I think it’s interesting to track Google search results for various keyword terms related to the domain industry. Listed below, are the ten most frequently searched “domain name” keywords (according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool) and the top search results for each term.

I will try to follow this monthly, and perhaps we’ll be able to see some trends as things change. The top ten keyword terms are listed below by search volume.

• Domain Name Search – InstantDomainSearch.com
• Domain Name – Go Daddy
• Domain Name Registration  –  Go Daddy
• Free Domain Name – FreeDomain.co.nr
• Buy Domain Name  –  Go Daddy
• Domain Name Generator – Name Station
• Register Domain Name  –  Go Daddy
• What is a Domain Name – About.com
• Free Domain Name Registration – Register.com
• Domain Name Lookup – Network Solutions
• Domain Name System – Wikipedia

Just FYI, I used the global exact match search functionality for this. In addition, I used a proxy website to search Google so my search history wouldn’t impact results.

I am sure there are other ways to identify the top searched results, and if you have a suggestion, feel free to share.

People in the United States honor their veterans on Monday, November 12, and many companies are closed or have more limited customer service hours. If you are doing business with a US-based company (or a company with US-based employees), there’s a good chance that nobody is going to be in the office to answer questions or help with your transactions.

Some companies like Escrow.com and Sedo’s US office are closed for business, while others like NameMedia’s properties and eNom are open as usual. Even if a company is open though, many people take vacation days since public schools are generally closed and it’s a good time to get away for a long weekend.

On a side note, thank you to all our vets for your service! There are a number of veterans who are active domain investors, and I appreciate all you do selflessly for others. It’s a big family sacrifice, and you are appreciated.

As you are aware by now, publicly traded Marchex announced that it would be split into two separate companies, with one company, Archeo, focusing on its domain assets. While announcing the news, Marchex also revealed the company’s top 500 domain sales  (pdf). I don’t know if this excluded any sales subject to NDA, although the company may not sign NDAs when it comes to sales.

A benefit of this public release of sales data is that the sales can be added to Ron Jackson’s sales report so that we can all reference these sales in the future. One issue is that Marchex did not reveal the sale date for these transactions, so Ron couldn’t easily place these sales in the correct sales charts.

On Friday, Ron announced his plan for publishing these domain sales:

“I considered several options before deciding the best route would be to add a special entry in our Domain Sales Archive detailing how the Marchex sales, made over a span of several years, came to be released, including a permanent link to their complete Top 500 list – just as there is a link to each of our Top 100 charts. “

I think this is reasonable, but I really think people reference the annual top sales charts more regularly. That said, I took it upon myself to see if I could find the best guess when the highest value deals were transacted using the invaluable  DomainTools Whois History tool. If there was any question about when the transfer took place, I noted that in lieu of the year. I also linked to the change, whether it was a registrant change and/or a registrar change.

I hope Ron reconsiders this and will use the information below to add the individual sales to the sales chart.

Marchex 6 figure deal best guess transaction year based on Whois change: