I’m sure this will piss off a whole group of folks who invest in .US domains, but looking through the Snapnames.com .US domain auction closing tomorrow , July 8th at 3:15pm, I couldn’t help but notice that Slots.Us is at auction with a reserve of $58,830 or roughly 1% of what the .com just sold for, or just over 25% of what Slots.ca just sold for.
Candy.US is another domain for sale in this auction with a reserve price of just over $14K.
We all know the Domain King sold Candy.com for $3M, making the .US domain available for just 1/2 of 1% of the .com price.
And neither slots.us or candy.us may sell.
So when your looking at other lower priced .US domains, what exactly is the upside?
The fact that an identical .Ca domain sold for 4x what the owner of Slots.Us would be happy selling his domain for says a lot about the extension especially considering the population of the United States is about 10X more than Canada.
It’s certainly not a “new” extension and if it couldn’t make it in the universe of competing with 21 TLD’s and a less than 200 ccTLD’s how it is going to bloom once there are 500 TLD’s and 200 ccTLD’s?
So for all of you .US investors tell me what is upside to this extension?
Leonard Britt says
No doubt there are developers doing well with .US but I don’t believe there is a strong aftermarket for .US domains. I know of another domainer who sold a .US domain to an end user for mid $XXX but I am not a fan of the extension and currently hold zero .US domains.
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.COM ::::: says
.us 1% of a .com?
maybe, but, surely, not if it’s a very USA-related .us domain (well, I hope it… 🙂 )
Acro says
The Candy/Slots sales were essentially end-user sales, achieved through a lengthy negotiation. Auctions that no end-users participate in, leave the domains at the “mercy” of fellow domainers and their smaller budgets.
Andrew says
I’ve always found it challenging to look at ratios between domain extensions. Slots.us isn’t a good domain right now since online gambling is illegal in the US. (not sure about Canada). If that changes it might be worth more.
Steve says
.US is a sleeping giant that was once reserved for government use.
Most non-domainers don’t seem to know it’s now available to the public. A lot of people don’t even know .US exists.
It is sad to see the country code for the United States lag so far behind the rest of the cctld pack. Looks like those of us who speculate in .US will have a long wait.
Some will say that it’s not Neustar’s job to promote the extension. But, some good promotion and branding sure couldn’t hurt!
.US is patriotic and it does have a certain “coolness factor”.
I can’t help but root for it …despite the dismal aftermarket.
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.COM ::::: says
do you know the best price paid for an .us so far?
Acro says
Good point by Andrew on the Slots.us case, however how does this apply to other domains in the .us extension? The most I’ve sold a .US domain for was $300 and the most I spent was $500. Overall, it’s a hit or miss ccTLD that assumes the unfortunate role of being a life-time “prince” in the land where .com is the “king”.
Steven says
Mike,
I am .US investor and not trying to get anyone to invest in the space. I LOVE the fact that most domainers hate .US which creates more opportunity.
Your examples of candy.us and Slots.us are extremely misleading to use those as examples. I agree that the most anyone should use for a buying valuation is 1% of the .com value. However, we are domain investors and comparing an end user sale to a domainer auction is not a fair comparison and extremely misleading.
So, now looking at a more broad approach. The .US extension is somewhat unique in the fact that it is a CCTLD that has not been adopted by its own countrymen while being used alot more by countries who use and understand CCTLDS. There is no doubt the world is becoming global and even though the US is dominant today, will it be in 5, 10 or 15 years?
Another factor is ICANN….what happens when the United Nations gets control. Then everyone won’t trust it and will want to be on a .us. Not likely but you never know and that could move the needle overnight.
I would make the argument that those .US names are worth less because the other names sold to end users and will be used for real development amd would be hard to compete against.
Lets look at an example of opportunity cost. You spent 75K on several dating .me names which IMO have limited use based on the current industry and competition. What is the real possibility of those sites ever becoming profitable sites?
Take that same 75K and you could buy at least 10, maybe 100 .US names that could be built into quality money producing sites with ease. I did not say buy the names and do nothing with them. That is not how you make money with .us names.
Do they have traffic? The answer is VERY little but who cares. If you put up a site knowing that the .com is a parked page, the .US will rank very well and carry the similiar keyword weight in the search engines.
The fact that domainers do not invest in .US and registrations are still growing is a positive sign. It is never going to replace .com. I think it will ultimately become the second option similiar to what .net is right now.
Other things to consider, people are using .us and it is growing steadily and many good names still exist which gives people quality choices unlike with .com names that would require investment from people who do not understand the value proposition of a domain name.
I think as the new extensions come out it will only help the growth of .US and not water it down.
The question then comes down too the following.
If you buy a .com with no intention of developing it for 10K today, how much will it be worth in 3, 5, and 10 years? What is the max upside and max downside?
Take that same investment of a .US name and your standard deviation is much greater and you can make alot more money. My goal is to see .US values go from 1% to 5% which I think is very reasonable.
It is like any good stock portfolio.
You have blue chips(.com)
You have internation exposure (CCTLD)
Then you have your speculative stuff like
.me
.timewilltell
.pigeonshit
and then you try to find that next apple that will be a 10 bagger and have a HUGE ROI
which is what I consider .US….good risk VS return.
Plus, for a developer to buy a high quality .com, he needs capital. To acquire and develop a quality .US name is very cheap and still make some good money.
Ultimately, if you want to invest in .us be prepared to develop or really work to generate sales. I think the reason most people do not invest in .US is because they like the easy money of traffic and do not get the development or SEO value of a names to extract the true value.
Acro says
Not sure if you’re aware of the fact that Yahoo ranks .us domains (and .biz for that matter) as of low quality. Parked.com tags them on Yahoo’s behalf as “Quality Block” and the ads appearing on .US domains aren’t from the higher paying Yahoo feed.
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.COM ::::: says
.
I own the useful BreakingNewsBlog.us
.
Steve says
I’m guessing that Yahoo!, Parked and SmartName slap .US with their “Quality Block” because a lot of .US traffic seems to come from outside the United States.
Logix says
Will be interesting to see the final results..
.US might not have reached its full potential yet, but there are some great keyword domains in there – ripe for development.
To me, single word domains – eg candy.us or slots.us – actually sound a lot more prestigious than ‘multiple-word.com’ ..
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.US ::::: says
“a lot of .US traffic seems to come from outside the United States”
it could be related to economy
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.US ::::: says
“might not have reached its full potential yet”
I think that .us needs a few very successful websites (something like an eBay.us) to see its use, its value and its market to explode
Logix says
There looks to be some pretty decent sales over the last few weeks at Sedo , so the headline might be premature – after all, most bidding takes place in the last few minutes..
countrymusic.us – $5000
onlinecasinos.us – $9999
stevie says
to put it in seimple terms,
slots.com and candy.com both were earning lets say 15k easilly per month, probably more for both,
so round that off to 150K a year
they were not just domains, they were business without an actuall business behind them if that makes sense,
if slots.us was earning 150k ayear and slots.com 150k a year,
you would have to slpit the differance,thats the only way to gage the % not the way you are now,
you cant compare slots.com to slots.us price as stated above.
it’s like comparing a plot of land in manhattan to a tower block on the same corner 🙂
1 sells for 1,000,000 the other sells for 20,000,000 there on the same block right next to each other, ut the higher priced 1 has something of greater value then the lower priced 1.
That makes sense right ? 🙂
of an investment of $1150 in .us i made $6300 (in 4 weeks) total 3 names 1 website. , there is money to be made 🙂
MHB says
Logix
So you are calling me a “premature evaluator.”
MHB says
Steve
.Me is less than 2 years old.
.Co isn’t even born yet.
If a country with 330 Million people haven’t caught on to the extension in 10 years, I just don’t see what is going to spark interest now, especially with 500 or more gTLD coming on the market to compete
MHB says
Steive
To put it in simple terms, .US domain don’t have any type in traffic period.
This limits their value to as I said just a fraction of a .com and 1% if anything was generous.
I’m sure there is money to be made in .us but its very limited where for .com the upside is really unlimited
You hand reg a domain like camroulette.com that sells in the same year for $151K.
That’s the difference.
NootkaBear says
Does anyone here know what is going on with the case John Zuccarini filed against NSI?
MHB says
Yes he sent me an email overnight with suit he filed.
Domainnamewire.com posted a copy of it
Aggro says
Truth is, once there is a *proper* developed site on the .com with major marketing behind it, it makes the other extns (including .US) far less desirable to a potential end user with deep pockets.
The extns other than .com become toxic to other developers who know whatever they create on the alternative extn will likely bleed traffic to the better known .com
Sure, there might be the odd end user sale up to $2000 in .US – and thats for a TOP KEYWORD – but for the most part outside the top keywords, they will only ever be traded among domainers like baseball cards.
ojohn says
“If A .US Domain At Best Is Only Worth 1% of a .Com and 25% Of A .CA Why Bother?”
Perhaps someone who has already managed to establish a portfolio of .com domains need not to bother with .US 🙂 , but for all those domainers (and small businesses alike) who have been locked out of the high priced .com domains .US can provide an affordable alternative that they can identify with and take pride in without feeling that they had to settle for a second rate domain. Although not too many regular people currently know about .US , but over time and with a little promotion it could gain more of a market share as more people become aware of this extension and learn more about the advantages that it could have for them over other TLDs.
Its obvious that at the present time .US can not compete with some of those million dollar .com domains, but better quality .US domains might be able to attract all those people and businesses who have been stuck with third and forth tier .coms up to now (we all know an awkward looking .com domain when we see one 🙂 ).
Carla says
I am a CCTLD investor, mainly in .ws, .tv and .cc keyword domains. I think that the .us domains are well underestimated. If I was investing in .us domains I would definitely pay $60K to buy it. On the other hand I would easily pay $10K for slots.ws/.tv/.cc.
Bryan says
IMO .US is the strongest investment in the aftermarket at this point.
Keyword domains are a strong SEO play for development now. As a pure domaining investment I think it’s a longer term play.
If you look at all the other major ccTLDs (primary ccTLD extensions) out there they have all caught on at different rates but they are all popular.
.US is lagging but I think it will eventually come along. The problem is various issues that set the extension back right out of the gate.
1) Very poor exposure from launch
2) Massive landgrab by domainers
3) Few end users own the good domains, so there is little development
The lack of development over the years is the main problem. I feel that the extension will catch on as more domains are developed for the general public to view. Exposure = Acceptance. It is going to require lower aftermarket prices for these domains to change hands to end users so I feel this is a good thing and a great opportunity. If you look at it from the perspective of a US business .US is the next best option to .COM. It is very relevant and isn’t really giving anything up long term to .net. It is taking longer to play out than most ccTLDs because of the unique setbacks from the start but .US is no .Mobi.
James says
It’s always been a mystery to me why .us has not caught on, with the USA being such a patriotic country.
One thing that may count against it though; the restrictions to non US entities owning them. I’m in the UK, and have bought a few and sold them as soon as I could. Just looked up the two best sales, one for $1250 and the other approx $400 – both sold about two years ago – neither resolve at present.
If the restrictions were taken away, I could see a movement in price, after all, the ‘domainer market’ underwrites values at the top (end users) for .com – there just isn’t much of a domainer market for .us as things stand.
M. Menius says
Let’s clear up some misinformation here. .US and .biz are not punished or excluded from high ranking in Yahoo search results or in advertiser feeds. There is no categorical devaluing of these extensions.
Next, the “top end user sale of $2000 even for the best keywords” is an asinine comment. Aggro must not have a clue.
Known aftermarket sales among domainers is not a sole indication of a tld’s acceptance or value. Real use in the business world is such an indication, and .US has a substantial internet footprint that will not (and has not been) easily overcome by newcomer tld’s.
I agree that natural traffic to the .com is a substantial asset (which makes landing pages/PPC very good for .com domains). Bleed to the .com is real though somewhat exaggerated as represented here in the posts.
The claimed ratio of 100:1 (.com to .us value) is very loose math, and supposes lots of constants where many variables actually exist. To claim that a $1,000,000 .com domain corresponds exactly with a $10,000 .us value for the same keyword is wild guessing. No such ratio exists. The valuation is very unique to the domain name involved, its industry focus, and the particular needs of the buyer & seller. The .US value is not magically tied to some arbitrary 100:1 ratio.
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.US ::::: says
why don’t buy a (good) .us domain for (e.g.) $3 million to promote this TLD and increase its value???
Snoopy says
The problem as I see it is .us has no clear market. The country code of the US in any practical sense is .com, so you have .us as an alt extension. As far as alternate extensions though there is plenty of choice with the end result being a weak market comparable to .biz/.info/.eu/.tv etc as opposed to mainstream cctlds like .co.uk or .de. I personally don’t see this ever changing, there is just no momentum behind it or compelling reason for endusers to get involved.
Jason says
I own Pier39.us, multidimensional.us, animationprograms.us, cakedecorations.us, businessleadership.us, eINS.us, elitist.us, graduateloans.us, hauntedplaces.us, howi.us, iQuotes.us, loanlender.us, manbags.us, managerialaccounting.us, qwertykeyboard.us, solanocounty.us, and a handful more.
I stopped purchasing .us after I failed to push Pier39.us to a company who purchased my .info. I invested a week in calling various businesses in San Francisco. I still think it’s a great domain with a specific keyword of a popular tourist location.
I have better luck pushing .com domains. I don’t think I’ll even look or consider buying another .us until I sell one. My philosophy is to invest in the extension that generates the most interest. I struck out trying to sell autocollisionrepair.net many times to auto shops. Instead, I’m always offered a job.
The .us is good. You just have to put work into developing them. Traffic is the key.
::::: VERYEASYDOLLARS.US ::::: says
“The problem as I see it is .us has no clear market.”
clearly, the .us market is about everything related ONLY to USA like (e.g.) cities, states, shops, currency, news from or about USA, etc.
there are many good ideas to use and promote the .us domain
jeffcool says
I am not a US resident, so I cannot buy .us names, but if I was I would buy just 10-20 great names at sacrified prices (i.e. < $300 as it use to happen at GoDaddy expiring auctions) and keep them a few years just in case the giant wakes up…
I cannot understand how the "Made in US" tag can be so valuable while the .us domains can be so underestimated.
CcTld is the "country made" tag for internet websites and this is why cctlds are becoming so popular (in the internet globalized world some people like to know they are dealing with a country-specific company/service and not an obscure bahamas holding).
So I believe one day or another, somehow, some people will reveal the .us gold mine. This can be started by a small event.
Imagine that 2-3 big US companies chose to base their advertizing and communication for new products/services on .us memorable website names. This can change everything.
And maybe the new deregulated ICANN tlds profusion and confusion will not only reenforce .com .net .org "majors" but lead to a new start for the .us as a credible reference in the jungle of tlds.
Andrew Douglas says
Development. That’s why I invest in .US. Mike, let’s take the example of Cockrings(.)com – which as far as I can tell you own. How much would you sell that domain for to an end user? $30k? $50k? How much does it earn parked? I hand reg’d Cockrings(.)us, put a simple DevHub site up (literally less than an hour) and I’m now ranked 2nd at Yahoo and it’s getting anywhere from 30-50 uniques a day. I’m not proud of the revenue or the site design or the seo, but I think it shows that even with minimal development a .US has revenue potential, potential to rank for even competitive terms and as a developer, I can acquire great keywords everywhere I look.
One serious issue, and I won’t lie, is liquidation prices on .US – if the sites I haven’t developed yet needed to be liquidated, it’d be difficult to be made whole, but my cost of acquisition is so low that it’s unlikely that I would be put in that position where as a .COM investor has to front some serious cash to get in the game. That might be why you don’t see .US investors jumping all over 5 figure names like candy.us. But it’s honestly not much different than .COM investors. If you had to sell Cockrings(.)com today and today only, you could probably get $5k-$10k. That price spread is what scares the bejeebies out of me.
Bill says
The idea that .com is essentially the US domain is a bit provincial. Plenty of .com domains represent entities in other countries, and many of those don’t have a word of English on them. This will only increase, as .com becomes increasingly multinational (or stateless, depending on your view).
Also, as Americans are forced by economic necessity and dwindling influence to pay more attention to the outside world, they will become much more aware of the role of ccTLDs.
And between those two is the incipient market for .us domains.
As others have said though, this is not a TLD to be flipped for quick profit. It is an investment/speculation. Assuming the whole apple cart of domains isn’t otherwise upset, I see no alternative but for .us to grow.
Henry says
The .us domains do have type in traffic!! I know because I own Mp3.us and it has 25 to 50 UV per day. I also own Computers.us , WallStreet.us and Soccer.us which all have good type in traffic with 60 to 70% U. S. treaffic.
Andrew Douglas says
Henry, you make me jealous. Great names!
Hawaiian Shirt Guy says
Nutshell : .US is for end users, .COM is for speculators.
In the United States, our de-facto country code is .COM. In other parts of the world and for various reasons, the populace has functionally accepted their respective country codes.
It may be nationalistic pride in France for .FR, the importance of working with a local source on an isolated continent for .CO.AU, people fed up with the lack of available .COM, linguistics, or offhand anti-americanism.
In other parts of the world, if a CC is used for a quality site, is registered within that country, hosted within that country, presented in the native language, is externally optimized within that country, it will rank well within that country’s search engine (ie, Google.Co.UK).
An example of a CC’s acceptance is the .DE country code for Germany, which has solid intrinsic and sales value because it is recognized and used.
Some thoughts on .US ::
:: If the general US populace started using .US as a type in (I actually do), the value of .COM might fall and .US would surely increase. I can see reasons both for and against this happening.
:: .US is for developers, .COM is for speculators. If you are putting up a site to actually be a productive binary citizen, one that will actually be a site to keep and not simply to monetize or flip, .US is a solid choice.
:: .US will never overreach .COM. in the USA. With that said, it will gain value over time as its use gains traction over time. External factors will also come in to play.
:: .US is a great choice for geo domains. If you have such a domain HOLD ONTO IT.
:: On one level the aftermarket for .US more accurately reflects the actual working value of that domain. .COM suffers from a ‘housing bubble’ that to some unknown extent has been artificially created by a few masterful showmen. While not used alike, all domains function alike, with the perceived increased .COM value being ‘common knowledge’…. and we all know how accurate and substantive common knowledge is!
The argument is present URL resale value, traffic value, and hoped-for future URL value. The first and the last are fiat-based and are held up by expectations alone. Dot COM prices are only real because we all agree they are real. The traffic value would change with an increase of usage with any non dot com extension.
@Arco says that .US is penalized by Yahoo. Was wondering if there is a source? I had heard scuttlebut that it was treated the same way as a .COM within the parameters of being a site within the USA. The latter makes more sense to me.
Snoopy says
“The idea that .com is essentially the US domain is a bit provincial. Plenty of .com domains represent entities in other countries, and many of those don’t have a word of English on them. This will only increase, as .com becomes increasingly multinational (or stateless, depending on your view).”
////////////////
Right, but one of its (.com’s) roles is as the country code of the United states.
Snoopy says
The .us domains do have type in traffic!! I know because I own Mp3.us and it has 25 to 50 UV per day. I also own Computers.us , WallStreet.us and Soccer.us which all have good type in traffic with 60 to 70% U. S. treaffic.
////////////////////
60-70%? That is an odd statistic. Are you sure bots are being screened out?
Logan says
Please do not buy .us domain names in the aftermarket — I’m trying to buy them as cheaply as possible and don’t want any competition from domainers looking for a ‘quick flip’. 😉
When it comes to SEO, .us gets the same respect from Google as .com, .net. or .org. It all comes down to having relevant content for the keywords used by the consumer completing the search. Morgan Linton has several examples at his LintonInvestments.com website of him using .us to get traffic and revenue from .us domain names and SEO. You have to develop and add more value, yes, but .us works for generating revenue just like any other TLD. And, you get the added marketability of “US” to American consumers — MUCH better than .ws, .cc, .biz, .info, or dare I say sometimes even .net or .org. “US” has emotional meaning to American consumers; these other TLDs don’t have that.
Cheap Insurance Quotes anyone? http://CheapInsuranceQuotes.us 🙂
domo sapiens says
mp3.us
strange Alexa doesn’t pick any signs of life.
Site Information for mp3.us Alexa Traffic Rank: No Data
Johnnie says
First, I’ve always thought it’s best to actually wait for an auction to be over before making a judgement on it, since many wait till the last minutes to make a bid. If there is a domain I’m interested in, I’m not showing my cards early.
As far as .US sales, I have 31 over $10,000 on my spreadsheet. Sextoys $51,000, video $75,000.
As far as SEO and search engines, they work great. There are plenty of examples you can find with nice built out .US sites ranking on page 1 for the terms they were targetting and even better if you’re in the U.S. with a U.S. market with all the talk about local search.
