On Saturday morning, I noticed that Cluster.com changed hands. The domain name had been owned by New Ventures Services, Corp., and it transferred under privacy to Namecheap. The purchase price for Cluster.com was $150,000.
It looks like https://t.co/XKqJKvUopJ may have changed hands. Domain name transferred under privacy to Namecheap. Domain name had been registered to New Ventures Services, Corp. and was listed for sale for $150,000.
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) March 6, 2021
Like several other domain investors, I had tried to buy Cluster.com via Web.com, but $150k was more than I was willing to invest. I think Cluster.com is a great domain name, and I think $150k is a good deal for a company that wants a memorable and easy to spell domain name for its brand.
Because of Whois privacy and because the nameservers were not yet changed, I was unsure who acquired the domain name. In reply to my tweet on Saturday, Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall announced that Namecheap acquired Cluster.com “as a brand asset for a future product.”
We acquired it as a brand asset for a future product.
— Richard Kirkendall (@NamecheapCEO) March 7, 2021
I reached out to Richard privately to confirm the $150,000 acquisition price for Cluster.com. The sale will rank in DNJournal’s top 10 publicly reported domain name sales of 2021, and I also added it to the Embrace.com list of recent one word .com domain name sales.
In addition to its well-known Namecheap branding, the company also owns additional one word .com assets it uses for brands. Namecheap recently launched its web builder on Visual.com (I wrote about its launch in January), and the company also operates Spaceship.com. I look forward to seeing how Namecheap will use Cluster.com.
As I keep saying, the more highly respected domain name news sources such as DomainInvesting and DNJ put in the public record on the Internet, to live in search forever, misleading comments about the sales and value of premium domains, the more it keeps the asset class in a tier below. This is not doing justice to premium domains. “The sale will rank in DNJournal’s top 10 publicly reported domain name sales of 2021, and I also added it to the Embrace.com list of recent one word .com domain name sales”. Personally, I am tired of the “well everything is under NDA” argument, because that is life with big deals. Most company sales are “details not disclosed.” Some of the new sources should be a little more aggressive and pick up the phone and talk to the companies that they see buy these domains. Maybe in that regard you can get more of an idea of the real value. You can do this without the price. The only person who I have seen due this is Kate Buckley with her very case studies, The publicly reported sales are not even in the ballpark of the top sales nor do they represent the value of these assets. We can do better.
“The sale will rank in DNJournal’s top 10 publicly reported domain name sales of 2021″
^^^ The operative words there are “publicly reported”.
Don’t blame the news sources because sellers are too scared to refuse to sign an NDA. How many NDAs has Rick Schwartz signed? He was on Clubhouse recently and someone asked him how he gets away with reporting so many of his sales, and not signing NDAs. I’m paraphrasing, but he responded with something like “have a backbone”.
If you want more good public comps, don’t sign an NDA and instead convince the buyer what great press they’ll get by setting records and making “Top” lists.
Or, you know, just whine and point fingers at people that had nothing to do with the transactions…
Please, the vast majority of “NDA sales” are way below what is speculated. This type of price is way more common than the sales people speculate are 7 figures.
Snoopy, NDAs’ are the devil.
Wouldnt take much to buy ur silence huh?
Preach Brother Andrew Miller.
Samer
No way this is top 10 sale, lol
I sold one way higher than that but it’s under a 20 year nda.
We’re in early March, and as of right now, it will rank in the public sale report. I am sure it will move to the middle of the chart by the end of the year.
A relatively low price for such a good keyword.
As far as I know, it has been available to purchase at this price for over a year.
Still pretty cheap for an end user, I think we can all agree on that.
Yeah, I think it was a good buy.
Off this particular topic thread, however highly relevant nonetheless: Will you be making a comment on the whole GoDaddy/Oxley debacle?
As a leading domain investing blog, I’m shocked you haven’t even mentioned it…
Others have already asked the questions I want to have answered by GoDaddy. I also think there are several discussions on NamePros, JamesNames, TheDomains, social media, and other venues. Put simply, I don’t have anything unique to add beyond what others have said.
Finally, without seeing the litigation filed in India (and without knowing anything about GoDaddy’s responsibilities with a location/company in India), I don’t have enough information to understand if GoDaddy is compelled by a court or local laws to take the action it has taken.
As someone who uses GoDaddy for 99% of my domain names, this is obviously concerning to me and I am following closely.
$150,000 for Cluster.com
Notice, the buyer wasnt intimidated to sign NDA.
Thank you Richard Kirkendall.
Samer
It was listed for sale publicly with a buy it now price.
Wasnt aware of NC’s other premium domains.
Nice piece, Elliot, as usual. They also own;
“Validation.com” the only one i knew they owned
Samer
I forgot about that one – thanks.