Technobabble

How Much is That Domain Name Worth?

Posted by on Jan 29, 2007 | 5 Comments

Are you sitting on a domain name or two (or three), just waiting for the right opportunity to cash in? I wouldn’t call myself a speculator … I’m more of a collector, with more domain names than I need. I’ve been thinking about unloading a few. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spoken to representatives from a number of firms that run domain name auctions.

The Mercury News has an interesting article on the “Cyberspace land grab” today. The lead paragraph is enticing …

You might not think of generic Internet addresses like Carbs.com as the beachfront property of the Web, but plenty of financial heavy-hitters do, and they’re snapping up such real estate — fast.

The article goes on to talk about the companies that are changing the space … publicly traded domain name pioneer Marchex; Internet REIT (with over 400,000 domain names); Demand Media (with a whopping $220 million in start up money); and the Internet Real Estate Group (currently in the process of raising a mere $110 million).

I’m not sure if I want to put my little set of domain names (over-the-counter.com, over-the-counter.net, and over-the-counter.org) up for public auction. I briefly considered going the eBay route, but after seeing the junky assortment of domain names on eBay at any given moment, I quickly decided to pass.

Needless to say, I’ve learned not to blurt out my great domain name ideas in public places. But if anyone from Marchex, Internet REIT, Demand Media, or the Internet Real Estate Group wants to contact me about my little trifecta (or to talk about a future article), I’m all ears, baby …

[tags]domain name registration, domain name auction[/tags]

  • http://www.thatgrrl.ca thatgrrl

    My first domain was hijacked a few years ago. They have kept it ever since with nothing on it. Pisses me off each time I think about it. I bought a new domain, the same name but with .ca instead of .com. In the end I like what I have now better, being a proud Canadian. But, I managed to get my .com mentioned in a O’Reilly book about blogs. So it is annoying that some other jerk is getting whatever traffic that would have brought me over the years. In the end I view domain holders with a little contempt. Most of those domains are hijacked from someone like me. Not accusing you in particular. Just what I have seen in my own experience. Mainly in that time right before “professional bloggers” started spamming the Internet.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/chrisshort/ oaf357

    eBay is definitely not the route to go.

  • http://www.revs.org Matt Williams

    I’ve been well and truly bitten by the domain name bug over the last 5 years or so, resulting in a collection of over a thousand.

    The thing I’ve found best to do is to use them for whatever purpose you want, but just make sure you are easy to contact. Then when people want to buy them they come to you and it’s easy to negotiate a price.

    If you try to sell them actively you usually end up getting less than they are worth.

  • Pingback: links for 2007-01-30 ~ Chris Pirillo

  • http://www.seasonal.net/ WebDrifter

    Domains are a unique market with legalities to be aware of and as Chris states don’t mention your domain ideas in public, including checking domain availability. In the past years I’ve checked availability of domain names for registering consideration. BuyDomains.com snatched coincidently two very good choices up within weeks of checking its availability. I now do not use what I believe to be the capitalizing Registrar.