Daily Domainer

55 Responses to “ Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use ”

1. 
   ctrl Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

   This really gets under my skin…peeps that squat on a name in the hopes of a fortune…when those names could be used for a site that might have useful content.

2. 
   car Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:26 pm

   ICANN should take domains that are not in use and should expire them so people can buy them that may use them

3. 
   street Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

   Do you know anyone that could use my YouTube account.. It is called DomainNames,

   Thanks..Street

4. 
   Webster Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

   It is very likely that PPC means "pay per click".

   Usually acronyms are defined at the first use.

5. 
   The Web Design Blog Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

   [...] Of the 100 highest-priced domains sold in 2006, only 18 have been developed, 8 redirect to a developed site, 5 are affiliate sites, and 6 are currently under development. 9 domains don’t work at all and a massive 54 show PPC ads. Link « Feed publishing best practices   [...]

6. 
   joe Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

   Annuity.com sold for $600,000 and is developed

7. 
   Mad world » Blog Archive » Kun 30% af solgte domæner i 2006 er i brug Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:55 pm

   [...] Men ud over en masse PPC sider og lign. reklamesider, så ryger der også en del domæner til phising, f.eks paypal-web.com, paspal.org, paypal-secure-login.com osv. Kilde: DailyDomainer.com [...]

8. 
   raluca Jan 15th, 2007 at 3:55 pm

   The name is not so important. Most important is content. And also SEO

9. 
   Look What Dave Found Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:04 pm

   It's irritating to me as someone who both surfs alot looking for content to add to my blogs and a domain speculator to find premium or good keyword domains going to a PPC page or undevloped. Nothing irks me more than to find countless domains going to parking pages.

10. 
    nic mitham Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

    hi response to reluca:
    acutally direct search is very important. you only have to look at some of the generic phrase url's and their prices above to realise that. direct search (typing in a generic word.com) is the hidden area of search - it bypasses search engines and hyperlinks.

    ironically, seo and content has created the market for direct search. people are starting to realise that if they go to (purely for example), mortgages.com, then the content on this page will (for them, hopefully) be full of links to mortgage sites or even better a content aggregated site relating to mortgages.

    data on direct search is v hard to come by because it's held mainly by the isp's but in terms of importance, i think 2007 will be a very good year for direct search.

11. 
    Motorcycle Guy Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    I always think its a shame when someone wastes a good domain name. Domains should be like trademarks, if you don't use it, you lose it.

12. 
    Sal Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:32 pm

    It's all a matter how you DEFINE a "developed" site. My definition, from a business perspective, is a site which provides monetery VALUE to its owners. By that definition, a site which makes money to its owner OR provide value to an owner's related business is a developed enterprise.
    PPC - Provides revenu to an owner via paid ads. This is such a simple business that requires no work on the domain owner while at the same time provides great revenues if traffic is there. Many of the sales in that list were meant for the domain to work their income with PPC. This is NOT an accident.
    Redirection - Provides extra traffic to a developed site. That same traffic has value from engines and also value from type ins. This again is not a waste at all.
    Affilaite sites - Definitely developed properties as they do sell items and bring value to the owners.
    So far I've counted 85% used sites. What about the other 9 that aren't resolving?
    Just because they aren't developed on the WWW doesn't mean they are not in use. Maybe the owner use them for email, or FTP? I don't know.
    And those that are under development.. well, development takes time.
    All in all I see a POTENTIAL WASTE of about 15 sites total.

13. 
    RUSS Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    I have to agree with Sal. Only 9 or maybe 15 if you count the "coming soon's" are actually not in use. "PPC search engine" is a legit business use, whether you like it or not. Those 54 names are in use, resolving, and displaying legit web content.

    Tough luck if you don't like capitalism.

14. 
    Ron Jan 15th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    ppc = pay per click

    who parks their domains and runs ppc ads on their sites?

    domainers.

    i think the point of the post is that most high value domain sales we hear about are from domainer to domainer, and not to someone who actually develops the site.

    domaining is a valid business, i have nothing against it but i found it very interesting that people would spend so much money just to show ads. it must be very profitable to do so.

    either that, or some of the domain sale stats are manipulated by domainers (domainer "selling" to domainer, without money actually changing hands) to hype the domain industry.

15. 
    MK Web - Blog » Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    [...] read more | digg story                              Related Posts: [...]

16. 
    John Doe Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    PPC sites should be outlawed.

17. 
    So random it's not funny Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    Who gives a damn if the site is being used for PPC? Google 'prize' and nowhere in the initial listings does is show anything from prize.com. Nobody who has used the internet for more than a year searches for a product by typing it's name in the address bar. People use search engines. So it's not like these simple-name sites have much value other than the fact that they're simple.

    Take for example, beyonce; her website isn't beyonce.com…why not? Probably because someone was squatting it. Is the site hard to find? No…because it's the official site. Domain names like these may be sold for a wad of cash, but really they aren't necessary.

18. 
    smellygirl Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    umm… "so random" - beyonce.com is the OFFICIAL Beyonce fan club site… not exactly a squatter site, huh?

19. 
    Rick Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    My grandmother also owns the 2 lots next to her house.
    And, they are also waterfront property.

    Personally, I think it is a waste.

    I think the gov't should take them away from her since she
    is not using them.

    Nothing annoys me more when I drive up to her house and
    see that empty land.

    I'm sure someone could use it better than leaving it empty.

20. 
    So random it's not funny Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    Poor Example. Point still stands.

21. 
    A.n.other Jan 15th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Common sense says that at these prices if the buyers wanted/needed to develop them they could do. PPC is a choice for them.

    Is a site that lists multiple advertisers related to the keyword of the domain name really of lower utility than a site for a company who doesn't offer/ship to the buyers destination or a site/blog that rehashes existing text as a vehicle to get visitors to their adsense ads?

    If I want to book a trip to a rainforest and I type in amazon.com and get a book site, is that worse than if amazon.com was a site listing companies that offer travel and other amazon related services?

    Theres a real kneejerk reaction going on when it comes to ppc and it seems to be mostly a case of jealousy or "I could do better if I had it" mentality.

22. 
    confused Jan 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    Do these domains actually receive any direct traffic? I can't imagine Internet newbies typing diamond.com instead of entering "diamonds" into Google. And more experienced users wouldn't do that anyway, right? So is it all about branding?

23. 
    So random it's not funny Jan 15th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    It is, but it's a weak branding strategy….take for example a well-known jewelry store; when someone wants to know the website of that specific jewelry store, they would google it, or they would see it on a commercial…or perhaps the domain would be called "[storename]-jewelry.com" or whatever. It simply isn't necessary to buy the "jewelry.com" domain name.

24. 
    adam Jan 15th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    "So it’s not like these simple-name sites have much value other than the fact that they’re simple."

    If they didn't have value, they wouldn't be sold now would they ?

    "Nobody who has used the internet for more than a year searches for a product by typing it’s name in the address bar. "

    Obviously you and user "confused" have some learning to do about domains.

    Do some searching on your beloved search engine on the phrases "direct navigation" , "marchex" or "ultimate search"

    see also
    http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3581646
    and http://www.marketingprofs.com/6/bentley1.asp

25. 
    JJ Jan 15th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    A lot of hating in the comments. I guess it sucks to be an internet geek circa 1995 and not register a few quality generic domains. 11 years later and you are still a cubicle drone, while those who registered the good domains make enough from PPC that they will never have to work for living.

26. 
    joe Jan 15th, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Some of you need to join the 21st century.

    PPC is nothing more than a form of online ads. Why would you want that to be outlawed? That's ludicrous.

    Why would you think that a sale to a "domainer" is not a "real" sale. That also is ludicrous.

    Get real and quit complaining. A guy with a good domain has as much right to place an ad(s) on it as this blog does to place the ezine ad at the top of this page. Or are you saying it's ok for one to place an ad on their blog domain but that it's not ok for a domainer to place an ad on their's using ppc? That's nothing short of silly.

    The funniest thing is that those who are criticizing would probably be the first to register a great generic domain and place ppc ads on it if it were possible today. One would have to be an idiot not to.

27. 
    So random it's not funny Jan 15th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    "If they didn’t have value, they wouldn’t be sold now would they"

    Someone can think that there's nutritional value in consuming their own urine; it doesn't mean that their objectively right in doing so.

    "Using data from more than 30 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites on its HBX Web analytics platform during the last three months of 2005, WebSideStory found that those who navigated directly to a site, either by typing in a URL or using a bookmark, were most likely to convert. The next-best conversion came from users following search engine links, and then other Internet links."

    Bookmarks, I can understand how that would account for most of the direct linking…but to assume that typing in the URL means that the user hasn't visited the company's site before is ludacris; maybe the user hasn't made a bookmark, and they need to type in the url again…maybe they just like typing in the url because it's easy…like digg.com…all I have to do is type digg and hit Ctrl+Enter…would that not account as manually typing in the url?

    It's like somehow knowing where your new friend lives by guessing at their address…you have to know where you're going before you get there….you either ask your friend, (url found on a flyer or on commercial) or you look up your friend's address in the phonebook (search engine).

28. 
    Kevin Jan 15th, 2007 at 9:48 pm

    In the future you'll see more and more of the high end domains being developed into full and robust sites.

    It takes time, investment, and work to build great sites with lots of depth to them.

    Many high traffic type-in domain owners prefer the simplicity of maintaining mostly ppc landing pages.

