I read an interesting story on LehighValleyLive.com involving a geodomain name, and I want to share it with you. According to the article, the town of Pohatcong, New Jersey (population 3,416 in 2010) purchased the Pohatcong.com for $10,000. The seller was reportedly a member of the town’s police force.
Before buying the .com domain name, the town has been using Pohatcongtwp.org, which is clearly more difficult to remember. Imagine passing town signs on the street and elsewhere and having to recall that domain name. Obviously, the town name .com was a major upgrade for them.
It looks like the town made  a wise move with this acquisition. If you do a Google search for “Pohatcong,” you’ll see that  Pohatcong.com ranks #1 and the town’s domain name currently ranks #2, just below the .com domain name.
The town takes possession of the domain name and website on August 1, and it would be smart for them to use two separate websites on these domain names, eliminating the issue of duplicate content and allowing them to control the top two results. Should they merge the two websites into one, they will most likely lose one of its results spots.
Congratulations to the town on making a good domain name move.
Spending some of that free Hurricane Sandy FEMA
money!
$10k seems steep to me – phillipsburg.com sold in late 2008 for $3.5k.
pohatcong: 243k google pages
phillipsburg: 6,180,000 google pages
Keep in mind that Pohatcong.com is developed, is a known entity, and it ranks #1 on Google.
This town bought an overpriced domain. Spending $3 per person is way too much. It’s their money to waste.
Looks like they haven’t updated it since the 90’s. But hey if it ranks well why change it right?