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“Trend” Domain: AgricultureFund.com

I know there are a number of domain investors who like to buy “trend” domain names, and while it may be a smart move, it’s not something I do very often. I read an article in the New York Observer today about how some hedge funds are coping with doomsday scenarios, in the event of high inflation and political uncertainty.

After reading about how several hedge funds and mutual funds have started “agriculture funds,” with investments in farm lands and related assets, it led me to do some domain research on that topic to see if there were any interesting domain names for sale.

I saw that the owner of AgricultureFunds.com is asking $14,500 for the domain name at Go Daddy. I also saw that Buy Domains owns the singular AgricultureFund.com domain name, and the asking price is much more reasonable, at under $1,500.  IMO, it’s a pretty good price for this domain name since it seems that many leading investment firms have started or are thinking about starting an agriculture fund.

If the name is of interest to you, I recommend emailing sonia @ buydomains.com to but it. You can also follow the link on the landing page and buy it that way.  I think it’s a good price, and if I was interested in longer term investments on trending domain names, it would be a name I’d buy.

BTW, there is no affiliate link here and nobody from Buy Domains / NameMedia asked me to post this. I am getting nothing from this post… just want to be clear.

Tip for Buying Valuable Domain Drops

I usually spend a couple hours a morning using Freshdrop to see what domain names will be coming up for auction later this evening at NameJet, and what will be up for auction in a month or so (if the names aren’t renewed). There are certain traits I look for in the domain names I monitor to purchase, but I want to share a tip with you that might help you buy some good domain names that can quickly be flipped.

After you’ve set your personal filters based on your preferences, I recommend having a look to see who owns the same domain names in different extensions. You should also use the Whois history tool to see who previously owned the domain name that is dropping.

This information is invaluable to me, and it should be beneficial to you as well.  Let’s say you’re bidding on a legal domain name, and you see a large law firm owns the .net. Assuming the name is a descriptive name rather than a branded name (or name of a lawyer for instance), you may want to target that name to buy at auction, with the hopes of selling it to the owner of another extension.

It’s likely that the owner of the other extension would be interested in upgrading to the .com domain name if you are able to win it at auction. Of course the obvious caveat is that you need to wait until you win said domain name, especially if it’s a lawyer that might think you are attempting to sell an item that does not belong to you. You also need to make sure it is descriptive and not someone’s trademark or service mark.

There may be limitations on how quickly you can transfer or push a domain name depending on the registrar, but it’s a great way to find leads for domain names you might want to purchase.

Frank Schilling’s InternetTraffic.com Quickly Gaining Steam

There has been quite a bit of buzz about Frank Schilling’s new InternetTraffic.com endeavor over the last few days. I’ve heard from people in public and private, and apparently the platform is providing a revenue boost for qualified domain names that have been switched to Schilling’s feeds. It’s apparently a  significant  boost for many domain owners.

According to DomainTools’ Daily Changes website, it appears that over 21,000 domain names have been added to the InternetTraffic.com domain servers (over 6,000 yesterday). Domain names have been removed from big parking companies like Domain Sponsor, Sedo, Fabulous, Parked, and other PPC and lead generation providers. The bad news for them is that these are likely some of their highest performing direct navigation domain names.

As you can see by visiting any of the domain names listed, the look and feel of the landing pages is similar to that of Schilling’s landers, although the DomainNameSales.com sales message is notably missing. The greater the traffic volume, the more powerful the network, and likely the more revenue for domain owners.

Here’s what Frank had to say about this new endeavor:

“What I am trying to do is help an industry that has been under a great deal of pressure due to extremely negative changes in the paid search landscape.

For the longest time you’ve had quality domain traffic intermixed into the same channel with error search and keyword arbitrage players. Higher quality traffic has effectively been subsidizing lower quality. Traditional parking companies use the profits from good actors to offset the administrative headaches from bad actors.

I’m trying to build a channel with higher quality type-in traffic and then pay out nearly all the revenue to those partners so they can prosper. I am less interested in building a profit machine from my fellow domainers traffic than I am in rewarding our upstream partners like Google for taking care of us.”