    They shouldn't be discredited for this business model. It provides a great opportunity for advertisers to reach highly targeted direct navigation traffic which is the strongest converting traffic you'll find.
    And the PPC model provides owners of thousands of domains a way to monetize their portfolio effectively and efficiently.

    Kevin
    BigTicketDomains.com

29. 
    DNSYNDICATE Jan 15th, 2007 at 11:57 pm

    Well said Kevin.

30. 
    cvos Jan 16th, 2007 at 12:36 am

    'm sure Tim Berners Lee cringes every time he sees these top 50 lists. Even though the internet framework is free, domain name real estate definitely isn't.

    Sadly, ust like earthly real estate, the value of these domains will only increase in the coming years.

31. 
    links for 2007-01-16 · Lawsy.net Jan 16th, 2007 at 1:23 am

    [...] Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use "Of the 100 highest-priced domains sold in 2006, only 18 have been developed, 8 redirect to a developed site, 5 are affiliate sites, and 6 are currently under development. 9 domains don’t work at all and a massive 54 show PPC (pay per click) ads." (tags: domain web) [...]

32. 
    adam Jan 16th, 2007 at 2:10 am

    A great lesson in life is that to understand you sometimes need to walk in someone elses shoes. Like I said before I dont think you have a good grasp on domains and how users use the internet. Just because you don't do these things doesnt mean 1/2 the internet population doesn't . You don't seem to believe that people typein domains, as if it's a myth. People go to yahoo and search for google.com . . .pretty stupid aren't they ? You give the average internet user too much credit.

    Typeins come to domains consistently wether you want to believe it or not. No links. No SE listing. Pure typein traffic that click and buy products and convert to users/buyers. Buy a generic quality domain sometime and maybe you'll understand a little better.

33. 
    Dave zan Jan 16th, 2007 at 6:09 am

    Adam said it best here. It's a shame some of you see it differently because of your OWN selfish interests.

    And no, ICANN or any other body isn't going to limit "use" of domain names. I will definitely fight any effort to impose such.

34. 
    Top grossing names for 2006 - DNtalks.Com Jan 16th, 2007 at 11:14 am

    [...] Top grossing names for 2006 What is listed below is a sampling. Whats interesting to note is only 18 of the 100 top grossing names in 2006 are actually developed! Diamond.com $7,500,000.00 Vodka.com $3,000,000.00 Cameras.com $1,500,000.00 NAV.no $717,978.00 On.com $635,000.00 AntiSpyware.com $550,000.00 Macau.com $550,000.00 Gays.com $500,000.00 Wrestling.com $500,000.00 Bike.com $500,000.00 Blue.com $500,000.00 Sex.net $454,500.00 Templates.com $450,000.00 WirelessPhone.com $355,000.00 FunGames.com $350,000.00 Hotels.eu $329,509.00 Jasmin.com $310,250.00 Cafe.com $300,000.00 Blackjack.de $300,000.00 Brown.com $300,000.00 CD.com $277,750.00 POS.com $252,500.00 Malta.com $250,000.00 Link: Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use __________________ http://www.wordshift.com [...]

35. 
    So random it's not funny Jan 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

    I guess I don't live in a city where internet users find stores by typing in the names in the url address bar. I've never met anyone who does that. But fine, I'll concede that there's probably a lot of non-tech savvy internet users out there who don't use google or yahoo or ANY other search engine. It's just that if someone wants to find "Kay Jewelers", it won't help to type "jewelry.com" in the address bar.

36. 
    adam Jan 16th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    Your example of finding a retailer isn't really what I was talking about. If someone is looking for jewelry (generally speaking) online they'd type in jewelry.com not if they were looking for a specific retailer. . . .and if they are looking for jewelry that retailer should WANT to capture that lead thus the value of the domain.

    But since you used the example of looking for Kay Jewelers this is what I believe 10 people looking to find Kay Jewelers would do

    2 will type in kayjewelers.com in the browser

    1 will type in kayjewlers.com in the browser (typo)

    1 will type in kayjewelers.com in a search engine (proof positive here : http://www.iwhois.com/overture/search.php)

