Sold for $10k, GoDaddy Says Its Worth $3,490

I read an article on TechCrunch about a startup with a really neat brand name. Welcome to the Jungle is a French media tech startup that announced a $22.3 million round of funding. After reading the article, I can’t seem to get the Guns N Roses song of the same name out of my head!

The company operates on its brand match WelcomeToTheJungle.com domain name. Interestingly (perhaps), the TechCrunch article link to the .CO domain name (WelcomeToTheJungle.CO), and that forwards directly to the .com domain name the company uses for its online presence.

Using the DomainTools Whois History tool, I was able to see that WelcomeToTheJungle.com was previously owned by NameFind, the domain name portfolio company operated by GoDaddy. From what I can tell, the domain name was acquired sometime between August and October of 2018.

GoDaddy does not typically report its private domain name sales, but it does often add them to the comparable sales section of its domain appraisal tool. When I looked up the value of WelcomeToTheJungle.com, the GoDaddy (automated) appraisal tool reported that the domain name is worth $3,490. On the right side of the screen, though, GoDaddy shows that this domain name was sold for $10,000, under the “Comparable domains sold” heading. Because this does not include the sale date, I can’t confirm that the $10,000 sale occurred when the startup acquired the domain name, but it seems likely.

There are plenty of arguments to make when a prospective buyer cites the GoDaddy Appraisal tool, and I think this is a pretty good illustration of how inaccurate the tool can be.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

    • Today Dan features the sale of СаstlеInТhеSkу, although there is no WHOIS change to be observed so far. The seller looks totally suspicious.

    • Thanks for saving me the trouble of saying something, Todd, but would appreciate if you and anyone else who could spoke up more often so that I wouldn’t have to usually be the only one dealing with the industry harming idiots, imbeciles and liars who continually spread the opposite propaganda and bashing.

    • PS, on a side note, it’s actually remarkable how often I have seen three word .coms resolve to a photo of the “legendary” high end broker what’s-her-name of enaming.com brokering them at Mann’s Domain Market site. To my recollection there may have also been a few containing four and even possibly at least one with five words. But alas, perhaps not anymore after this comment…

      • This reminds of me Don Quixote. I don’t think anyone here disagrees with you and thinks longer domain names don’t have value.

        That said, Mike has hundreds of thousands of domain names and needs these home runs to keep his business running smoothly.

        • Right, like I haven’t dealt with it for literally years now, and I guess you’ve simply also missed how often I’ve addressed this very topic in the comments on your blog alone. But you’ve already made your position clear on the matter – the times I have, that is – so you personally are not the main concern. Too bad you don’t have a gambling feature on the blog, though, since I could pick up a quick $50k betting on how long it takes Mr. “Snoopy” to show up and do the long domain bashing thing again…

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