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It’s Official: Sex.com Sale a Guinness World Record

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World RecordMost of us probably already know that the $13 million sale of Sex.com was the top all-cash, public domain sale of all time. This sale has now been officially documented by the folks at Guinness World Records, the organization that publishes the Guinness Book of World Records.

In a press release issued this morning, Sedo, celebrating its 10 year anniversary, has announced that the Sex.com sale set a Guinness World Record for “most expensive internet address domain name.

I am not sure if this was a newly introduced category in the Guinness World Records or if there was a previous title holder, but it’s pretty cool to see the sale of a domain name listed as a World Record. Congrats to Sedo!

Press Release Follows:

Sedo, the online domain specialist, today announced that its recent brokerage of Sex.com has earned the Guinness World Recordâ„¢ for “most expensive internet address domain name.” Sex.com was sold for £8.2 million on 17th November 2010.

Sedo, which celebrated its milestone 10-year anniversary on 12 February, has grown to be a trusted advisor in the domain industry. As the world’s largest domain name marketplace, Sedo has brokered over £240 million worth of domain names including a number of high-profile, seven-figure transactions for premium domains such as Vodka.com, Pizza.com and Russia.com.

“The sale of Sex.com was truly a team effort. We spent about two years with the domain, establishing the relationship, researching and finding the right buyer and managing the domain’s transfer,” said Kathy Nielsen, director of sales at Sedo. “We’re honoured that Sedo was trusted with such a high-value and high-profile sale, and we’re ecstatic that it is now being recognized by Guinness World Records as a record-breaking deal.”

“With a prominent sale like Sex.com, the domain transfer process can be incredibly complicated,” said Jeremiah Johnston, chief operating officer and global counsel at Sedo. “But what makes Sedo unparalleled in the industry is that we work just as closely with domains of any size – to expedite and simplify the transaction, as well as eliminate unnecessary risks for both the seller and new owner.”

To learn more about the 2010 domain marketplace, sales figures and statistics, please visit Sedo’s 2010/Q4 1010 Domain Market Study: http://sedo.co.uk/fileadmin/documents/pressdownload/Q4_2010_DomainMarketStudy_UK.pdf

Mike Mann on Sedo .CO Auction

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As you may or may not be aware, many of the domain names in yesterday’s .CO domain auction held at Sedo are owned by legendary domain investor, Mike Mann. Mike was the founder of Buy Domains, which he sold to NameMedia, and he currently operates DomainMarket.com. He remains the largest non-institutional shareholder in NameMedia, and he is an active philanthropist with Grassroots.org.

Aside from Sedo and perhaps the .CO Registry, Mike and his company had the most on the line with this auction. I asked him for some comments on it, and he was kind enough to reply.

Sedo Premium .CO Auction Ends Today

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As I’ve mentioned before, the premium .CO domain auction being held by Sedo ends today in just a few hours. As of now, the following domain names have bids at $2,000 or higher, although most haven’t met reserves:

shop.co 20,000 USD
love.co 20,000 USD
casino.co 17,500 USD
news.co 10,001 USD
bank.co 9,000 USD
money.co 5,100 USD
shopping.co 5,000 USD
art.co 5,000 USD
lasvegas.co 4,600 USD
chico.co 4,500 USD
pizza.co 4,444 USD
gold.co 3,000 USD
football.co 3,000 USD
time.co 3,000 USD
solar.co 3,000 USD
ruby.co 3,000 USD
music.co 3,000 USD
oil.co 2,555 USD
law.co 2,555 USD
creditcards.co 2,500 USD
technology.co 2,500 USD
download.co 2,222 USD
health.co 2,050 USD
finance.co 2,000 USD
tequila.co 2,000 USD

It’s going to be interesting to see what types of bids the domain names receive in the final hours. Sedo has been marketing these domain names in a variety of ways, including radio advertisements.

Is Sedo Advertising .CO Auction on the Radio?

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, Sedo is currently holding its .CO premium auction, now through February 17, 2011.  They are advertising the auction in a number of places, but one place I wouldn’t have suspected would be the radio.

Steve Morsa sent me a note today, mentioning that he believes he heard a radio spot for the .CO auction in Los Angeles:

“Heard a short (seemed like 15-30 second long only) Sedo radio ad yesterday afternoon where they pitched that they sold domains; and that they had a number of .co ones up (or coming up) for auction.

It ran on the most-listened to news station in the L.A. metro market KNX News Radio. 1070 AM.”

Wonder how much radio time the company may have purchased across the US. Seems like an interesting method to get the word out. Only issue could be tracking results unless they happened to use a unique url like Sedo.com/radio or something like that.

Always good to see an expansion of advertising channels for companies selling domain names.

When a Domain Broker Won’t Work For You, Broker Your Own Domain Name

I get a fair amount of email from people asking me to broker domain names for them.  I don’t generally broker domain names unless I absolutely know someone who would be interested, so I usually send the people to read my Domain Broker list instead.

I’ve found that more times than not, none of the brokers are willing to work with the people who request their services simply because the names are either low value or it’s unlikely they will sell for the domain owner’s expectations.  Since a broker is paid on a commission, it doesn’t make any sense to spend 5-10+ hours searching for a buyer for a name that might yield them a couple hundred in commissions, if it even sells.

If you own domain names that can’t get representation from a top domain broker, I have two suggestions for you – one being more passive and the other being aggressive.

1) List them on Sedo and Afternic.  Both sites get end user traffic and if a buyer is interested in buying a domain name pertaining to a specific topic, he or she will likely find them there. They do quite a bit of promotions, and if there’s an active buyer for your domain name, they will probably end up on either or both of those websites.

2) Contact potential buyers yourself.  When you bought the name, you probably thought that it would be perfect for a specific type of company. Well, go out and search for that type of company.  Email the site contacts and let them know you are selling your domain names. If you price them reasonably and they actually make sense, then maybe the company will buy them. You can use a service like Escrow.com to transact the deal.

If you buy some land in the Florida Everglades or in Arizona’s Sonora Desert and you decide to build a big home on it, you might actually be the only person who finds value there. Just because you bought and built it does not mean that someone else will want to buy it from you. If you get rejected by a domain broker, don’t take it personally. If you believe your domain names have value, there are at least two ways to get them sold.

Sedo Great Domains Auction Ending in an Hour

There are some very good domain names up for auction in Sedo’s GreatDomains featured auction, which ends in under an hour. Many of the domain names have met reserve prices and will sell.

My favorites include the following (with current bids as of posting):

  • GasStation.com $7,500 high bid
  • RDH.com 6,800 GBP high bid
  • InternetBrowser.com $1,500 high bid
  • Pathology.com $8,200 high bid
  • Trillion.com – $9,000 high bid
  • UnderPressure.com – $905 high bid
  • IRACalculator.com – $4,100 high bid

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