DataRecovery.com Sells for $1.7 Million

Sale to data recovery firm is biggest of the year.

[Updated 9:49AM CST] ESS Data Recovery has purchased the domain name DataRecovery.com for $1.659 million, confirms firm President Ben Carmitchel.

The sale marks the biggest noted sale of the year and shows the promise of a targeted, generic domain name.

The seller is competitor Associated Computers, Inc. of Minnesota. Carmitchel confirmed that the transfer took place on February 1, 2008.

In a phone interview this morning, Carmitchel stated he’s been working on buying the domain for a long time.

“I’ve been working on it for 5 or 6 years,” stated Carmitchel. “I’ve known [the previous owner] for a long time. He wanted to sell it but he wouldn’t let it go for chump change.”

Although the domain wasn’t cheap, it is by now proving its value. “To us it’s definitely worth that amount and it has by now proven its worth,” stated Carmitchel. “We’ve by now had a lot of direct traffic.”

The firm used to spend $10,000-$12,000 a month on pay-per-click, but found it difficult to get a good return. The Google Adwords Traffic Estimator Tool has an estimated $13.83 – $20.74 per click to be in positions 1-3 for the term “data recovery”, with a total cost of $3,820 – $7,210 per day.

But it’s not just client lead generation that makes up the domain’s value. It’s the name recognition and simplicity.

“Our clients will be able to easily recognize us,” explained Carmitchel. “We can tell them ‘just go to datarecovery.com’ rather than e-s-s-data-recovery. It makes the whole process a lot smoother for the client.”

The firm took out a loan to pay for the all cash transaction that did not involve any transfer of clients or business from the prior owner. When comparing the loan payments to the increased business, Carmitchel stated the return on investment is easy to prove.

ESS Data Recovery provides data recovery services. The firm has 23 employees.