For many people throughout the world, the past few years have caused quite a bit of economic hardship. In concert with the world economy, the domain market took a tumble towards the middle or end of 2008, and it hasn’t yet fully recovered. Domain names have been selling, but the prices haven’t been nearly as heddy as 2006-07.

That said, the financial crisis that has impacted billions of people may be over… at least according to a press release distributed by Sedo  this afternoon, and posted below.

I think the signs of an improving domain market are great news for domain investors, and I agree that the market has certainly rebounded significantly since the end of 2009. I wouldn’t declare the end of the financial crisis with so much uncertainty in world affairs, but it’s nice to see the domain aftermarket is rebounding.

Here’s the press release:

A friend sent me the link to a Sedo  parked landing page, and I think it’s interesting to see. I haven’t come across a similar Sedo lander, so I assume it’s either a test or something the company recently launched for parking clients.

I don’t want to link to the parked page because of TOS issues, but as you can see in the screenshot, the landing page for FairCredit.com has the look and feel of a Facebook page. I would imagine it could pose some additional risk for trademark and/or typo domain names since that can appear a bit misleading. For instance, if you owned Facebok.com and used a lander like this, it would be confusing to visitors.

From my perspective, this is probably a high performing landing page because people who are accustomed to visiting Facebook pages will likely instinctively recognize the layout and navigation. It’s reminiscent of the survey landing pages  that look similar to big brands  like Facebook and Google, but it’s obviously not collecting personal information from visitors like those surveys.

Has anyone else seen similar Sedo landing pages? What are your thoughts on them?

Thanks to NameBio for the tip.

Sedo has released its annual 2011 Market Study with insight into the domain market and activity during the last year. The full market study pdf can be downloaded (for free) by visiting Sedo’s website.

Off the bat, one of the most impressive figures is Sedo’s total sales for 2011: sales volume totaled $84,431,965. According to the company, “.co and .me entering the top ten sold top level domains (TLDs) for the very first time.” The company also offered additional insight into pricing strategy, especially as it relates to Buy It Now pricing and the SedoMLS Network.

Here are several highlights from the just published report:

• 39,951 sales occurred in 2011, the majority of which took place in the first half of the year.

• The .com extension continues to dominate, accounting for 44% of all sales. In second place was .de, with 18% of all sales.

• Top sales for the year included Gambling.com for $2.5 million and Dudu.com for $1 million.

• Buy Now sales accounted for 35% of all sales in 2011. In Q4 2011 alone, Buy Now sales made up close to 40% of all sales, indicating a steady increase of around 5% per year since 2009.

• Median prices of nearly all TLDs increased and average prices were stable. The .co and .me extensions showed the strongest increases in median and average prices.

• The most popular domain name length was eight characters, represented by sales like Gambling.com

• 47% of sales during 2011 were priced at under $500, and a majority of those were Buy Now domains.

• IDNX, the first standard price index for the domain industry, shows that the domain market remains closely correlated to the NASDAQ 100 and IT stock numbers. (IDNX -1.5% and NASDAQ +1.7%)

I have not read the full report yet, but it’s something I plan to do very soon. I think the information in the report is invaluable and can help you buy and sell good domain names.