And more expired domain name sales — Spielberg.com, 668666.com
Most of us will look at Spielberg.com, an expired domain that sold for $7.6k the prior week, and assume that Steven Spielberg was targeted as a likely future buyer. Of course, there are other Spielbergs. The director of “Jaws”, “E.T.”, and “Schindler’s List” isn’t the last twig on the sole branch of that family tree. But none is as famous; and if another Spielberg is attempting to be found online, then he/she is failing, drowning under stories regarding DreamWorks or the Hollywood mogul selling an $180 million super yacht in order to commission another bigger boat for $250 million.
Naturally, most bidders would be primarily interested in sailing into that budget – hence the “Jurassic Park”-sized final price. Yet this isn’t a clear-cut case of cybersquatting, by any means. The challenge in being found and remembered might inspire a different Spielberg to pay a stiff price for Spielberg.com eventually. Actually, Spielberg is a city in Austria with 5,000 residents, and there $7.6k is the cost of 6 hotel rooms filled for 4 nights. The dream worker himself derives his name from that city, where his ancestors once lived.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 668666.com | 10,300 | NJ | Spielberg.com | 7600 | NJ |
| IE.org | 6400 | NJ | 93355.com | 6200 | NJ |
| HEBU.com | 5318 | NJ | Creel.com | 5227 | NJ |
| Modula.com | 5100 | NJ | HAGI.com | 4746 | NJ |
| 91616.com | 4600 | NJ | RetailSystems.com | 4388 | NJ |
| TransGlobe.com | 3823 | NJ | 19444.com | 3776 | SN |
| HoustonTX.com | 3700 | NJ | AdaptENV.org | 3103 | NJ |
| Dimmers.com | 2951 | NJ | Rheuma.com | 2950 | SN |
| BJFW.com | 2601 | NJ | Marketing Consulting.com |
2322 | NJ |
| Muvico.com | 2100 | NJ | GuernseyBank.com | 2100 | NJ |
| DealHound.com | 2050 | NJ | Blazzers.com | 2012 | NJ |
Blazzers.com ($2.0k) spent more than a decade as the website of an Irish softball club. Yet Google interprets “blazzers” as a typo of “Brazzers”, a porn firm. Guernsey Bank was gobbled up by First Financial Bank 2 years ago; and it appears they (rather foolishly) let go of the old brand’s domain name with all its years of accumulated back links.
Muvico.com ($2.1k) was a chain of movie theaters located mainly in Florida. Carmike Cinemas bought them out in 2013 … and then let their old domain expire. Noticing a pattern? Mergers and acquisitions often result in items slipping through the cracks, and few corporations operate with a sensible domain strategy even under more stable conditions.
China is by no means finished with numerical domains. The top expiry sale the prior week was a 6N at $10.3k, prized for its 5 repeating digits. Following that, you’ll see a trio of 5N .COMs – each with their own repeating patterns – at $6.2k, $4.6k, and $3.8k. From there, it’s down to $1.2k for the next 3 6Ns. And you’ll find another half dozen as low as $505. Most of those have at least 3 repeating digits as well.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barnies.com | 2007 | SN | Senga.com | 1710 | NJ |
| SharedVision.com | 1621 | NJ | BenYong.com | 1600 | NJ |
| KidsCook.com | 1505 | SN | ZCQG.com | 1480 | SN |
| PGKM.com | 1410 | NJ | SamsonGroup.com | 1410 | NJ |
| OAI.net | 1406 | NJ | Freedly.com | 1400 | NJ |
| NKFX.com | 1400 | NJ | Innox.com | 1346 | NJ |
| InfoBuild.com | 1311 | NJ | 887676.com | 1210 | NJ |
| 585000.com | 1202 | SN | Achievo.org | 1201 | NJ |
| AlCanSeek.com | 1200 | NJ | 664777.com | 1200 | NJ |
| BrainTap.com | 1110 | NJ | StealthBomber.com | 1110 | NJ |
| CrimeShots.com | 1101 | NJ | Slagoon.com | 1007 | NJ |
| Kinostok.com | 1004 | SN | Orbat.com | 1002 | NJ |
Barnies.com ($2.0k) has nothing to do with the purple dinosaur. That esteemed gentleman spells his name “Barney”, thank you very much. It turns out, a number of “Barnies” websites can upgrade to Barnies.com – among them, BarniesCoffeeKitchen.com, BarniesFoods.co.uk, Barnies.nl, etc.
