The auction of 2,600 real estate domain names that was suppose to take place on Thursday didn’t happen, and as you can imagine, I am not surprised. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle,
“Interest in Thursday’s auction was high, according to both Harrison and King. In the days leading up to the auction, the Web site got 5,000 hits, and J.P. King had e-mails and calls from interested buyers. But the event fizzled.
Perhaps the names weren’t as valuable as they seemed. “Had we had premium names, like toys.com, there would have been an auction,” King said as waiters in the Fairmont cleared trays piled with sandwiches from the empty room.”
I do find it interesting that they quoted the Toys.com auction, as I mentioned in the comment section here a couple of days ago. It’s just too bad the parties didn’t realize this before thousands of dollars were spent on publicity and other expenses related to the auction. They could have asked a professional domain investor who could have told them this straight up.
I am still interested in the traffic and revenue numbers that Victor Lund, partner at WAV Group mentioned in the comment section of my blog. “As simple link sites they provide an abundance of income that far exceeds the cost. Harrison can sit on them as a cash cow for as long as he likes.” I followed up asking for revenue and traffic numbers, but there was no reply.
I would have liked to see a portfolio of domain names sell for millions of dollars, but clearly these aren’t as valuable as a few people might have wished.
I kind of was getting the feeling that these people were trying to get over on so called end users which gives us domainers a small kick in the nads.I knew this was gonna flop bigtime.No internet bidding.cmon now.
wow, what a flop! they did some very expensive off-line advertising.
Seemed like a joke from the beginning. I forgot where I read about this first a couple months back but I immediately posted that this auction would not sell any domains.
Now if it was a portfolio of CITYrealestate.com instead of CITYrealestatelistings.com, NOW we’re talking.
I mean using realestatelistings? Why realestateguide or realestatedirectory or iCITYrealestate or CITY-realestate
ALL worth the reg fee anyway but a million dollars? Nope.
This is good for the domain market. Maybe news like this will knock some sense into peoples’ heads and you and I will stop getting emails from people trying to sell their domain crap.
This industry could you a good shake out.
The word “listing” killed all of the domains. Nobody is going to add the extra word “listing” when direct navigating.
There is no substantial traffic or income…….that’s a direct lie. I doubt he makes even $100 in a year collectively for all of them, unless he has worked on SEO or something else to drive traffic to them. There is NO sitting back and passively making money off of these. It would not happen in 100 years.
I don’t feel too bad for the investors, they should have known. However, I kinda’ feel bad for the sandwiches though….they did not get eaten!
Hello Elliot,
I would like to know your opinion about the new move of Domaining.com. A little note about would be fine.
Thanks in advance.
Will
@Will
What move?
Oh, sorry.
http://toomanysecrets.com/domainingcom-anti-competitiveness/
http://www.conceptualist.com/2009/06/12/bye-bye-domainingcom/
@Will
Domaining.com is a privately held company, and the owner (Francois) is entitled to do as he wishes.
Sure, I concur.
What I would like to know is if a site like yours would follow their guidelines about what to promote and what not…
I could agree with rules like “no porn ads” and stuff like that… But… “No competitors ads” seems a little out-dated.
That’s what I would like to know… Fors instance, would you restrain yourself to post an ads of NameBee.com? BTW, I know about their excellent services because of you (many thanks!).
Sorry for asking… But I don’t want to be reading stuff that are censured somehow… I have enough censure for living in Venezuela already… 🙁 Sorry… perhaps I am a bit sensible about this matters.
@Will
Nobody censors what I write. If I choose to post or not post a link or banner to another website is my decision. If, because of someone else, it becomes a business decision rather than a personal decision, it will be addressed at that time.
Elliot,
Many thanks for your time and answers. That’s what I needed to know. I hope you never had to black-out good services like namebee because of a requirement like that one.
And keep up your already excellent blog.
All best,
Will
@Will
Nobody from namebee asked me to add a banner, but if they did, I would consider adding it below Domaining. I don’t know referral percentages off hand, but last I checked, Domaining was higher than Namebee, although Nambee has been growing.
That’s Ok. It’s your blog… it’s YOUR decision based on YOUR criteria (stats, likeness, whatever). That’s how it should be IMHO.
I won0t bother you anymore about it.
Greetings,
Will
PS: God! Some people are still in the Microsoft’s Realm era!
these names where useless, too many combinations , the av. user is lazy and simply google keywords,
too many keywords diminishes the the domains value — i million fold.
a good keyword can sell for half million ,but others not really worth the admin costs.
too many permutations, the average joe just recalls whats easy,why direct traffic elsewhere, using listings ,classifieds, premium, express and other suffices, i could mention another dozen,but i guess im lazy.i am sorry
its about time domainers realised 99 percent of doms are useless as i did this year, or worth the reg fee perhaps.