Gambling, CHIPs and more: Expired Domains
Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name sales.
Money attracts money. What I mean is this: The closer a topic sits to getting paid, the more people want to sit on that topic’s lap. And the higher they bid for its keywords – whether in PPC advertising or in domain auctions.
Casinos are temples to money. So it’s no surprise that gambling-related domains can command top dollar. The prior week’s top expiry auction is an example: CasinoTitan.com ($9.5k) may be nothing more than a backwards version of “Titan Casino”, but people still query Google for [casino titan] 3,600 times per month – compared to 6,600 for [titan casino].
This may reflect our habit of narrowing a search by appending afterthought keywords. Or it may be due to clients whose native language places adjectives following nouns. In Spanish, French, or Arabic, “Casino Titan” sounds more natural than the reverse. Either way, with a full third of searches matching the “backwards” version of your brand name, owning the mirror image is worth considering. Right now there are at least 3 “titan casino” websites – .COM, .CO, and .US. – built as online gambling portals.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CasinoTitan.com | 9500 | SN | ZKZK.com | 6588 | NJ |
| HG218.com | 5411 | NJ | NORT.com | 5000 | NJ |
| 77876.com | 3900 | SN | PictureCards.com | 3447 | SN |
| FSHN.com | 3203 | SN | Caterina.com | 2905 | SN |
| 2W2.com | 2201 | NJ | LinModems.org | 1950 | SN |
| CMCG.com | 1877 | NJ | MCDK.com | 1800 | SN |
Even HG218.com ($5.4k) is likely earmarked for a Chinese gambling site. Betting seems to be the driving force behind the many “HG” numerical domain sales we’ve seen throughout the past 2 years. Witness HG267.com, which sold in January and is by now being put to use. The prior week, I wondered if the “HG” category might be past its prime But, at $5.4k, this latest “HG” domain suggests it’s still going strong.
No such luck for LLLL.com “CHIPs”. That $6.6k sale for the repeater, ZKZK.com, is impressive but atypical. Meanwhile, FSHN.com ($3.2k) is probably meant for the West rather than China. Multiple universities have dedicated an “FSHN” subdomain of their website to their Department of “Food Science and Human Nutrition” – fshn.illinois.edu, for instance. Plus, a fashion magazine called “FSHN” might use this domain as an upgrade.
Apart from those 2 marked exceptions, the CHIPs fall between $1355 and $1877, as you can see. Now, some LLLL.com owner will probably want to dismiss that low $1355 sale by declaring that SnapNames gets less action – or, at any rate, fewer Chinese bidders. Let me preempt that argument this time by pointing out that both the high sale and the top Chinese numeric – 77876.com ($3.9k) – came from SnapNames. Meanwhile, there were non-expired CHIPs selling at NameJet as low as $1401. So the floor price really is that low. This category has been declining steadily since December and has so far lost more than half its value.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCBL.com | 1725 | NJ | BSCD.com | 1701 | NJ |
| JQLX.com | 1700 | NJ | VisionAir.com | 1666 | NJ |
| Tekom.com | 1655 | NJ | MZMT.com | 1600 | SN |
| Muliu.com | 1530 | NJ | SNBank.com | 1510 | NJ |
| NQBN.com | 1508 | NJ | TeachRKids.com [sic] | 1360 | NJ |
| RQDN.com | 1355 | SN | Supen.com | 1309 | NJ |
| IVEE.com | 1200 | NJ | World-Schizophrenia.org | 1155 | SN |
| JARV.com | 1150 | NJ | Repix.com | 1063 | SN |
| M4X.com | 1063 | SN | MEYS.com | 1010 | NJ |
Although SNBank.com ($1.5k) might be used by a number of different banks, 1 in particular stands out – State Nebraska Bank, whose current domain is StateNEBank.com but whose logo clearly shows “SN Bank”. Tekom.com ($1.7k) addresses an international audience better than Tekom.de, which describes itself as “the largest global event and market-place for technical communication”. Global? Not as a .DE.
With brands like Flickr playing fast and loose with spelling, it’s unclear whether TeachrKids.com ($1.4k) is meant to be “teacher” or “teach our”. Probably the latter. In Norway, you can book Supen.no as a venue for parties; but that’s too local to explain Supen.com ($1.3k). Strike 1! In Costa Rica, SUPEN stands for the “Superintendencia de Pensiones”. But only los costarricenses – the citizens of Costa Rica – are entitled to a government pension; therefore a ccTLD suffices. Strike 2! Hmm … The Chinese buyer is unlikely to be thinking of anything but a Chinese meaning. What that may be, I don’t know. Strike 3! I’m out!
