Domain Sales

I just received a press release from HomeInsurance.com announcing that the company has acquired HomeownersInsurance.com for over half a million dollars.

According to the press release:

“HomeInsurance.com has purchased the domain name  HomeownersInsurance.com for a reported  $570,000  in an all-cash deal. As America’s number one online home insurance shopping agency, executives at  HomeInsurance.com project this purchase will grow their online home insurance shopping visitors to 100,000 consumers each month.“

Prior to the acquisition, HomeownersInsurance.com had been owned for quite some time by Homeowners Insurance Online Services, S. A., a Costa Rican company.

In my opinion, this is a smart acquisition for the company. According to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, the term “homeowners insurance” gets 33,100 exact match local searches a month, while the primary keyword “home insurance” is only a bit higher at 40,500.

By having two different websites ranking well in Google for these two terms, they should drive considerably more traffic to the site.

One thing I really like about this purchase is that it shows that a company that knows its market can make projections on how a similar (but different) domain name will do once it’s indexed and well-ranked in search engines. It can then use those projections to model how long it would take to break even on a domain acquisition and can determine an acceptable price to pay.

It may seem silly, but I don’t think a lot of companies look at domain names in this way. Acquiring a great domain name like this is one way a company can reinvest in its business and increase its reach.

It’s been a while since I listed a domain name for sale on my blog, but I have one that might be good for someone looking for a product-related domain name: ChocolateCoveredPretzels.com.

There are dozens of companies that make chocolate covered pretzels, and they come in all types and price points. You can buy mass produced chocolate covered pretzels by the pound at candy stores and chocolate shops. You can also purchase expensive gourmet chocolate covered pretzels as well.

Asher’s Chocolates offers “white-label” chocolate covered pretzels, which means that they will produce chocolate covered pretzels with your own branding. Of course, you can also do drop-shipping or an affiliate type of website since many companies sell chocolate covered pretzels in corporate holiday gift baskets.

If I didn’t have many other projects on my plate right now, I would consider making this my first ecommerce website. Instead, I am listing it for sale here for $4,500. The domain name is registered at Enom.