Senga is both a tribe in Zambia and a woman’s name in various parts of the world. But the rationale for buying Senga.com ($1.7k) isn’t so obscure. Again, it’s a case of multiple matching brands: Senga Engineering, which uses Senga-ENG.com; a Senga Consulting at Senga.ca; Senga Interior Design with SengaDesign.com; SengaSafetyServices.com; and a French firm specializing in pneumatic automation, where else but at Senga.fr.
If KidsCook.com ($1.5k) sounds familiar, that’s probably since KidsCookDinner.com was among 5 winning domains from a Verisign-sponsored contest last year. Kinostok.com ($1.0k) matches a Russian video site at Kinostok.tv. Maybe there’s some generic meaning in the term; I’m not sure. Any guesses for AlCanSeek.com ($1.2k)? … If you stated “Alaska & Canada’s Search Engine”, a link directory dating back to 1997, then you win a StealthBomber.com ($1.1k).
Orbat.com ($1.0k) may stand for “Order of Battle“, which describes how forces are distributed and organized. Military organizations use acronyms to render themselves mutually unintelligible. So while Brits speak ORBATs, we yanks talk OoBs. It’s rare to see a “brandable” like Achievo.org sell for $1.2k in .ORG. Therefore it’s no surprise to find it was in use for 15 years as a “project management tool”.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PhotoMall.com | 955 | SN | ROAK.com | 901 | SN |
| Jevtic.com | 899 | SN | ArtsWales.org | 891 | NJ |
| NCSBCS.org | 861 | NJ | EnjoyDesign.com | 860 | SN |
| 876788.com | 860 | NJ | BrandVenue.com | 855 | NJ |
| 84748.com | 820 | SN | FacePlay.com | 819 | SN |
| DMAGroup.com | 810 | NJ | StartBase.com | 800 | NJ |
| ApplianceMart.com | 787 | NJ | GeoMarket.com | 787 | NJ |
| Pentacon.com | 784 | SN | CF99.com | 744 | NJ |
| WeRecommend.com | 740 | NJ | VodkaBar.com | 725 | SN |
| YenExchange.com | 720 | NJ | PuppyCam.com | 710 | NJ |
| Chusai.com | 710 | NJ | Wisconsins Future.org |
701 | NJ |
| 999656.com | 685 | NJ | Bankruptcy Court.com |
670 | NJ |
| KEIC.com | 665 | NJ | Infast.com | 658 | SN |
Jevtić ($899) is a Serbian surname. Apparently NCSBCS.org ($861) stands for the “National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards”. Fun! Of course, the acronyms most domainers pay attention to aren’t 6L .ORGs; they’re 4-letter .COM “CHIPs”. If you scroll up, you’ll see those at $1400, $1410, and $1480. Compared to the prior week, that category is stagnant or else falling slowly – as it has been d0ing since December. BJFW.com ($2.6k) is an exception since it begins with the abbreviation for Beijing (BJ).
Pentacon.com ($784) resembles the Pentagon; and, indeed, there is a website at ThePentaCon.com where we’ll all find the 9/11 attacks “conspiracy revealed”. (For the record, that’s irony.) Beyond that, Pentacon.de specializes in plastic injection molding; and PentaCon is also an entire weekend conference built around an a cappella group named Pentatonix. Pretty flexible brand name – all the way from government conspiracies to Michael Jackson tributes …
Apparently their fans call themselves “pentaholics”.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CheYouJia.com | 640 | SN | ISNX.com | 640 | NJ |
| 866616.com | 635 | SN | Fuqie.com | 627 | SN |
| IntroWorks.com | 625 | SN | Trausch.com | 616 | NJ |
| GeoFinder.com | 610 | NJ | AACFS.org | 610 | NJ |
| IncomeTax Reform.com |
589 | NJ | 666831.com | 576 | SN |
| FinancialPortal.com | 562 | SN | RuralEnergy.com | 554 | NJ |
| HikakinTV.com | 551 | SN | Commercy.com | 550 | SN |
| Vardar.com | 544 | SN | StLaw.com | 536 | NJ |
| RRVN.com | 535 | SN | DirectViajes.com | 526 | SN |
| FreeVideo Gallery.com |
525 | SN | 4107.net | 521 | NJ |
| Disce.com | 520 | NJ | Kagui.com | 520 | NJ |
| TheGoldenYears.org | 510 | NJ | WorldCharts.com | 509 | NJ |
| 136567.com | 505 | NJ | GamerHaven.com | 505 | NJ |
| DiscreteSex.com | 500 | SN | CityDock.com | 495 | NJ |
HikakinTV.com ($551) matches the name of a Japanese YouTube channel. The first thing I landed on was this guy singing a 5-minute YouTube theme song. With 25,746,884 views for that nails-on-a-chalkboard jingle, HikakinTV may have official sponsorship; I couldn’t stick around long enough to be sure.
