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My YoY Sales were Flat – What That Could Mean

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My 2024 domain name sales were relatively flat year over year. I sold more domain names in 2024 than I sold in 2023, but it was by a slim enough margin that I will call it flat. My sale revenue was also slightly higher in 2024 than in 2023. I would still say the year was *good* but it’s always nice to see growth.

In looking at year over year sales at Namebio, the number of sales was relatively flat (145,025 for 2023 vs. 144,633 for 2024). I am sure there will be more sales added to the database, but it will likely be relatively flat YoY when all is said and done. Domain name sale dollar volume was higher in 2024 ($185.3 million) than in 2023 ($159.2 million). Keep in mind that this data only counts publicly reported sales.

My 5 Favorite .com and Noncom Domain Name Purchases of 2024

Last year, I purchased more than 400 domain names. I didn’t spend as much on acquisitions as I have in previous years, but I increased the number of domain names in my inventory.

I looked through my acquisitions from 2024 and want to share my 5 favorite domain name acquisitions from last year. The list does not include a few of the nice names I bought and also re-sold within the year.

Here are my 5 favorite .com purchases:

25% of my 2024 Purchases Are Noncoms

I was looking through my domain name acquisitions for 2024, and something caught my attention. Approximately 25% of my domain name acquisitions and registrations in 2024 were non .com domain names.

With just about a day and a half remaining in 2024, I have purchased approximately 400 domain names this past year. I purchased a little more than 100 non .com domain names. Very few of them were hand registrations.

I don’t have an easy way to calculate the % of spend on non .com domain names, but all 10 of the most expensive domain names I bought in 2024 were .coms. Those top 10 names alone account for nearly 80% of the amount I spent on domain name acquisitions. My guess my total spend for non .coms this year is less than 5%.

I took a quick look, and these are the non-.com extensions I bought this year:

Closing a Deal in Person

A couple of years ago, I made an offer to buy a domain name. My email went unanswered for nearly two years before receiving a reply early this year. The longtime registrant and I exchanged a few emails, and I learned he and his wife lived less than an hour from me. He seemed apprehensive to close a deal, having been burned in the past when a prospective buyer flaked on him.

After agreeing on a price and discussing details about closing a deal, he asked if we could meet in person. I was not inclined to do this, but I quickly concluded that this would be the only way the seller would be comfortable moving forward on a deal. I suggested a coffee shop about 20 minutes from my home and about 10 minutes from his home.

GoDaddy Now Offering Custom Checkout Link

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I’ve sold a few lower-valued domain names using GoDaddy as the intermediary at 5% commission. These are generally deals I want to close quickly, and I am willing to give up $xx or $xxx for the sake of expedience.

The one issue I have had with using GoDaddy and its custom checkout link is that the deals utilized a Dan.com url instead of GoDaddy. This would be confusing for a buyer who is told the deal will be transacted via GoDaddy but then had to click through to Dan.com. I explained it by saying “We can use Dan.com (owned by GoDaddy) to transact.

I wrote about this issue a couple of months ago:

Grok.com Acquired by xAI

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Another leading AI company acquired its brand matching .com domain name. This time, it is Grok.com, which was acquired by xAI for its Grok chatbot. The acquisition was first reported and shared on X late in the day yesterday:

Whois records are currently “redacted for privacy.” However, an historic Whois record from DomainTools show the domain name was briefly registered to xAI at GoDaddy in early December:

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