Go Daddy sells 39,077 domains in November vs 40,575 in October. It is interesting to note that October got adjusted up from 39,830.
The top sale was surpass.com for $50,000. The domain was registered in 1997 and was purchased by BTL Group, its already developed into a website that helps universities in Europe with e-assessment.
(Click to enlarge)
Seems like a website just put up for ‘display’ purposes. Otherwise, why would they sell it for only $50,000, when they supposedly charge £35,000 per year for academic licenses?
It’s easy enough to buy a WordPress theme and then make it look like something… even if it isn’t. (The CSS for the site shows they bought the ‘Strappress theme’ – which costs $35)
An Alexa rank of over 16 million, although not entirely accurate, also gives some indication that the site wasn’t very well known, to say the least.
For the name though, a good price. Just don’t count on any real business being done under it.
I’m confused by your comment Grim, because you’re assessing the new owner’s site, not the prior. Chances are the seller didn’t really know his buyer or their business (model), so the price would reflect that.
Your comments made me want to research!
A hosting company was happy to switch to surpasstower.com and sell surpass:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111105030547/http://surpass.com
while BTL Group Ltd – “a small company creating e-learning materials for UK Education Agencies” – switched from:
BTL.com
to
Surpass.com.
This appears another classic example of upgrading to a meaningful one-word dot com which represents the business better than a three-letter.