Kellie says
Let me say this loud and clear. End users LOVE that they can get the domain they want in .US.
I’m working with a top tier web hosting company who until about a month and a half ago relegated .us to a ccTLD add-on. I switched that to being in the regular registration path and registration rates increased 600%.
The extension is only *really* eight years old. Which means that a lot of end users in the game today already had invested in their .com. They aren’t going to switch to a .us. other ccTLDs came online long before .us was made available to the US. That’s part of it too.
There have been strong .us sales:
Taxi.us – $35,000
Baseball.us – $25k
Job.us – $35k
CheapCars.us – $10k
Miami.us – $15k
Courses.us – $12.5k
Sextoys.us – $51k
Video.us – $75k
What the .us extension does not get the benefit from is the speculative branding opportunities. I don’t think the .us space will ever be home to blockbuster sales of 4letter domains or random nonsensical domains. But who knows?
domo sapiens says
Kellie permalink
Let me say this loud and clear. End users LOVE that they can get the domain they want in .US.
******
I tried only 2 of the examples
taxi.us and it goes to a godaddy crappie page
miami.us goes to bing.com
Exactly what end-users are you talking about…?
BTW: those are stone age’ sales to what it appears to me domainers….
Greg Slaughterbeck says
I enjoy finding names that I can actually afford to purchase and that is why I like .us domains. I also have been able to make some money off of the names I have sold.
CAYMANISLANDS.US, COINMACHINES.US, ZACH.US, PINBALLMACHINE.US, PINBALLMACHINES.US, AIRHOCKEY.US, INSULIN.US and APHRODISIAC.US are just a few of the names that are dropping today. These names would simply cost too much if they were dot coms, as it is I may be able to get one or two of these names for my budget.
And I will be able to sell them for a nice profit.
domo sapiens says
Greater fool’ sales at best.
Ho Hum.
All we need is somebody to mention the volvo.us example he he
aside for people posting their own urls (borderline spamming if you ask me)
Good luck and good nite. (you need it)
Kellie says
domo – I never said those sales were end user. Two separate paragraphs, two separate thoughts.
stone age? ok, so we can disallow any .com valuations based on sales that happened before 2008. Awesome. Hello bargain shopping, here I come!
Domain Report says
If I could buy some .us domains I would, I think it will eventually pick up over time as .com’s get taken or become out of reach to people without a .com budget. I would buy .us domains with strong keywords in areas I already market in, or that I could build a profitable webpage for. I don’t think I would buy a bunch just to park. Can’t buy them now because I’m not American.
NootkaBear says
MHB,
Yes I did see that it was posted on domainnamewire.com That is where I finally found it. Thanks!
Henry says
The Mp3.us was in Trafficz parked pages for over two years and was showing up in Alexia, was getting 25 to 50 UV per day, but I just forward it to a new website called MiracleMile.com a GEO domain. But I will turn it back to a landing page next week.
I also see type in traffic on my Reservations.us, HomeRun.us, OilPaintings.us, Paintings.us, Relief.us, and Shirt.us. Not as much as Mp3.us, WallStreet.us and Soccer.us. I have had so many offers for Soccer.us in the last 6 months, but I am going to hold on.
Guys I am a .com guy and own over 1,000 .com’s. I do think that the .com is NOT the U. S. but a bigger tld, a world wide tld. I also think that if you are a U. S. company you need to own the .us, for that small amount of money it just does not make sense to have so much money value in your comapny an not own the .us domain. Also the .com can be used for the world market and the .us linked right to the U. S. market.
Jason says
Ehow uses the .us to point tragic to their .com. In regards to spamming, I don’t see how listing a few domain names qualify as spamming. One commentor requested others to list their .us domains.
Essentially, the discussion is on the .us extension. As of right now, the .us seems to generate interest on Sedo. They consistently move .us domains. I prefer to disregard the .us, and don’t plan to acquire the extension no matter what the domain name is available.
Jason says
The .com always sells for much higher than its worth. It is the preferred brand. Slots.com is only worth $5 million to the company that acquired the domain. I’m sure a few others would have paid a similar amount.
Even the .org domains such as blackjack and poker have sold for large amounts. A company purchased the .info version of coupons to forward traffic to their coupon website. Every company has their own strategy as to how they want to advertise their product and services.
Mr. Joe Saladino says
YOU CANNOT go by what was or whatever! A domin is worth what the EYES and MIND of the beholder wants it to be. For instance I think slots.us is worth MUCH more then $58,000!!! If I needed a slots domain and had was a decent sized company personally I would pay $250,000 or more for this! SO PEOPLE STOP this BS about this domain sold for this and that which make this worth that and this! BS! I say to the DOMAIN INVESTOR WORLD stops treating yourself like a CHEAP BIMB! Raise the stakes EVERYONE should and the value will increase! As long as we still have YOYO fools selling for pocket change we will face this NONSENSE!
Logix says
“premature evaluator” , lol !!
Looks like flights.us has a bid at $12,270.
I would expect some of the others to shoot up in the last few minutes..
I think the comments about DEVELOPMENT are right on the money.
If this was the .com that would be a million dollar domain – and most names like that will never come on the market.
Obviously type-ins are a lot lower than the dot-coms, but as standalone names for developed sites, I still think the best dot-US domains seem far more impressive than multipleword dot-coms, and far more credible than other alternative extensions such as .biz
Hoping to sneak in at the last minute for one I have my eye on..
P5D says
Gah, I was keeping an eye on vegashotels.us but it’s shot up over a grand in the last few minutes. Good luck to whoever ends up with it.
Andrew Douglas says
vegashotels was a good one. I had a bid in for debtconsolidation but it went over my limit. Best of luck to the winners!
Louise says
Neustar leads in security, so it might be nice to own a handful .us/.biz just in case .com/.net goes belly up, due to Verisign’s destructive greed.
James Barclay says
In my humble opinion, .US has been flatlining for the last 3/4 years.
You can measure it by the level of interest by domainers on all the main forums and by the availability of two word combination names available.
Even .TV has overtaken .US if the yardstick to measure this by would be unavailable .tvs VS available .US.
I own a number of good keyword .US names. Never had an offer in the last four years on any of them. Not a peep.
So to answer Mikes question whats the upside to owning a .US – the answer is that there is very little downside available. So the only way is up…baby…
shahram says
well im happy with what i picked up. I think the .us ccTLD is a sleeping giant. I only have a few but with the ones i do are very short and brandable. If its a domain hack, then even better for branding. Sadly americans see the .com as the US TLD.
M. Menius says
@James Barclay – Flatlining for 3/4 years? No.
Between Feb 2009 and July 2010, the .US address has added 338,764 new registrations. That is a 24.4% increase in less than 1.5 years. To the contrary, .US is gaining in adoption.
