I was looking at NamePros this morning when I saw a thread started by Raymond Hackney that discussed changing GoDaddy Appraisals. You should have a look at Raymond’s article and the entire NamePros thread to get some background. Personally, I think automated appraisals should regularly change as comparable sales are indexed. Domain name values are dynamic in nature.
I noticed a high profile domain name hit the expiry stream recently. The domain name is owned by a pretty big company, and if it is not renewed within the next several days, it will be auctioned to the highest bidder. When I saw the domain name in auction, I started to wonder if we will see more high profile domain name expiries due to corporate layoffs and furloughs at companies throughout the world.
I was looking through GoDaddy Auctions this morning when I came across a domain name with estimated traffic statistics that stood out to me. According to the GoDaddy Auctions listing, SabaMovie.com reportedly has 5,068,713 “Estimated monthly pageviews.” The “Estimated monthly revenue” is listed at $4.00 USD. There have been over 600 visits to the auction listing, and it has a high bid of $510.
CodingSchool.com recently expired, and the auction for the domain name at GoDaddy Auctions concluded early this afternoon. The domain name sold for $43,000. There were a total of 164 bids were placed by 23 bidders during the course of the auction. A couple of weeks ago, Peter Askew mention this domain auction in a tweet, which is what drew my attention to the domain name:
💥Expiring Domain Development Opportunity💥
Want to buy an expiring domain & build a project?
CodingSchool .com
Build marketplace of coding schools
or
Teach your own coding schoolLow chance of clawback as GoDaddy = registrar#notanad #justsharinghttps://t.co/0IiYy7hOkA pic.twitter.com/mzCKF46wss
— Peter Askew (@searchbound) April 26, 2020
I received an email from the support email address at DropCatch.com informing me about a “fraudulent bidder” that was caught bidding on domain names. Apparently, the bidder impacted an auction I was bidding on, and the auction is going to be restarted. I am not sure which auction it was since that was not mentioned in the email.
Without mentioning the domain name, I can only assume I was not the winning bidder. I don’t think this would be an appropriate means of communication to let me know a name I won is going to be re-auctioned. If that were the case, I would hope they would give me the option of a refund up to the amount the bidder bid up my auction – or at least give me the opportunity to refuse the re-auction since that might drive up the price again.
The Great Domains monthly auction hosted by Sedo ended this afternoon. Bier.DE sold for 149,000 EUR, which is approximately $161,000 USD at today’s exchange rate. In addition to this sale, 5 other domain names sold for five figures each, with the $18,500 sale of KTG and the $15,000 sale of Louise.com also leading the pack. A total of 24 domain names were sold in this month’s auction.
Once the sale of Bier.DE closes, it will rank as the second largest .DE sale in the last 5 years, according to NameBio. Kaffee.DE sold for $237,474 in 2017. This sale will also rank as the second largest public ccTLD sale of the year, behind the sale of Free.co.uk, which sold for $205,000 last month (per DNJournal).
