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Million Dollar Domain Auction on Horizon?

Elliot Silver
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23

Craig Harrison is selling a portfolio of 2,600 real estate domain names, many of which contain a city name + RealEstateListings.com.   The auction is scheduled to take place on Thursday in San Francisco and is being run by JP King Auction Company.I’ve seen quite a bit of paid press on the auction, and I also read an article this morning on a technology website geared towards real estate professionals.

In an article on Inman.com, WAV Group partner Victor Lund said,

Lund estimates that each of Harrison’s domain names could be worth anywhere from $100 to $5,000, depending on the demographics of the city name and the amount of traffic and advertising it gets today.

That’s a pretty wide range — it works out to between $260,000 and $13 million — but Lund said he’s willing to bet the entire package sells in the low- to mid-millions, depending on the buyer and whether the domains are sold in pieces or together.

Also quoted in the article is Brett Young, a real estate broker and software developer who said,

“This really is nothing more than a publicity stunt that falls short for anyone who has any knowledge about domains. I pity the person who sees this as a good investment.”

I would personally much rather spend the thousands of dollars (or even millions that was quoted by Lund) on one great quality generic domain name than on 2,600 lower quality domain names. In annual renewal fees alone, 2,600 domain names would cost close to $20,000 – and that’s at a discounted rate. This doesn’t include hosting, setting up, SEO-ing, and managing all of these websites, which would cost quite a bit of money up front.

What do you think will happen with this auction? They certainly have spent quite a bit of money promoting it considering all of the press releases and paid articles I read (including DNN). Because of the amount of press they have bought and generated for this auction, I am interested to see what will happen.

Negotiating to Sell a High Value Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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9

While I was away in Amsterdam, Rick Schwartz announced that the Candy.com deal is official and the deal has been signed, I wish Rick and the Melville Candy Company big congratulations on this industry moving deal. This isn’t the first major sale for Rick, who also sold iReport.com and Property.com.

One of the great things about Rick is his willingness to share insight into his domain sales, beginning with iReport.com and now with Candy.com via blog posts on Rick’s Blog. Although Rick is in a different position with his domain names than most of us,   both in terms of quality of his names and his financial status, we can still learn about domain negotiations from what he has posted.

Selling a domain name for a large sum of money isn’t easy, no matter what domain names you own. The buyer must be willing to pay the seller’s desired price, and the seller must be able to figure out how much the buyer can afford to pay for the domain name before naming his price (if he wants to maximize the sales price). The negotiation can be trying and time consuming depending on a number of factors, and some people might not have the experience necessary to turn a big deal into a huge deal.

I would like to share an idea for a new domain service – domain sales negotiations. The difference between selling a domain name for five figures, six figures, and seven figures is minimal and the negotiation is often the deciding factor. While most of us don’t have names as good as the quality of Rick’s, they don’t necessarily have to be in order to achieve a huge sale. If there was a negotiation service where we could seamlessly hand off a negotiation to an experienced negotiator, unbeknownst to the buyer, it could help us maximize our sales.

Someone with Rick’s experience could help reel in the big fish, as he is experienced, and he would be far enough away from the transaction to be able to turn down a significant offer, when the domain owner wouldn’t be able to do so. I think a domain negotiation service would be good for domain owners who lack the negotiation experience.

Antitrust Lawsuit Against Verisign

Elliot Silver
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0

I read about this litigation briefly in a domain forum while I was away, but in reading the Wall Street Journal blog article, it looks like the impact on the prices of domain names could be quite large. The San Francisco Chronicle also has an article about the lawsuit, which can be read in full on the WSJ website.

According to the plaintiff’s lawyer, Bret Fausett, “There are companies that would like to bid against VeriSign and would charge half of what VeriSign is charging.”

This is a lawsuit domain investors will want to monitor, as there is bound to be additional fallout depending on how things shake out.

Change Your Passwords

Elliot Silver
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7

It’s always a smart idea to change your passwords frequently, and this is especially important when you are traveling and when you return from your travels. When you travel, you probably connect to unsecured wireless connections or possibly to monitored Internet connections, where you are putting data at risk.

I am not a security expert, but I would imagine that stealing passwords and/or hacking accounts isn’t too difficult for many computer experts. Making sure your passwords are updated is common sense, but I don’t always change them frequently, so this is a good reminder for me and hopefully for you.

Here are a few password protection tips:

  • Change your passwords monthly or at least somewhat frequently, and as soon as you return home from a trip
  • Make sure your passwords don’t overlap for email, registrar accounts, forums, bank accounts
  • Use different user names for different websites and accounts when possible
  • Use a password generation tool to make sure your passwords are random
  • If you use Gmail, check your filters (in preferences) every so often to be sure someone didn’t log in to your account to create a filter that sends your email to someone else

I’ve Become a ccTLD Investor

Elliot Silver
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35

For the last few weeks, I’ve been learning about ccTLDs. I received feedback from a number of people, some of whom gave advice about investing in ccTLDs, and some who told me to stick with .com domain names. A couple people even specifically advised me not to invest in .US domain names right now, because my money could be better spent elsewhere right now. I really do appreciate all the advice, as it has given me an idea of how I should proceed with the ccTLD market.

I just recently became a ccTLD investor with my first .US purchases (an investment rather than a protective measure as I did previously). While I don’t think Americans or American companies will begin using the .US extension very soon, I do think its a great way for American companies to target Europeans who are more inclined to use local ccTLDs.

Because of this, I decided to buy many second tier .US domain names for registration fee, where I would be very happy to pay a significant premium if it was .com. I might not be jumping in with a huge splash, I am slowly wading in to this and am being strategic about it. Once I think my acquisition phase is initially done, I will reveal what I have been buying, but I don’t want to say what they are yet, since there are a number of similar names I am considering 🙂

These aren’t short term investments, and I will probably begin developing directories on a couple of them to see how Google ranks them and to do some experimenting with regards to traffic, return visits, time on the site, and other things that will help me evaluate whether consumers trust a .US and to see where visitors come from.

I will write a more comprehensive review of the TRAFFIC show on the return flight home on Sunday, but in short, the show was excellent, and it gave me the confidence to invest in something that wasn’t previously in my comfort area.

CounselingJobs.com on Sale

Elliot Silver
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3

CounselingJobs.com is now for sale for just $5,800. Job-related domain names are very popular, and this is a targeted name that can be used for alcohol counseling jobs, drug counseling jobs, marriage counseling jobs, financial counseling jobs, debt counseling jobs…etc. I would create subdomains for each field and enhance your online presence.

There’s a Sedo auction for job related domain names coming up, and I have a feeling this type of name is going to be even more coveted after the auction.

First person to post “sold” will get it. Name is registered at Moniker.

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