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEOE.com | 960 | NJ | Romantic.org | 919 | NJ |
| ChannelNine.com | 913 | SN | PS3DevWiki.com | 833 | SN |
| AdultEscorts.com | 781 | SN | RoyalGuard.com | 730 | SN |
| Doggers.com | 701 | NJ | 47008.com | 700 | NJ |
| YoBingo.com | 681 | SN | IDDS.org | 636 | SN |
| AuctionExhange.com | 625 | NJ | YPRO.com | 620 | NJ |
| ZhaoPeiJian.com | 615 | SN | 41510.com | 611 | NJ |
| OurTravel.com | 572 | NJ | Theatrica.com | 570 | NJ |
| RockWorld.com | 565 | NJ | 43632.com | 560 | SN |
| OPTR.com | 555 | SN | InternetRegister.com | 550 | SN |
| Aspim.com | 529 | SN | SaiSha.com | 525 | SN |
| GeoPlay.com | 515 | NJ | Aevita.com | 511 | NJ |
| FreeFund.com | 506 | NJ | VietScape.com | 505 | SN |
| 女鞋.com (xn--vusy85l.com) |
504 | SN | CDEMusic.org | 485 | SN |
ASPIM.com ($529) matches a .FR website for “L’Association Française des Sociétés de Placement Immobilier” – real estate investment firms, that is. There’s also an Aspim Europa. Although ther .COM website is in Italian, their ambitions include a farm as far afield as Cambodia.
The Chinese IDN trend I spotted in late January continues with 女鞋.com ($504), which means “women’s shoes”. Although Saisha.com ($525) is a woman’s name in India and elsewhere, seeing a Chinese buyer suggests a Pinyin meaning instead. With shā (杀 ) meaning “kill” / “murder” / “counteract” and taking sài (赛) as “competition” / “excel”, I suppose SaiSha could be… anti-competition? Then again, this can be read as sāi (塞) for Serbia – a nation no stranger to killing. How plausible is it that a Chinese buyer spent $525 to commemorate genocide in the Balkans? Not very. “Sai Sha” must mean something else.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EuroCrowd.com | 479 | SN | Buraka.tv | 478 | SN |
| NeptuneThemes.com | 476 | SN | Ximeta.com | 475 | SN |
| BusyFlow.com | 475 | SN | Houston HomeBuilders.com |
465 | NJ |
| Mishin.com | 459 | SN | PlayHead.com | 442 | NJ |
| AspireNow.com | 435 | NJ | TextMoney.com | 430 | SN |
| ACLUKSWMO.org | 411 | NJ | Kaninchen.net | 410 | SN |
| IFCBiol.org | 406 | NJ | KnowPlace.org | 388 | NJ |
| 1122555.com | 380 | SN | DandeMutande.com | 380 | SN |
| MedEdit.com | 379 | SN | 572727.com | 379 | SN |
| ToughGlass.com | 375 | SN | CCSVI.com | 375 | SN |
| GeoWork.com | 370 | NJ | Harket.com | 360 | SN |
| 51AM.com | 360 | NJ | LEAW.com | 353 | SN |
| SpeedVR.com | 350 | SN | InterBeauty.com | 350 | SN |
Ximeta.com ($475) manufactures data storage devices. If you belong to the EuroCrowd.com ($479), then you may be familiar with the music group Buraka Som Sistema. In 2008, they won Best Portuguese Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Buraka.tv had been their website until it expired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d92XmR6vSE
DandeMutande.com ($380) matches a .ORG website for Zimbabwean music. German for “rabbit”, Kaninchen.net ($410) is cousin to the English word “coney”; but it’s actually French not German in origin . Oddly, Kaninchen is the name of a Dutch hardcore band as well. Harket.com ($360) is a surname. A few of you may remember the Norwegian synth-pop band, A-ha, from the early 80s. Their lead singer, Morten Harket later pursued a solo career; and his website states they’re reuniting to tour the UK in 2016.
A-ha received more nominations and won more awards from MTV than anybody until Peter Gabriel. “Take On Me” has been played to death on the radio, but here’s a different take on A-ha.
Now it’s my privilege to present the award for the prior week’s worst acronym: ACLUKSWMO.org ($411). 9 letters … Sounds like a Sumo wrestler in a chicken costume … And it means – or was meant to mean – the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri.
