Great Domains Results: Bier.DE Sold for 149,000 EUR (Updated)

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).

GoogleMeet.com Sells for $1,950 After Google Meet Rebrand


GoogleMeet.com appears to have expired at the end of January, and the domain name made it through the deletion process. The domain name was then caught by drop catching auction platform DropCatch.com, and GoogleMeet.com was sold for $1,950 on Friday. The sale was confirmed and archived in NameBio, and it was shared on Twitter:

Results from Sedo’s 4L .com Auction

Sedo hosted a 4 letter .com domain name auction this past week, and the auction concluded this afternoon. In total, 150 4L .com domain names were sold in the auction, and the results of the auction have been posted below. It looks like around $30,000 USD worth of sales transacted, but the figure is difficult to calculate since there are multiple currencies. The currency for most of the sales is EUR.

The auction concluded today, so I doubt any of these sales closed yet. Sedo will report the sales to DNJournal and NameBio once the domain names are purchased and are transferred to the new buyers.

Results from Sedo’s 4 letter .com domain auction, April 2020:

Be Mindful of Minimum Bid at NameJet

There have been a number of changes at NameJet due to the integration with SnapNames. Most noticeable for me is the backorder deadline time change. I can now place my back orders one hour later than I could before the integration. One issue that has tripped me up more than once is the minimum bid difference on some domain names. Instead of the standard $69 bid, I need to place a $79 bid in order to backorder the domain name.

The $10 difference is not generally a problem, especially considering it is now rare for me to win an auction for the minimum bid. The issue is that when I click the “Place My Bids Now” button, only the $69 backorders are placed unless I manually change the minimum bids for the auctions that require a $79 bid.

Here’s what happens when I do not update the bid to meet the minimum before placing my backorder:

$25.5M Funded Company Closes and Domain Expires

Laurel & Wolf was a popular and growing interior design business that had raised over $25 million in funding, according to CrunchBase. A March of 2019 article in a trade publication called Business of Home detailed the failure of the business and how the company was shut down.

It’s always interesting to track what happens to domain names owned by companies that are shut down. Oftentimes, the domain names are sold along with whatever valuable assets remain, such as a customer list, trademarks, and inventory. In the case of Laurel & Wolf’s domain name, LaurelAndWolf.com, it is up for auction today in a GoDaddy Auctions expiry auction.

US Government Lets Escorts.com Expire

In March of 2012, I published an article about the government seizure of the Escorts.com domain name. A press release on the FBI website from November of 2011 discloses that the Escorts.com domain name would be seized:

“Pursuant to a plea agreement with the government, National A-1 Advertising and R.S. Duffy pleaded guilty to the money laundering conspiracy charge in the Information, will serve a probation term of 18 months, and pay a $1,500,000 fine. In addition, under the terms of the plea agreement, the defendants agreed to the criminal forfeiture of $4.9 million in cash derived from the unlawful activity, as well as forfeiture of the domain name, Escorts.com, all of which represent property used to facilitate the commission of the offenses.”