    3 will search kay jewelers on google/yahoo/msn

    2 will pick up the phone book and look it up

    1 person will call 411

37. 
    Online Bulletin » Blog Archive » Domain Trend in 2006: PPC Ads Jan 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    [...] If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed.Over at the Daily Domainer they have conducted some very interesting research on the top one hundred domains sold in 2006. They found that 18 of the domains were now developed websites, 8 redirect to a developed website, 5 are affiliate sites, 6 are under development, 9 produce error pages, and 54 display PPC ads. Keep in mind that these numbers only include announced domain sales, and it is possible that other deals occurred privately, but none the less, these numbers are staggering. Lets look at cameras.com for example. It was sold for $1.5 million dollars in November 2006 and is now displaying PPC ads. Now I am sure that cameras.com makes a killing with PPC ads, but how long is it going to take to make that kind of money back? 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? There very well could be bigger plans for the domain in the future, and the owner just has yet to implement those plans on the site, but I would say with confidence that a lot of these domains are going to remained parked with PPC ads for at least a few years. These buyers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in a few cases millions of dollars on these domains, purely out of speculation towards the future. PPC ads may be fine on a domain purchased for $30, or even $1,000, but to risk this much money on the future is just not a gamble I would be willing to take. The bubble burst for domains around 2000 - it is not a question of if - it is a question of when the bubble will burst again. domains, domain parking, domain sales, Industry News, ppcBookmark to: [...]

38. 
    DomiBlog » Archivio » De domainer a domainer Jan 19th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    [...] En Daily Domainers News (DDN) apareció hace unos días una noticia interesantísima: De los 100 dominios dendidos en 2006 por más dinero sólo se han desarrollado 18,otros 8 se han redirigido a un sitio ya desarrollado, 5 son sitios de afiliados, y otros 6 están en construcción. Hay 9 que no apuntan a ninguna web y 54 de ellos están en parking con publicidad PPC (pay per click). [...]

39. 
    Domisfera » Articulo » Los domainers impulsan el mercado de dominios Jan 20th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    [...] Fuente:  DailyDomainer    [...]

40. 
    Domisfera » Articulo » Los domainers impulsan el mercado de dominios (v.2) Jan 20th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    [...] Fuente:  DailyDomainer    [...]

41. 
    RubenCalvo.com » Blog Archive » Los 100 dominios más caros del 2006. Jan 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 am

    [...] Os pongo un listado con las ventas más caras durante el año 2006, visto en DailyDomainer. Es una lista un poco larga ya que incluye los 100 dominios más caros del año: [...]

42. 
    Bryan Corrigan Apr 11th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    Recently This domain was offerd for $25,000.00 U.S. dollars, is that a rasonable offer?

43. 
    Quellensammlung: Domains, Domainnamen, Tools | Dr. Web Weblog May 4th, 2007 at 8:33 am

    [...] Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use Die teuersten Domains aus 2006 und was aus ihnen wurde [...]

44. 
    Domain Tools and Articles about Domain Names | Smashing Magazine Jun 28th, 2007 at 5:51 am

    [...] Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use Die teuersten Domains aus 2006 und was aus ihnen wurde [...]

45. 
    Web Domains: Tools To Use, Articles To Read | Webdesign (css, grafica e altro) Jun 28th, 2007 at 8:25 am

    [...] Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use The most expensive domains registered in 2006 and what they've become in 2007. [...]

46. 
    Virtual Hosting Blog » Domainer Required Reading: 100 Great Blog Posts Nov 29th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

    [...] Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use: This posting from DailyDomainer discusses the reasons behind the lack of use of domain names that were bought or sold last year. [...]

47. 
    Dynasty Feb 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am

    I have to agree with some of the previous posts in that I always type the name of the site I want to look for in google. Maybe most people simply type in the name of the site they want, but it makes it so much easier to just find it by searching for it.

48. 
    abunza Mar 24th, 2008 at 9:13 am

    i agree with you kevin

49. 
    elamiguero.com - hacer amigos Apr 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 am

    This article and the comments are very interesting. Actually I got here because I was looking at the backlinks for amistad.com (above), and it was interesting to read about direct search (I had never thought about it). I was very surprised though at how expensive these domains can be ($100,000 for amistad.com, for example). I also wonder like a reader above if these numbers are a bit inflated. I don't think that a parked page with PPC on amistad.com would give you a ROI that justifies that price.

50. 
    אזרחות פולנית Jul 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    I really how much PPC revenues you can gain from a generic domain… You can check stuff they sell on bido.com and for what prices…. makes you wonder if this domain buying is all worth it?

    Ilan

51. 
    Krispy May 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    So Car (second post)

    By your definition, If I buy a block of land, and do nothing with it, just wait for the capital value to grow, It should be taken off me?

    hmmm… fuzzy logic methinks..

52. 
    losangeles.no - NamePros.com May 2nd, 2010 at 10:36 am

    [...] Guys What do you think of losangeles.no? nav.no was sold for $717978 in a private transaction Only 30% Of Top Domains Sold In 2006 Actually In Use [...]

53. 
    verus125 May 13th, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    I have to agree with some of the previous posts in that I always type the name of the site I want to look for in google. Maybe most people simply type in the name of the site they want, but it makes it so much easier to just find it by searching for it.
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54. 
    ugg online Jun 21st, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    Fine day,I am happy to read this web.

55. 
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