MHB says
Here are the official results of the Snapnames.com Auction of .US domains:
Total: $42,127
flights.us $11,770.00
airlinetickets.us $3,600.00
creditreports.us $3,600.00
psychics.us $2,915.00
gadgets.us $2,050.00
dayspas.us $1,756.00
debtconsolidation.us $1,600.00
vegashotels.us $1,551.00
therapists.us $1,280.00
personalloans.us $1,265.00
detox.us $1,230.00
carpenter.us $1,180.00
now.us $1,050.00
upgrade.us $890.00
recalls.us $605.00
scooters.us $600.00
luxuryhotels.us $590.00
surveillance.us $590.00
eagle.us $480.00
abs.us $400.00
giant.us $375.00
amo.us $325.00
login.us $325.00
collegeeducation.us $300.00
flushots.us $300.00
heatingandair.us $300.00
seat.us $300.00
spamblocker.us $300.00
weightlosspills.us $300.00
wirelessprinters.us $300.00
Neither Slots.US or Candy.US sold
shahram says
Whats the point of reposting some of the lower ones when domainers are trying to sell them for a decent price?
MHB says
Shahram
These are the actual selling prices of the domains from this auction.
Not sure what you are talking about “reposting some of the lower ones”
shahram says
I know. Its just that your site has good SEO. I hate it when youre trying to sell a domain and someone shows you a post of the auctioned amount. So i can see posting the sold amount for the Higher priced domains. As for the ones 1k and under really dont need to be mentioned.
MHB says
Shahram
This info came from Moniker, it is official and it will be released by them shortly to all news sources
MHB says
To add insult to injury the domain Webcam.us sold today on Sedo.com for $1,500 while the .com sold for $1M over a year ago.
As i said not sure what the upside is on these domains, but with limited resources to go around not sure this is the best place to invest
http://sedo.com/auction/auction_history.php?language=us&auction_id=102902&tracked=&partnerid=26309&language=us
Logan says
I agree! Do NOT invest in .us — just let all your .us domain names expire. Thank you!
James Barclay says
@sharam – why would you hate official results being published? The market has spoken and the market is what it is.
If you try and sell a domain, instead of trying to cover up the market value and to an extent – pull the wool over the eyes of a potential buyer – try selling them on the potential of the extension, rather than its existing value.
shahram says
I dont consider auction results fair market value. Savvy Buyers know where to look and the first to invest. I dont mind official results being published if they sold for a much greater market value. What would strike your interest more? a Domain i sold for $500 or a domain that went for 15k?
M. Menius says
@MHB – “not sure what the upside is on these domains”
Mike, I can hardly believe what I’m reading. You seem to have chosen to take a very narrow view for a guy that I thought had a broad view on opportunity and domain market evolution. Sadly for me, your post and position is decidedly anti .US. I never had you in the .com “purist” category.
Is it .US (in particular) that you don’t like, or all the non-com extensions? If it’s just .US in particular, how do you justify being such an advocate for .me at the exclusion of other more successful tld’s?
John A. says
I agree with Shahram, Americans see .com as the U.S. country code.
I think the mistake many domainers are making is looking at things from a domainer point of view. You must look at things from a consumer point of view because they are the ones who will ultimately decide the success of an extension.
The extensions I feel are worthless are .us, .tel, .travel and .aero. The extensions I feel will be losing ground are .org and .net. These last two extensions are good for reselling purposes because they do carry higher resell prices than most extensions.
The .com extension in my view is the 800 pound guerilla. But it too is losing ground abroad to country codes. It will remain the 800 pound guerilla in America.
Although I believe country codes are the best choice overall for coutries around the world, I feel that the U.S. is in a unique situation. We were the first country to use the internet; the .com extension is deeply ingrained in the psyche of Americans.
I want you all to look at the following website:
http://www.DailyDomains.com
Look at the total number of domains registered under each extension. You can clearly see that with 88 million domains registered, .com is the undisputed winner. If you look at .net and .org and .info, things get deceptive. This is because .com, .net and .org came out 16 years before .info. having said that, .info is exploding in growth compared to .net and .org.
Finally lets look at .biz and .us. These two extensions came out 6 months after .info (September 2001) and as you can see they are faring very poorly companred to the .info extension. From January 1, 2010 to July 1, 2010, 1.1 million additional .info domains were registered. Don’t shoot me, the messanger, look for yourself.
The .us extension is worthless.
disappointed says
Shahram,
You are basically saying you are a lowballer so you can flip the domain for a huge profit.
Andrew Douglas says
You’d rather he pay top dollar and sell for a slim margin? I don’t think we should be ashamed of what we paid for a domain nor do I think it should have any bearing on the price we charge.
Barry says
Mike here is a future vision of the internet, which will continue to grow, independent of .com or new commercial gTLDs.
http://bytelevel.com/map/images/ccTLD_1000_shadow.jpg.
Dot-com is still sold out, internet is still growing, and not everyone knows a Rick or Monte:)
Also seems to me the more TLDs there are, the more .US makes sense for those in the US, not the other way around.
MHB says
Max
I’m negative on the .US extension.
You ask how can I be bullish on .Me while negative on .US.
Several reasons.
.Me is less than 2 years old.
The jury is out.
Not enough time has passed to see where it will go so it has potential.
Of course its a new extension and it could ultimately flop, but that’s more of a risk reward question.
.US has been out for a LONG time and has not enjoyed success either in the domain aftermarket nor in saturation of use.
.Me is less of a ccTLD, and more of a hack, which is a whole different ballgame.
“a broad view on opportunity and domain market evolution”
I can have this and still not like .US
Sathees Navaratnam says
People, The .us is low laid due to US adopt .com as there ccTLD. But, if you think how the web is transforming the ccTLD will rule later. At that time .us will be sold for more than .com.
I bet on it and my advise to the .US owners is to hold them. It is a long term investment!
Have fun . . .
LS Morgan says
The answer to all of this is actually pretty straight-forward.
For names like Slots or Poker or Forex or other category killing, one or two word .com generics with keywords relevant to highly lucrative affiliate programs- that probably get a shitload of type-in traffic- it’s not hard to understand why those names bring those prices. Because they earn. A lot. Obviously, .us names don’t get type-ins.
Ya know, ‘domainers’, for whatever savviness they might posses, are often times some of the most hilariously clueless monkeys I’ve ever encountered. They own these domain names, but in so many cases, don’t understand shit about how the internet works, how websites work, how search engines work, how people are apt to consume online, etc… All of these factors and many, many more are immensely relevant to the discussions they have (or try to have), yet they focus on only the shallowest and most ephemeral dynamics, usually related to the domain name alone and ignoring everything else… It’s like discussing a new car but only talking about the knobs on the radio.
My interest in .us comes from development and how it performs in search, period. I’ve been using them for a while, had fantastic success with them. I don’t care what ‘domainers’ think about them. In the year 2010, ‘domainers’ are only relevant to each other anyway. If you were focusing on domains in 1995, you were way ahead of the curve. If you’re focusing on domains in 2010, you’re watching the pack from behind as they rapidly disappear over the horizon.
If my developed .us names stop performing- if they’re disadvantaged in the engines and people stop clicking, buying or whatever- I’ll be sure to report back. In the meantime, I wouldn’t mind- at all- if they’re left alone by ‘domainers’.
