How Automated Appraisals Help Me Make Money

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September 26, 2018

Every morning, I receive several emails that list expiry-stream domain names coming up for auction that day. I receive a mix of emails from auction platforms and third-party services. The emails send me domain names that meet certain criteria I have set to help me find domain names I might otherwise miss.

Off the top of my head, at least two of these daily emails have automated appraisals in them. These appraisals are one of the factors I look at when buying domain names. I don’t take the number too seriously, but if an appraisal is higher than I might have expected to see, it grabs my attention and makes me do a bit of searching to see what signals are causing it to have more value.

I regularly participate in auctions, and I don’t typically let

Sedo Great Domains Auction Results – August 2018

By

Elliot Silver

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August 31, 2018

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The monthly Great Domains auction on Sedo concluded yesterday, and the auction ended with 40 domain names sold at a value of over $130,000. The three largest sales in the auction were EBF.com ($30,500), Sudden.com ($24,950), and CYN.com ($24,950).

Because the auctions closed just yesterday, the sales have not closed yet. They will be reported to DNJournal and NameBio for recordkeeping once the deals are finalized.

One thing you’ll see is that the auctions were sold in US dollars, GB Pounds, and Euros. It’s a bit confusing, and I wish Sedo would require the auctions to be in one currency. Just my little $.02.

Here are the domain names that sold with the winning bid:

Dispute.com Auction Winner Defaults

By

Elliot Silver

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August 13, 2018

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Dispute.com sold at GoDaddy Auctions last week for $65,000. I learned that the winning bidder in this auction defaulted, and this news was confirmed to me by Paul Nicks, GM of the GoDaddy Aftermarket.

The way GoDaddy’s system works on default winning bids is that the next highest bidder would get the opportunity to buy the domain name for the next high bid as if the winning bidder did not participate. If that buyer opts to not purchase the domain name, the opportunity would go to the next high bidder. This continues until a bidder accepts the price and purchases the domain name.

The domain name was sold to the sixth highest bidder in the auction. Although GoDaddy does not disclose sale prices, the company made an exception in this case, and I was told the domain name

Results from Sedo’s .CO Auction

By

Elliot Silver

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August 9, 2018

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At the end of July, Sedo hosted a special .CO domain name auction. The auction concluded on August 2nd, and I received the results of the auction to share with readers.

Vegas.CO was the largest sale at $18,500 followed by Hire.CO at $10,099. The third largest auction was Weather.CO, which sold for $9,999. In total, nearly $80,000 worth of .CO domain names were sold in this auction.

The results of the auction are listed below. Because the auction closed a week ago, it is very likely that many of these sales have not yet closed. Once they close, Sedo will report them to DNJournal and NameBio for archiving.

Sedo’s .CO auction results:

“Fantasy Island” to Become a Movie But Sony Dropped the Domain

By

Elliot Silver

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August 1, 2018

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According to a post on Deadline just yesterday afternoon, “The long running ABC series Fantasy Island is being reconstituted as a feature film by Blumhouse and Sony Pictures, the latter of which controls the rights to the Aaron Spelling series which ran from 1977-84.” Smartly, Sony Pictures Entertainment owned the matching FantasyIsland.com domain name for several years, as reported by Ray Hackney on TheDomains.com.

For some unknown reason, Sony let the matching FantasyIsland.com domain name expire, and it was deleted just prior to the news about the movie. As Ray reported, FantasyIsland.com sold via DropCatch.com auction for $3,251. The Whois has not yet changed, so the winning bidder for the domain name is presently unknown. This marked a precipitous decline in sale price, as FantasyIsland.com had been reportedly acquired for $22,005.

I would maybe sort of give

Domain Name from Company With $215m+ in Funding in Auction

By

Elliot Silver

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July 18, 2018

9

A big auction on GoDaddy Auctions caught my attention this morning. Lytro.com, which GoDaddy appraises at $18,765, is in auction with a high bid of $41,500. There are 20 bidders who have participated so far. It appears the domain name expired, based on the “Renew Now” message seen at the top of the landing page filled with pay per click advertising:

From my perspective, Lytro.com as a domain name doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning that I can see, so I was curious about what could be causing the substantial interest in the domain name.

Apparently, Lytro was a well-funded company at one point. Crunchbase reports the total funding for the company at $215.8 million. According to a 2015 Business Insider article discussing a pivot, “Lytro has raised $140 million since its 2011 founding from investors including Allen & Company, GSV Capital, Danhua Capital, K9 Ventures, Greylock Partners, North Bridge Growth Equity & Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Andreessen Horowitz.”

Despite its substantial funding, it would appear that things

Domain Auctions

How Automated Appraisals Help Me Make Money

Sedo Great Domains Auction Results – August 2018

Dispute.com Auction Winner Defaults

Results from Sedo’s .CO Auction

“Fantasy Island” to Become a Movie But Sony Dropped the Domain

Domain Name from Company With $215m+ in Funding in Auction

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