it was years ago, but it is still a decent or even a strong revenue stream for some. I am also sure there are pther people who operate grey area portfolios with trademark infringing names that produce decent parking revenue.

With my low PPC income, I don’t consider parking income a revenue stream for my business, and I do not rely on it. Do you rely on your parking revenue for your domain investing business?

The New York Post published an article about a research study sponsored by GoDaddy concerning baby names and corresponding domain names. From the NYP article this morning:

“According to the research, as many as one in five (20 percent) millennial parents said they changed or seriously considered changing their baby’s name based on what domain names were free at the time.”

This figure seems surprisingly high to me.

When my wife and I discussed baby names, I don’t recall thinking much about the corresponding domain names. I was able to buy one exact match domain name but not the second. I feel a bit badly about the second, but perhaps I will have the chance to buy it at some point in the future before he would want it. If not, I am sure he can find something suitable.

Would you change or consider changing your baby’s name (I presume before he or she was born) based on domain name availability? Share in the poll below:

I am sure everyone gets offers they would consider to be lowball offers. People from around the world, with different experiences and budgets, want to buy domain names, and many don’t have a clue about the domain name aftermarket. They know they can spend less than $20 to buy a domain name and probably think they can pick a random domain name and buy it for $20.

Just yesterday, I was offered “$14/year” for a domain name I value into the six figures and has received many 5 figure offers. There is a certain amusement I get when I receive an offer like that which follows a much more serious offer from someone else.

Depending on who the offer is from and what they say in the message field, I may or may not respond. I don’t want to waste my time, but more importantly, I don’t want to deal with someone who is angry about the fact that my company owns a domain name they want and can’t afford.

Do you respond to lowball offers?