To be certain, buying some category-killing one-word .us name is going to be nigh impossible to rank for, without a ten year soak and an epic marketing budget, but for other phrases? Well, I’m getting too close to teaching the monkeys about fire, so I’ll just shut up now…
LS Morgan says
Oh, and let me just caveat to the above- .us is not .com, nor will it ever be. There isn’t an undeveloped .us name I own that I wouldn’t instantly trade for those same keywords in .com… however, if you believe search engines will remain relevant in the years to come, well, again… I’ll just shut up now. You all think whatever you want and pat yourself on the back for earning nickels and dimes with parked .com names while I earn fives and tens with developed ccTLDs.
MHB says
LS
For a domain investor I don’t think .us will ever be a .ca much less a . Com
Aggro says
We’ve all seen this movie before.
A bunch of .US “investors” sit on their a$$es all day long “talking their book”, posting on every domain blog/forum WHILE they WAIT for OTHER deep pocketed end users to spend heavily marketing to make it a success & to ‘lift all boats’ in .US…and in turn their 100 .US “portfolio.
I think it’s safe to say that the typical heavy .US “investor” is a johnny-cum-lately get-rich-quick type with a net worth of < $10,000.
Then when they make a 4 fig sale they brag about the awesome ROI %…neglecting to mention the other 99% that never get inquiries. Not a sniff.
The sad thing is if & when any .US site becomes wildly popular the owners then decide they need to acquire the .COM…which defeats the object of the exercise.
Now, where were the pikers on this board to pay $58,000 for slots.us or ???
Yup, all talk & no money. They've decided with their wallets.
As is usual, nearly every .US "investor" is a SELLER who has tons of inventory to sell (you lot will all have received recent email spam from certain large .US owners wanting to "let things go").
As for those .US domainer BUYERS they are pikers, wanting to pay less than < $500 for TOP KEYWORDS.
All talk, no action
Steve says
Once the industry finally evloves beyond Wholesale Domainer Auctions at Wholesale Domainer Prices and large cap end users become commonplace, the country codes should start lining up right behind .com.
It stands to reason that .US will wind up in the upper ranks of that hierarchy.
It’s long term …we may all have gray hair by then.
Steve says
The Future:
.COM
.DE
.CN
.US
.UK
.CA
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
Place Your Bets. Prepare To Hold.
MHB says
How about the new 500 extensions coming
Brad says
Slots.com and Candy.com were both extreme end user sales. You can’t compare end user sales to reseller value. These domains also showed minimal traffic at the time of sale*. That is a stiff price to pay for a brand and minimal traffic.
.US is a value play. It brings top tier keywords into the price range of many buyers. Most buyers are much smaller and can’t afford millions for a domain. It is a good bang for the buck option.
I feel many domainers who only operate at the highest end of the market do not fully understand the demand for keywords at lower levels in the current market.
As far as the new extensions go – this is not some 5th tier gTLD. This is the ccTLD of the richest country on Earth. I like the long term potential because of that.
There is money to be made in the current .US market for premium keywords and premium keywords in solid ccTLD will always have demand. It is all about ROI.
* From Compete
Candy.com – 6/2009 – 5,713 hits
Slots.com – 4/2010 – 12,188 (Had been 5K – 8K before a ramp up to the sale)
Steve says
The new 500 extensions coming …Bells & Whistles.
Economic global power of countries will determine outcome.
Country codes will categorize Internet.
M. Menius says
@MHB – Mike, saturation of use is a subjective term. It is not a .com world. Other tld’s have established a position on the net and .US is definitely in that pack.
You are ignoring .US growth (the stats I posted refute the stagnation claim). This is the type of organic growth that demonstrates growing success with the tld. .US is utilized and has an imprint. The jury is in. It’s not a speculation play.
Comparing .me with .US is not even do-able. .me is an obscure domain if ever & nowhere near the relevance of the .US space. Neither of these extensions have peaked.
Andrew Douglas says
@John A – comparing .US to .INFO or other gTLDs simply by looking at # of registrations is an invalid comparison. Not only is .US restricted, it’s almost exclusively going to be used in an english speaking country. If you add just the languages spoken in Europe (for languages where .info makes sense anyway), you should expect to see .INFO registrations at very high multiples of .US. That doesn’t diminish the value of .US or increase the value of .INFO. It just is what it is.
While I like and invest in .INFO, the other thing to consider is that it’s the cheapest extension which is what “spammers” look for and having watched .INFO and .US drops for over a year, I can tell you that .INFO certainly has more than it’s fair share of nefarious registrations.
@Aggro – it’s funny, but your description of .US “investors” sounds a lot like what people said of .COM “investors” not that many years ago. There are multiple reasons why “investors” didn’t open their wallets to the tune of $50k+ yesterday for a single domain, and that’s because with that same $50k they could have bought every one of the other 29 names that sold for less than that one name was asking for. It’s a matter of effective use of principal and not a game to show who can spend the most money on a single domain. Will we get to the point where slots.us sells for more than $50k? I honestly think we will be there sooner than you think, but I for one am happy with the results of the auction yesterday.
John A. says
Andrew Douglas:
Nice try but no cigar! Of the 6.6 million .info’s registered, more than 53% are registered in North America not Europe. Having said that, you still have 3.3 million domain names registered under .info versus 1.7 .us domains.
You stated that .info’s are the cheapest domain names to buy but what you failed to mention is that these same domain names have an 80% renewal rate at the regular price. You can find this information at the top of page #10 of the Afilias annual report:
http://www.info.info/webfm_send/99.
This report also points out that you have a higher percentage of spammers using .com extensions than .info’s.
I think a lot of .us investors were late to the game and are living in their own world.
James Barclay says
Firstly,
MHB is expressing an opinion, a judgement call on the extension – there is nothing personal or point scoring by calling an ext as not worth investing in. Why are the .us crowd so defensive?
It reminds me of when I use to be really defensive about .TV (which I believe today proves me right that it is on an upward trajectory) and would get involved in heated debate about .tv and would not listen to any criticism.
There is nothing wrong with an opinion. The fact that MHB “has good SEO” should not mean that he cannot give an honest evaluation of his take on .US.
Its like telling the news stations to keep quiet about all the Toyota recalls cause it is causing problems for the Toyota car dealers to sell their inventory…..
Hawaiian Shirt Guy says
@Greg Slaughterbeck
Thank you! Just landed CaymanIslands.US and CaymenIslands.US!
It will be some time before I am able to do any development or build-out, but these domains are now on the long list.
LS Morgan says
I don’t know too many .us folk who are ‘defensive’ about .us. You just find that there are people who are using it, or making money off it and can’t help but laugh at the consistency of the lame polemics thrown out there by a bunch of people who don’t have the slightest clue what they’re talking about…
So much of ‘domaining’ has become about tired, old dogmas that no longer apply. You learn in investing that when people start saying the paradigm is busted and the old rules no longer apply, they’re on the precipice of being shown otherwise… You learn in tech that people who cling to the past are destined to become a relic of it.
