Domain gold rush?

So, ".com" domains have been available for a long time - a very long time in Internet age. However, as the Internet is becoming more and more global, domain suffixes specific to each country are popping up every day. Thus, the goldrush of domains Internationally is creating impetus for people all over the world to find the next new Diamond.com (which, by the way fetched $7.5 million).

"As people in many regions go online, these names will become great pieces of real estate," says Marc Ostrofsky, president of iReit, a private company that is accumulating domain names and is backed in part by Starbucks (Charts) founder Howard Schultz. In the past year and a half, iReit has amassed a domain portfolio of more than 400,000 names.

This spring it spent millions of dollars - Ostrofsky describes the amount as "mid-seven figures" - to buy up a collection of names ending in .de (Germany), .nl (the Netherlands) and .fr (France). The firm is now looking into deals in India and China." [1]

"One explanation for the offshore-domain gold rush is pretty straightforward: Try to register almost any dot-com name, whether an acronym, a compound word, or even a common typo, and you'll find it's gone. " [1]

Based on reported sales between June 11, 2007 and June 24, 2007, DN Journal reports 5 of the most expensively sold domains cost more than six figures including the top domain "Masculin.com" which roughly sold for $201,792 dollars which is "masculine" in French. A non ".com" website in "CC.cc" went for $70,000. Several International domains fetched more $25 gran from Apartamentos.es ("apartments" in Spanish) for a little over $40 gran, 3 German domains (Solar4you.de, red.de, check.de) all sold for 20,000 Euros or about $27 thousand dollars. Six.tv went for $25k. Moneytalks.tv for 15 gran, Heidi.ch just under 15k. Even a UK domain went for a little less than 12k -- I don't like the domains that have more than one period like "co.uk" or "co.jp". I know that people who are surfing are lazy and even that extra "period" or "dot" puts them off. A majority of the top selling domains are still ".com's", but other domain suffixes are starting to penetrate the top selling list. [2]

And as usual, with the Internet industry, we can't ignore the adult category. While Diamond.com is listed as one of the highest domain sales, Porn.com was sold recently for $9.5 million and before that, supposedly Sex.com was sold for $12 million. [3]

1. http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/29/technology/nextbigforeign.biz2/index.htm
2. http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm
3. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/15/porncom-sells-for-95m-cash/

Some issues to worry about moving forward for Domainers

Problems for the future:

• Browsers are fixing typos
• IE catches unregistered domain names
• Microsoft Vista (the new Operating system for PCs) may change the rules of the game
• Legal issues are rising daily regarding trademarked names or squatting

Do you want to be a Domainer?

If you're searching for a great name, think of what people would type directly into a browser. First thing you probably want to find out is how often the term(s) is being searched. Yahoo (Overture) has created a tool for the world and it's been used over the years by all the people in the domain field. Click here to visit the Inventory Suggestion Tool[1]

There are online forums for "Insider Tips" in the Domainer business. Namepros.com has some good basics; DomainState.com is geared more toward pros. [1]

Do you think a Typo Play would be profitable? Be warned that Trademark typos are under attack. A few generic typos can be taken advantage, however. DomainTools has a tool that lets you generate new ones on the fly. [1]

Are .com domains the most valuable? Well, some are taking a chance on the main new domain suffixes like .mobi, for mobile phones or International ones like .uk (UK), .cn (China), and .eu (the European Union) among many others. [1]

Sources:
1. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm

Domainers statistics

• From 2004 to 2007, the number of dotcom names has soared 130% higher to 66 million names registered. [1]
• Domains are registered every 2 seconds [1[
• The market for registering and trading domain names could reach $2.5 billion this year (2007) [2]
• Sales of 5,851 domain names generated $29 million in 2005[3]
• Sales of 3,813 names only generated $15 million in 2004[3]

1. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm

2. http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/29/technology/nextbigforeign.biz2/index.htm

3. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-09-domainers_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

Domainer's Jargon

"direct navigation," when people go into the browser url bar and type in what they're looking for and just add ".com" to the end like "weddingshoes" and then add ".com" -- according to source 10 below, millions do it [1]

tasting, Tasting takes advantage of a provision that allows domain-name buyers a free five-day trial period. Intended to protect customers who mistakenly purchase the wrong name, it handed aggressive domainers another means with which to expand -- and exploit -- their portfolios. [1]

"typo-squatting," it's a practice now coming under the same intense scrutiny long faced by cybersquatters. Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) and Neiman Marcus are just two companies whose lawyers have brought anti-cybersquatting lawsuits, charging domainers with intentionally profiting from variations of their trademarks. [1]

Cybersquatting, according to the United States federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price. [2]

parking, the main way that domainers make money: they fill their undeveloped domains with relevant pay-per-click ads that throw into their pockets steady cash [1]

Sources:
1. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_squatting

TOP PLAYERS IN THE DOMAINERS INDUSTRY

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Transferring over from Keywords and Domains...

I thought I'd buy the actual .com domain as well in addition to reserving the subdomain within blogger.com. When typing in Keywords and Domains (all one word) .com, I noticed that the two "d's" in a row may be confusing for future typers of the domain. So, I switched it around, found the domain was available and "Wallah!," it's now Domains and Keywords.

I'll be migrating over the posts (since there haven't been an incredible amount yet). Just thinking, but it wouldn't be a bad idea of blogger.com or another great blog site like wordpress would have a service where you can move from one blog to another transferring over the posts, pages, etc. so you could have a smooth transition and the original dates on the posts. I remember making the switch from Xanga to Wordpress on another blog I write and it kind of looked stupid when I first copied over the posts. Just an idea...