Kagui.com.au sells shoes in Australia; so Kagui.com ($520) may be meant for them. Trausch.com ($616) is a German surname. StLaw.com ($536) matches a number of organizations in St. Lawrence County, Fresh York, counting a university and a credit union – StLawU.edu and StLawFCU.com, respectively.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TravelGay.com | 483 | SN | HuongDan DuLich.com |
475 | SN |
| TheGroundFloor.com | 465 | NJ | FX-Trader.com | 459 | SN |
| QRobots.com | 455 | SN | LocalPaper.com | 454 | NJ |
| TravelVaccines.com | 450 | NJ | Salzwedel.com | 450 | SN |
| RadoSlav.com | 448 | NJ | DriveAssist.com | 447 | SN |
| SexEscorts.com | 440 | SN | KDAC.com | 440 | NJ |
| EliteBoys.com | 439 | SN | OtherPoetry.com | 435 | NJ |
| Eurobolic.com | 425 | SN | OGAE.com | 420 | NJ |
| TheHoldSteady.com | 411 | NJ | Jennifer Lawrence.net |
410 | NJ |
| DaJiaZhuan.com | 405 | SN | 8888312.com | 404 | SN |
| MobyDickens.com | 401 | NJ | Rampenlicht.com | 400 | NJ |
| TheBrainStore.com | 400 | SN | 97288.net | 400 | NJ |
Salzwedel.com ($450) is a German town with 5 times the population of Spielberg, Austria; yet somehow it sold for less than 6% as much. Rampenlicht.com ($400) is German for “spotlight” / “limelight”. (Sorry, Rush fans. No song for you!) JenniferLawrence.net ($410) is the name of an actress. I had no idea she was in the X-Men and Hunger Games series, neither of which I’ve seen. But she was excellent in “Winter’s Bone”, an indie film far better than most Hollywood blockbusters.
Modest world! MobyDickens.com ($401) – 1/2 “Moby Dick”, 1/2 “Tale of 2 Cities” – was / is the local bookstore in Taos, Fresh Mexico. Stopping by a month ago, I learned they had been bought out by the independent bookstore from Santa Fe, Op. Cit. Books, which I’m sitting 100 feet from as I write this sentence. Now their old domain ends up in my charts.
| Domain | End $ | At | Domain | End $ | At |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Condor.net | 400 | SN | BlackHost.com | 390 | SN |
| BaiJiaBo.com | 390 | NJ | HLTCentral.org | 390 | NJ |
| EagleEyeUK.com | 390 | NJ | AvalonEnergy.com | 385 | NJ |
| Fan-Museum.org | 385 | SN | MicroWinery.com | 385 | SN |
| IXNS.com | 383 | NJ | Peninsula Capital.com |
380 | NJ |
| McWebSoftware.com | 380 | NJ | TakeCare.org | 379 | NJ |
| 8888319.com | 376 | SN | Executive HeadHunter.com |
374 | NJ |
| ContrastDesign.com | 373 | NJ | NoOneIsSafe.com | 364 | NJ |
| DBEA.com | 363 | NJ | ONRC.org | 361 | NJ |
| UniversalHomes.com | 360 | NJ | JabberCentral.com | 360 | NJ |
| WSKA.com | 360 | NJ | MarchFirst.com | 355 | NJ |
| 8888617.com | 354 | SN | JieZuBao.com | 354 | SN |
| ALSGay PornStars.com |
352 | SN | Kopsa.com | 350 | SN |
| Mannosidosis.org | 350 | SN | Organic NewsRoom.com |
350 | SN |
| SunPaper.com | 350 | NJ | ¡Hasta luego! | See | Ya |
Condor.net ($400) makes for a solid brand name. It’s simple enough that .NET can be remembered. Meanwhile, Mannosidosis.org ($350) is a medical disorder. .ORG pairs well with such topics – likewise with the phrase TakeCare.org ($379), since .ORG is often associated with medical care, yes, and caring in general.
Microbreweries abound; so it was only a matter of time ahead of we saw a MicroWinery.com ($385). I wonder what NoOneIsSafe.com ($364) from. Zombies? Taxes? Global Warming?Japanese YouTube theme songs? The all-seeing eye of the modern surveillance state? Carelessly dropped banana peels?
This will be my last article in this weekly series here at DNW. For those patient enough to read (or scroll) all the way to the bottom, thanks! If you thought that was a long homework assignment, just imagine having to gather it all up and write it all down!
