Names Rise in Value — Geo Domain

Geographic domain names are enjoying the rising tide of localization.

I’m writing today from the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead. Buckhead is the world’s most expensive neighborhood. Well, in domain name terms, that is. The domain name Buckhead.com sold for $250,000 this year. $250,000 seems like what someone would pay for a city name, not a neighborhood.

But geographic domain names continue to ride the rising tide of localization. How many times you have you heard regarding local search over the past year?

At first this seems counterintuitive. The internet is global. Why would someone want a domain that applies to only a modest percentage of the world, not a generic word that people in every city might search for?

I recently purchased the domain of a modest Austin suburb for $5,200. A traditional pay-per-click domain buyer would laugh at the price and say it’s too high. Following all, the domain only gets regarding 10 hits per day. But this modest suburb of 10,000 people is growing quickly. It ought to nearly double in population over the next five years. And it’s affluent. There are at least a dozen home builders in the suburb selling their share of nearly a thousand lots. If you were one of those developers, wouldn’t you pay $5,000 for just one lead that resulted in a sale?

The price of a city name is probably out of your reach. There’s no way I could buy Austin.com. But you can still join the rising tide of geo domains by buying neighborhoods, suburbs, and modest cities.

If you want to learn more regarding geo domains, check out Associated Cities.