To be certain, pure-play domaining was a time-sensitive affair and those who got in early and got in big won in grand fashion. They do enjoy a fantastic position and a big, big advantage, however, the sands are shifting in a lot of ways and needless to say, a lot of people with firmly entrenched positions refuse (or, don’t want to) see it. It happens in every area of interest; things change, people who succeed using one method are eventually left behind because they use methods that used to work in evolved situations that are different…
My interest is how does light-to-mid-scale developed ccTLDs fit into an evolving search landscape… How do those domains allow me to filter my published content for certain keywords, topics and people… I couldn’t care less how Davey-Domainer has done with reselling .us names on SEDO.
Like I said… If I stop running black with developed .us, I’ll be the first to say. Otherwise, less said better.
For people who are buying .us domain names, holding them and doing nothing with them, I have no idea what to say to them or how they’re performing. To be honest, I don’t know what to say to people who own .com names and do that, either. Not my game.
LS Morgan says
Meh, I had an error in the above post… I did a semi-edit and forgot to complete it… This should read like this.
“It happens in every area of interest; things change, people who succeed using one method are eventually left behind because they continue to use methods that no longer work in situations that have evolved…”
Sorry. Grammatical OCD.
um says
There’s not enough meaningful .com’s to go around, and that’s getting worse because new names are always needed.
At the same time, ccTLDs are just getting started.
.US is the ccTLD for the USA.
The fact that it has been overlooked due to .com success is a very good thing if you think domain growth will outstrip .com growth. Currently .com trends down (not enough good product) and ccTLDs trend up (the net meets geography and gets local). Also .US has been amongst the fastest growing ccTLDs in recent years I think.
When there are 500 TLDs, meaningful letters are even more important. .US means USA, and thats a pretty good anchor.
This TLD continues to ripen, IMHO.
Einstein says
.us is useless, Americans assume that .com essentially belongs to USA.
If you had a .la, .mn, .al, .ma or another cctld that matches a US state then you can make a better argument.
coffee break says
I agree that many people think .com is mainly a U.S. tld which is wrong. (as we all know.)
However, all of the prime words in .com are taken and require a major capital investment. Whereas, the same term in .us is a lot less and probably just as effective for a small business user.
Does the local sub shop need to have a prime .com domain?
(.ie, SubShop ,com) Probably not.
If they can get their tradename in .com that would be great.
(.ie, MikesSubShop ,com)
But, it would serve them just as well to own
SubShop ,us or SubShop ,biz .
And, a lot less cost than owning the prime .com
Naturally, if they are a national or global sub shop then they
need to own Subs ,com or SubShop ,com . (and MikesSubs ,com)
But, at that point, they are a mulit-million/billion dollar company
so they should be willing to pay for the prime real estate.
Does a one store retailer need to be on prime strip on Michigan Ave. (Chicago), 5th Ave. (NYC), or Rodeo Dr. (LA)?
Couldn’t Mike’s Dollar Store be on a less prime piece of real estate?
Louise says
Hi @LS Morgan, it’s interesting, what you said. Would you email me, so I ask you about your .us domains? Louise [at] TaskDomains .com
This discussion has got me excited about LowSodiumDiet.us, and LowSodium.us, which I registered and want to develop a no salt empire. Out of weedy, hyphenated .coms and .nets, wasn’t sure which to move forward on.
@DomainAnimal says
Mike, not sure if any has brought this up (only read through the first several comments yet) but it seems like theres another way to look. could be that .us is a good buy right now. the guy who picked up WebCam.us for $1.5 k, whose to say he will not be laughing to the bank in 2-3 years if/when he flips it for $25k. Maybe the next person to pick it up will flip it for $100k another 2-3 years after that. there is your upside right there. its a question of whether it will happen. but based on the comparative price to other TLDs alone does not seem like a great yardstick for evaluating whether an extension is ‘alive or dead’. the fact that they are selling so low could simply mean that they are undervalued right now. just like a stock. you really need to look at a lot of other indicators imho, like the fundamentals, otherwise your liable to be following the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ and that is not always good
Steve says
Rather than focus on exactly how .US has been performing in the aftermarket, let’s take a look at the “big picture”.
Take a look at Ron’s DNjournal.com sales charts.
Some years ago, I believe those weekly sales charts were listed in this order:
1. The DN Journal Top 20
2. Global Contenders Top 20
3. Country Code Top 20
Country Code domains sales started increasing so much, the order of the charts was changed.
Now, Country Code Top 20 is the second category.
It is also increasingly common to see country code domains listed in the top category: The DN Journal Top 20
Take a look at this weeks report. There are 9 country codes sales in the Top 40 chart: http://dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm
So, I guess you could say …
The British are coming!
So are the Germans.
So are the Chinese.
So are the Canadians.
And, so on.
Yeah, .US has been Draggin’ Ass for too many years. But, there is no logical reason that the country code of the United States shouldn’t Eventually catch up to the rest of the pack. Even though it sure feels like it’s never gonna’ happen.
P5D says
So is there any way on SEDO or anywhere to view a list of all .us domains for sale or auction?
Andrew Douglas says
estibot’s domain sales history is probably the best there is, but understand that many sales go unreported – especially in the 3 figure range.
Coffee Break says
“Of the 6.6 million .info’s registered, more than 53% are registered
in North America not Europe.”
I wonder how many .info’s are reg’d in private whois?
If it is large quantity then the above statement in the Affilias report
is skewed. Because most of the major registrars have a U.S. address.
(Enom, Moniker, Godaddy, Dynadot, Directi related registrars)
Furthermore, Godaddy has 30% market share. I would guess in the
.info tld, it is between 40-60% market share because of price and
promotional activity.
John says
Nearly 6 years later, still the same or worse.
GoBuy says
John but it is still in the top 25 TLD registration in the world,
.com 126,832,276
.tk 23,948,843
.net 15,821,694
.de 14,290,858
.org 10,957,558
.cn 10,304,711
.uk 9,202,663
.info 5,555,017
.ru 5,006,857
.nl 4,639,496
.eu 3,759,389
.br 3,066,506
.fr 2,875,821
.xyz 2,726,591
.au 2,695,455
.it 2,555,548
.cc 2,547,415
.ca 2,323,045
.biz 2,320,684
.co 2,234,055
.pl 2,169,814
.top 2,139,944
.in 1,894,193
.es 1,782,459
.us 1,686,814
.ch 1,614,952
John says
You are not joking, GoBuy?
When do you ever see .US on the DN Journal Sales charts, except for CaliforniaPoker.us sold for $10,000 not so long ago being the only reported sale above four figures I’m aware of in years? And that is no doubt because California is moving in the direction of legal online poker, otherwise that almost certainly would not have happened and what else has there been?
Who ever talks about .US?
As for # of registrations, so what? Has it not been the case for years now that much of the time you could register a .US at a deep discount from normal registration fee, similar to how .info was being offered so cheaply for so long too? Who ever talks or cares about .info?
Nothing has changed. The American public scarcely knows .us even exists, and they care even less. People outside the US are probably at least ten times more aware that it even exists.
Someone has suggested Neustar was not obligated to actually promote the extension. Really? Seriously? How convenient. If Go Daddy had been able to become the new .US registry when there was talk of that some years ago, do you think things would still be like this for the national TLD? I do doubt it.
GoBuy says
John, Not in the $10,000 this year but here are some links on DnJournal for 2016,
Elsewhere, Dusty Field picked up $1,500 for Glutton.us in a private transaction.
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2016/20160203.htm
Switch.us $6,000 Rental.us ringing up $1,427
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2016/20160323.htm
FCI.us went for $1,777 in a private sale
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2016/20160420.htm
2015
Ammo.us $5,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150128.htm
NTS.us $4,500, WhyWait.us $3,500, Envelop.us $1,250, ColoradoRealEstate.us $1,050, Stocks.us earned $7,000 at Sedo
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150218.htm
CaliforniaPoker.us $10,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150325.htm
East.us $2,160
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150415.htm
wall-art.us $1,070, sound.us $1,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150422.htm
Unblock.us $4,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150506.htm
Inspire.us $4,800
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150513.htm
wallart.us $1,995
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150520.htm
rov.us $1,635
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150603.htm
BlueDot.us $7,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150701.htm
Viral.us $2,500
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150708.htm
puppet.us $1,995 , junto.us $1,430
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150722.htm
BIA.us changed hands for $1,477 in a private transaction.
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150729.htm
Key.us $2,999
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150805.htm
stark.us $2,000, cancervaccine.us $1,500, osk.us $1,200
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150826.htm
Invention.us $4,350
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20150902.htm
Psychics.us yielded $1,710
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20151021.htm
itp.us $1,177
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20151028.htm
realty.us $1,151
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2015/20151223.htm
Almost every week there was a sale. Yea not in the 5 figures but almost all tld’s that are new have big sales the first two years and then go down except .com, .net and .org. Also some ccTLD stay high like .de, .uk.
In 2014 sales you have,
Carousel.us $3,557, OthersLike.us located $1,000.
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2014/20140129.htm
HuntingMoon.com piled up five .US sales – CyberSex.us, GayChat.us, LiveCams.us, LiveGirls.us and LiveSex.us – with those going for $1,250 each.
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2014/20140205.htm
Pling.us $16,300 Bridge.us $4,500, Whisky.us $2,750, Sirius.us $1,000
http://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2014/20140212.htm
The .us domains are selling just not all the five figures sales. Also since many of the sales are four figure sales that means that many are not reported in public sales on DnJournal. I personally have sold some and never reported them.
Lachlan says
I think there are some awesome domains to pick up in the .us extension. If you’re targeting the US market, which is large, then you can get some great value. I recently picked up Bingos.us and I’m happy with it.
John says
On the one hand, you are right that one can register great domains for .us, if one can make a successful business as an end user with .us, because a lot of .us is either available or has been dropped. For instance, I have allowed a number of excellent .us domains to expire and either drop or be picked up by others. But you can mostly forget about the resale market for .us now if you are thinking as a domain name seller, with only few exceptions.
On the other hand, it seems you must not be from the US yourself, because you need to know that “Bingos” is practically not a word in the English language at all. In a strictly technical sense, it is true that it is the plural form of “bingo,” but nobody uses the plural form of “bingo.” There’s a reason why “bingos” was not registered and was available – “bingo” is a word for which the plural is not used or thought of. And if you want to think of it a verb, as in “he bingos,” that too is more or less nonexistent and 100% awkward. You should cancel that domain for a refund if you still can, or make sure to never renew it.
GoBuy says
Well resell maybe picking up for the .us. Look at this weeks sale Ever.us sold for $6,000 on Uniregistry
http://dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm
vea.us sold for $3,000
vegasslots.us sold for $2,000
And this is just this week sales reported.
John says
That’s interesting, but Bingos.us is definitely worth $0. I’m doing a good deed by letting the poster know that.
GoBuy says
John, I think Bingo.us is worth a lot but you are right that the plural Bingos.us is not.
John says
Exactly. Yes, Bingo.us would be great, but in the US “bingos” is for all intents and purposes not even a word at all, which explains why it was even available.
GoBuy says
Yes John, I own about 45 .us domains which are all valued at $1,000 to $10,000 like Soccer.us, WallStreet.us Mp3.us, Computers.us, Reservations.us, Paintings.us and many more like these.
John says
Those include some of the best .US domains I have seen for anyone in a while. Some of those are worth far more than only $10k, very much far more. I have sold good two and three word .US domains for $5k to $10k not very long ago despite the current status quo, and yours there are far better than the ones I sold. Don’t sell yourself short or be deceived by those who would have you hold lowered expectations. Personally I particularly like WallStreet and Computers there, but a number of the others are also particularly excellent of course. Had GoDaddy been able to gain the .US registry, .US would probably have the public awareness and recognition it should have by now, and should have had all these years, but Neustar appears to want to keep .US down, and I have a hunch that is also exactly what people in power outside of Neustar want them to be doing as well. Naturally that is speculation and I can’t prove such a thing, but I’m not exactly known for not having a track record of being right. The status quo for .US is nothing less than a travesty.
GoBuy says
I too think WallStreet.us is worth more. I am looking to find the right place to market it for sale. The Uniregistry looks like they are moving some. I will study them and update you if they sell any of them for me.
Hawaiian Shirt Guy says
It has been five years for this thread. I had mentioned that geo domains were the best for .US with a location actually within the US. I still think this is the best route.
Truth in advertising, I hold Maui.US and a few other similar names.
GoBuy says
I am seeing many small businesses using .us since they can’t get the same in .com. Some of the higher sales has been in the sports like baseball.us and football.us. Also in the 20,000+ was Jew.us and Jews.us so locations are not the only great .us. I am not saying that they are bad NO they are very good .us domains. My WallStreet.us is great but Soccer.us is also a very big sports that is growing in the U. S.
I like product and sports .us domains like I own ShotGun.us, ChainSaw.us, BuyHouses.us, ColonialHomes.us, ExpoCenter.us, HealtyDiet.us, HomeMarket.us, HomeRun.us, Hypnotist.us, LetsRoll.us, MoneyRate.us,
OilPaintings.us, Porcelain.us, ProSports.us, Relief.us, Shirt.us, StainGlass.us.
John says
Yes, Soccer.us is s great domain worth a lot and I would have said something if I liked soccer.
And yes geo’s are great while some other kinds are also great.
I wouldn’t get carried away with too many regs, however. While some .us have been moving, we are still in the long era in which .us has been held back and held down in virtual obscurity. In my opinion there is no way around it – Neustar has wanted to keep this domain down. The American public scarcely knows it even exists overall.
I have a hunch Neustar’s top people were told to do that, and all the employees under to the top few simply tow the line and sing the company’s theme song while trying to give the pretense and appearance of not being that way and doing that.
John says
And to summarize all that, in my view any positive development in terms of recognition and value for this domain would now be DESPITE Neustar’s continual efforts all these years since 2002 to keep .us an obscure failure hidden under a rock.
John says
P.S. You should see some of the ones I dropped over the years. You’d probably think they were great.
John says
But I digress. The important thing is what I just said about the “status quo” since 2002.