NameJet Expired Domain Name Review
A look back at the past week in expired domain name sales at NameJet.
There are days when, thanks to television and image-centric social apps, I mournfully presume that literacy is doomed. Yet NameJet’s top expired auction from the prior week provides a glimmer of hope: MyBooks.com claimed $11.1k. As long as the domain market still values books as a keyword, then readers aren’t completely extinct, right? RomanceNovel.com ($1.6k) may be the healthiest genre in terms of audience engagement. For the past decade, even Hollywood takes its cues from that shelf. Franchises such as “Twilight”and “50 Shades of Grey” have been enormously popular; yet romance has been a mainstay of the publishing industry long ahead of the invention of the printing press.
HIRA.com ($10k) is the sort of LLLL we’re accustomed to seeing in the upper echelons, since it follows investors’ preferred CVCV pattern and uses letters whose pronunciation is free from ambiguity. Six other expired LLLL.com domains (that I saw) ended between $600 and $2.1k at NameJet the prior week. BONZ.com ($2.1k) is just shy of the word “Bonze” for a Japanese Buddhist monk. It’s also the stock ticker for Bonzanza Goldfied Corporation, a casino restaurant, and a band that reads these letters as “bones”. Speaking of “NZ”, the ccTLD for Fresh Zealand began taking SLD registrations for the first time on March 30 – an event that has received far less press in domain blogs than the typical nTLD release.
.NET occupies the #3 and #4 spot. Both LaoHu.net ($5k) and 2M.net ($3.3k) belong to categories we usually see China eagerly buying up in .COM. If China’s interest in Pinyin and short strings spills over into .NET, then that would be market news indeed.
| Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
|---|---|---|---|
| MyBooks.com | 11,100 | HIRA.com | 10,000 |
| LaoHu.net | 5020 | 2M.net | 3300 |
| Henrique.com | 2805 | SoftwareDeals.com | 2200 |
| BONZ.com | 2109 | PhoneSavings.com | 2100 |
| PoliceRadar.com | 2100 | Larche.com | 2085 |
| Spoodle.com | 1969 | GetGreen.com | 1955 |
| DesignerBlinds.com | 1700 | CNFA.com | 1677 |
| JunXiong.com | 1611 | RomanceNovel.com | 1609 |
| LearnStar.com | 1600 | Pistorius.com | 1441 |
| BSCF.com | 1422 | eTran.com | 1310 |
| MBST.com | 1210 | Europe Properties.com |
1200 |
| PriceShock.com | 1100 | SouthPeak.com | 1000 |
| TechnologyBlog.com | 985 | EndWave.com | 900 |
| VIQA.com | 870 | ElPrisma.com | 810 |
| Ensembles-EU.org | 800 | Interdrive.com | 790 |
| Resort RealEstate.com |
725 | Stuckateur.com | 717 |
| BankOfPunjab.com | 679 | MMSF.com | 650 |
| 85778.com | 620 | JOXU.com | 600 |
| KidsRights.com | 590 | Bargainista.com | 579 |
| Jollie.com | 518 | Yodels.com | 492 |
| Kazik.com | 482 | AsianProperties.com | 476 |
| SoundATone.com | 430 | MobileRouter.com | 393 |
| FortWorthCOC.org | 370 | Teaching Certificate.com |
332 |
| PianoPiano.com | 330 | 51712.com | 320 |
| BTGF.com | 310 | Rinon.com | 300 |
| Virtual Prototyping.com |
260 | KFDB.com | 252 |
| BDOP.com | 246 | GSYP.com | 245 |
| KNQ.org | 242 | GBNR.com | 230 |
| BoomZoom.com | 229 | NAMCA.com | 170 |
| Tablete.net | 119 | NUTK.com | 90 |
| URLsInternetCafe.com | 82 | Physiologist.net | 79 |
| ToothWhitening Kits.net |
69 | ForIndia.com | 69 |
Many Americans know someone who monitors police radar to avoid paying speeding tickets. Given the fines and increased insurance premiums, not to mention the hurry everybody’s in, there’s plenty of incentive to buy detectors. So I expect PoliceRadar.com ($2.1k) can turn a profit. Maybe radar guns will be sold there, but radar detectors seem like the bigger market.
Pistorius.com ($1.4k) was the paralympic runner convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Celebrity scandals blow over; so I’d see more permanent value in EuropeProperties.com ($1.2k) or AsianProperties.com ($476). ResortRealEstate.com ($725) is another strong domain within the property niche, but those 2 continents seem especially undervalued.
TechnologyBlog.com ($985) deserves to be developed. VirtualPrototyping.com ($260) is an notable part of CAD that precedes a physical prototype. Given domainers’ interest in 3D printing, I expected bidding to go higher; but perhaps people didn’t recognize the topic without the “3D” buzz word.
Rinon.com ($300) might be “kidney” – that is, if you read it as the Spanish word “riñon”. With illegal organ trafficking on the rise and sketchy websites offering to take your kidney for “$70-80k”, surgery could plausibly account for some of the bids; then again, buyers might not have seen Rinon.com as Spanish at all. ElPrisma.com ($810) is Spanish for “the prism”. Various websites use the name, counting a Spanish news site called DiarioElPrisma.es. Their motto happens to be a translation of Lord Northcliffe’s aphorism:
News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.
TeachingCertificate.com ($332) might be the best bargain in the entire chart, since all sorts of working professionals might pay to become teachers. Certification processes also differ state to state in the USA, which means teachers who relocate must often requalify. There’s a program specifically for military veterans to certify as teachers. Ultimately, that $332 domain leads to much more in tuition even for a single client.
Any junk food addicts out there? Some of you may salivate at the mere mention of Yodels.com ($492). Yes, they’re mass-produced snack cakes as well as a Swiss singing style. People err who interpret these auction results as a firm indication of market value. In the case of Yodels.com, price had a lot to do with 1 bidder’s internet connection.
