GoDaddy Appraisal Influences Messaging at GoDaddy

Elliot Silver
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28

GoDaddy has the widest reach of all domain registrars, so many people list their domain names for sale via GoDaddy. Aftermarket domain names listed for sale show up in the GoDaddy purchase stream. A customer searching for a domain name to register will be shown the matching aftermarket sale listing if the domain name is listed via its marketplace.

It looks like GoDaddy is using its GoDaddy domain name appraisal tool to influence the sales pitch customers see when searching for a domain name. Depending on the buy it now price compared to the GoDaddy Appraisal, there will be a different graphic shown to prospective buyers to convince them to buy the domain name.

I will use two domain names in my inventory to illustrate how the pitch looks, depending on how the domain name is priced compared to the GoDaddy appraisal.

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Looks Like Intercontinental Exchange Acquired ICE.com for $3.5m

Elliot Silver
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6

I was unable to participate in the press conference call held to announce the $3.5 million sale of Ice.com. Before the news of the domain name sale broke on DNJournal and other outlets, I had a couple of guesses about who may have been behind the purchase, but the buyer was not named.

In the DNJournal article, Ron wrote about how brokers Brian Harbin of Grit Brokerage and David Clements of Brannans put the deal together:

“After buying a few other domains through Harbin’s Grit Brokerage in the same price range, this person wound up calling on Harbin to sell a domain for him but this one was a blockbuster – Ice.com. Harbin had done some previous deals with Clements and contacted him about this exciting new listing. Clements happened to have an acquaintance he had met at a private event in his hometown, Atlanta, that he thought might have an interest in the domain. When Clements presented the opportunity to obtain the domain the buyer jumped on it, agreeing to the full $3.5 million asking price. Working with Escrow.com it then took them barely a week to complete the transaction which happened on July 6. “

After reading that quote, I did a Google search for ICE and Atlanta, and one of the top results was for Intercontinental Exchange, a company that is headquartered in Atlanta. A bit of additional sleuthing showed that the company also owned and used TheICE.com. Based on this and Ron’s article, my

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Report: Identity.com Acquired by Crypto Company

Elliot Silver
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7

Yesterday evening, CoinDesk published an article that touched on what seems to be a major domain name acquisition. According to the report, a company in the crypto and blockchain space called Civic (which owns and uses Civic.com) acquired the Identity.com domain name for an undisclosed purchase price.

According to my records, Media Options was recently brokering Identity.com via its domain sales newsletter. On May 3rd and on July 5th, Identity.com was listed for sale with a $1.5 million asking price. The description for the domain name listing was: “A titan of a brand, once in a lifetime opportunity for a domain like this!” It sure seems like Vinny Lingham, co-founder and CEO of Civic, felt the same way about Identity.com.

I reached out to Civic to see if the company could comment on the acquisition.

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BuyDomains Now Owns Famous DCLeaks.com Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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0

If you read or watch the news, one domain name is likely to stand out in the reporting: DCLeaks.com. For those who haven’t been following the news reports, here’s information from the Wikipedia entry about DC Leaks:

“DCLeaks (also known as DC Leaks) is a website that was established in June 2016. Since its creation, it has been responsible for publishing leaks of emails belonging to multiple prominent figures in the United States government and military. Cybersecurity research firms say the site is a front for the Russian cyber-espionage group Fancy Bear. On July 13th, 2018, an indictment was made against 12 Russian GRU military officers; it alleges that DC Leaks is part of a Russian military operation.”

Interestingly, it looks like DCLeaks.com is now owned by BuyDomains, and the company has it listed for sale. The asking price of DCLeaks.com is $3,288. The company currently has it parked, where it is showing politics-related PPC links. It would be very interesting to know how much traffic the domain name gets with its notoriety – and how much money the domain name earns from PPC advertising.

I looked at NameBio, and I do not see any

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Did Weight Watchers Acquire WW.com? (Updated)

Elliot Silver
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9

In my morning DomainTools Domain Monitor email, I noticed that the WW.com domain name transferred to a different registrar. WW.com had been registered at GoDaddy, and the domain name was transferred to SafeNames. George Kirikos pointed this out in a tweet this morning:

As George rightly states, because of GDPR, it is currently unclear who the current registrant of WW.com is. A domain transfer doesn’t necessarily mean the domain name sold, but as George also pointed out, Safenames is a pretty big corporate domain name and brand management company, so it could indicate that WW.com was sold. In 2014, I previously reported that

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Cheddar Report: Monaco Paid $12 Million for Crypto.com

Elliot Silver
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29

An article by Tanaya Macheel on Cheddar has pegged the sale price of the Crypto.com domain name at $12 million. According to the article, “Monaco, a Swiss payments and cryptocurrency platform start-up, paid $12 million for the URL as part of a rebranding strategy, Cheddar has learned.” I am not sure whether or not this has been confirmed by the buyer or seller.

If the sale price was $12 million, it would easily be the largest domain name sale of the year, well ahead of the $1.2 million sale of Super.com, as charted by DNJournal. The sale of Crypto.com would also rank as the 9th largest public domain name sale of all time, according to GoDaddy. A $12 million sale would rank below the $13 million sale of Sex.com and above the $11 million sale of Hotels.com.

Interestingly, although

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