Last week I went shopping for a metal detector so I could search for screws and nails at the playground I helped build. The top Google result for me was MetalDetector.com, a website that sells metal detectors, and ironically, they had a shop within an hour from my home. I went to visit and bought a metal detector. I spoke with one of the owners, and I hope to share an interview soon!
Here are some domain industry thoughts and updates for you. As always, you are welcome to share some domain industry thoughts or updates in the comment section:
- Alan Dunn published an interesting article about the Chinese domain name market on Business Insider. Alan shared some reasons for why Chinese buyers have been embracing domain names.
- Yesterday, I published an article discussing how I don’t really understand the Chinese domain name market all that much. There are plenty of other opportunities in the business of buying and selling domain names, but the Chinese domain name market continues to be one of the biggest stories of 2015.
- Don’t buy Olympics related domain names! Courthouse News Service published an article about Olympic Committees Go After Cybersquatter”
- GoDaddy seems to have had an exceptional quarter.
- There are now over 1.5 million .XYZ domain names registered. It looks like there was an increase of almost a quarter of a million registrations since the end of October, according to nTLDStats.com.
- The top 3 most registered new gTLD domain names are currently: .XYZ, .Top, and .Wang.
- Rich Green, my Sales Executive at Afternic, is my favorite person in the domain business today. He helped facilitate two domain name acquisitions this afternoon before the Patriots game. It’s always good when people know what types of domain names I am buying and can let me know when they see something that would appeal to me.
Nice thoughts. What re the two domains?
It’s interesting that MetalDetectors.com has a store located only 44 miles from the owners of MetalDetector.com.
Since this is an old family business, I would be curious to know if the MetalDetectors.com site was started by an old employee of MetalDetector.com
It might be a good question for your interview.
Congrats on your domain acquisitions. Maybe you’ll reveal them on an upcoming Recent Acquisitions post.
MetalDetector.com reminds me of TrafficSchool.com. It was too much a no-brainer to do the course online, when I had to in recent years for a speeding ticket.
China has always been a mystery. It’s GoDaddy that makes no sense to me. Each quarterly report of theirs shows them losing millions more. Their debt is over a billion dollars. GoDaddy has continued to keep their ownership of Afternic a secret. Why not advertise that huge database of premium domains? Not even a link from their registration channel. Why?
GoDaddy gets a cool 20% for every domain sold on their platform. Unfortunately, the domains they do sell are kept secret too. Can you imagine what would happen to home sales if all previous sale amounts were not made public.
Besides that, going to GoDaddy’s main site, they are offering new registrations of .com for just $2.99 for the first year. No reference to seeing any other higher valued domains. How can a profit possibly be made?
Hi Don, Godaddy has a ton of upsales. From private registration to what I would believe it a huge money maker: hosting and emails. I’m sure they have a ton of websites hosted on their network.
Oh, I got it. While the ship is sinking, it’s reassuring to know there’s appetizers and music on the upper deck.
GoDaddy requires 2 years registration on those $2.99 dot com. They also make money hosting many domain names. Many dropped domains have sold on their auction platform as pure profit. Millions of domain names are renewed annually.
My original post was simply asking why GoDaddy has been ignoring and not promoting their own huge premium domain marketplace (Afternic). They already have the infrastructure in place, but they have been keeping it a secret from the general public.
It is doubtful the largest car dealer in the world would base their future on mere hub cap sales and key fobs while hiding popular high end vehicles on their back lot.
When you’re in debt over a billion dollars, it would make sense to refer to premium domains that are for sale. Why bother to install a Fast Transfer system with numerous other registrars?
The mention that big money is made in volume on two year registrations at $2.99 + $14.99 is laughable because it doesn’t even cover GoDaddy’s cost. I’m basing this on eNom’s recent holiday special stating $8.03 is THEIR cost (for a .com). The reference that expired domains are selling on auction at pure profit is also mysterious since NO publication of those sales are made.
As proof of the profitability of suggesting premium domains, Sedo used to generate many millions and post the sales every week. Not from just auctions but from sales resulting from an agreement with GoDaddy. When Afternic was purchased, Sedo lost their connection to share their listed domains. Afternic so far has not been mentioned nor included in GoDaddy’s registration channel.
If someone has a real answer, it would be appreciated.
For what it’s worth, I bought 3 domain names via Afternic in the last 3 days, and all of those sales prices will remain private, per my request. I presume many others will be the same, even if GoDaddy begins reporting sales in the future.