The NameJet auction for the NYE.com  domain name ended today after quite a bit of extended bidding. The final sales price was $175,500 and the winning bidder had a bidder ID of domainnameltd. I don’t recall seeing that user ID in the past, so I can’t guess who the winning bidder is.

I held a contest on my blog to see who could guess the closest to the sales price. Guesses ranged from as low as $28,836 to as high as $350,000. Most of the guesses were far below the realized price.

The contest winner is “J S” who guessed $172,000, which was just $3,500 from the actual sales price. The winner will receive a $100 NameJet bid credit, courtesy of NameJet.

Thanks for participating in the contest! I’ll add this domain name to my domain monitor list to see who acquired the domain name once the ownership has changed.

NYE.com is currently up for auction at NameJet. It’s a public auction, so anyone can jump in to bid at any time before the auction closes on Wednesday afternoon. The current high bid is $36,000 and the reserve price has not been met yet.

In my opinion, NYE.com has significant value because NYE stands for “New Years Eve,” which is probably one of the biggest nights of the year celebrated by people around the globe. Restaurants and night clubs have expensive dinners and parties, and people spend millions of dollars annually on their own private parties.

In addition to this acronym, NYE is used as an abbreviation for hundreds of businesses and organizations. Nye is also a last name – Bill Nye, The Science Guy is one example of someone with this last name. There’s also at least one geographic area in the US called Nye.

Want to win a $100 NameJet bid credit?

Guess the sale price of NYE.com in the comment section below, and the person who guesses closest to the actual final price will get a $100 NameJet bid credit courtesy of NameJet. If there’s a tie, the person who posted the closest guess first will be declared the winner. Only one guess per person (if you post multiple guesses, all of your guesses will be deleted.) The deadline to post your guess is Tuesday, December 18th by 3:30pm EST.

If you frequently bid on NameJet auctions, you’ve probably noticed quite a few domain names that are pre-release that have a price minimum bid than the standard $69 minimum bid. Up until last week, I assumed that you couldn’t bid on those auctions unless you placed a backorder that was equal to or greater than the reserve.

Last week, I back ordered a domain name that appeared to have a $149 minimum bid. There was one other person who appeared to back order it before the deadline at the same $149 bid price. When the domain name went to auction, I was expecting to compete with one person, but lo and behold, there were additional bidders at below the $149 price.

I reached out to NameJet GM Matt Overman for some clarification, and he let me know the higher price was simply a reserve price. This means you can bid lower than the minimum posted amount without any obligation (as long as you bid above the standard $69). If nobody bids the reserve price or higher, the domain name won’t get sold to you for the $69 minimum.

What does this mean for you?

• If you think you’re the only bidder when you bid the reserve, there might be others who bid lower but can outbid you at auction.
• You can’t see how many backorders there are under the posted price prior to the auction.
• You can safely bid the $69 minimum even if the posted price is higher without obligation.