Clearly, not everyone is invited/welcomed to participate, and I don’t blame Schilling. I am sure the last thing he wants to do is become a service company, where he will have to deal with annoying clients. My assumption is only the people who have significant direct navigation domain names and don’t need any hand holding will be welcome to participate. If you don’t know if you would qualify, you probably don’t.

In addition, some private companies/providers have been given a pass through feed, and they are administering the feed to some clients, allowing additional people to participate.

Update/Correction:

There was a small error in my post, and Frank sent me this correction: “we don’t have a passthrough for 4th parties to use. The term passthrough refers to revshares.

Sharing Some Personal News

I guess the nice thing about having a blog, is that I can share some personal news.  Yesterday afternoon, my wife completed her five year graduate school program and was awarded her doctorate in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.). She will now be known as Dr. Silver, so we are a Mr. and Dr. family – or is that Dr. and Mr.?

Once Karen finishes her year-long post-doctoral fellowship beginning in August, she will likely begin her own practice. I know a lot of people in this business can surely some psychological help, so just drop me a note if I should pencil you in for an appointment.

Karen will certainly make good use of KarenSilver.com, which was given to her as a wedding present from Rick Latona and his team after acquiring it from a company of the same name.

Congrats to Karen for her hard work!

Sedo Lands Portfolio of High Value Domains (Italy.com, Laptops.com, Dad.com, TVs.com, Fiji.com, Holidays.com and More)

SedoSedo domain broker Ryan Colby just listed a number of exclusive domain names for sale, and the portfolio is pretty stunning. This is not the full list of names, but listed below are quite a few of the names. I believe most (if not all) are each worth 6 figures or more, and I don’t recall seeing any of these domain names listed for sale recently.

  • Italy.com
  • Spain.com
  • Laptops.com
  • Desktops.com
  • TVs.com
  • Profit.com
  • Fiji.com
  • Denmark.com
  • Paint.com
  • Directions.com
  • Hearing.com
  • Nuts.com
  • Outdoors.com
  • Dad.com
  • Financing.com
  • Holidays.com
  • Venezuela.com
  • Netherlands.com
  • InteriorDesign.com
  • InsuranceBroker.com
  • FinancialAdvisor.com
  • Management.com
  • StThomas.com
  • NiagaraFalls.com
  • Champs.com
  • Government.com
  • Cozumel.com
  • Assets.com
  • Opportunities.com
  • Mechanic.com
  • CaboSanLucas.com
  • FloodInsurance.com
  • Lithuania.com
  • GiftShop.com
  • Psychologist.com
  • PuertoVallarta.com
  • Insider.com
  • Creations.com
  • Mazatlan.com
  • Latvia.com
  • Optometrist.com

The prices for these domain names were not disclosed, but if you are interested in any of them, please contact Ryan Colby at Sedo (ryan “dot” colby at sedo.com). You can also ask to view the full list of domain names for sale by this seller. I do not know the owner of the domain names and I was not compensated for writing an article. Additionally, the Sedo link is a tracking link not an affiliate link.

What is i.CO Worth?

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This is clearly a speculative matter, but I am wondering what you think i.CO might be worth in light of the recent news that Amazon bought A.CO, K.CO, and Z.CO. Please vote in the poll below.

Terms of that deal were not disclosed, so we don’t have  comparable, but I do understand that Amazon bought the domain names rather than having been awarded them. It can be assumed that these domain names will be used by the company in some way, although the usage hasn’t been disclosed yet.

We do know that e.CO sold at auction for over $80,000 in the first public sale of a single letter .CO domain name, and Overstock paid over $300,000 for O.CO.  Twitter was awarded T.CO, which they use as a url shortener, and Go Daddy was awarded X.CO, which is also used as a url shortener.

Moniker is currently brokering the i.CO domain name, and from what I understand, a number of companies have expressed an interest in acquiring the domain name. The initial plan was to auction the domain name, but they later changed it to a brokerage deal instead, figuring it would produce a higher value sale.

So what do you think i.CO is worth? Vote below: