A day after the most wanted man in the world was killed by the Navy Seals, the domain name NavySeals.com went up for sale.
“NavySeals.com just went on the market for sale with Internet Venture Holdings, Inc. (IVH) a domain name investment and online advertising management company in Arlington, Virginia, just a stone throw from the Pentagon.”
“The NavySeals.com domain name has a seven figure price tag and the ROI (if purchased) for finding new Navy recruits and future soldiers for years to come could be the best investment our Navy ever made.”
“Ted O’Keefe, a Managing Director with IVH said: “The immense amount of visitor traffic to the website and high number of Google searches for Navy Seals, make the domain name asset more valuable than the current NavySeals.com e-commerce business.”
The NavySeals.com domain has upwards of 17,000 direct navigation unique visitors per month.
According to the owner of the domain, the 2011 U.S. Military budget for recruiting advertising is approximately $1.7 billion and has more than tripled in just the past 10 years. The Navy’s current share of the 2011 budget breaks out to around $253 million for 2011.
More importantly, says the owner, the exact keywords “Navy Seals” according to Google, are searched more than 74,000 times per month and the broad search in Google using the keywords “Navy Seals” (broad search is when a searcher uses the keywords combined with other words – for example “’United States Navy Seals”) is more than 300,000 searches per month.
“The current NavySeals.com e-commerce website attracts almost 5,000 visitors per day. Despite being a profitable online store that sells everything from vitamin supplements to scuba diving gear, the current owner admits, “65 percent of the people who visit the site are just looking for information about joining the Navy SEALs”.
Right now the CPC also referred to as the cost-per-click to purchase the keyword ‘navy’ in Google’s Adwords advertising system will cost you on average nearly two dollars per click. To buy the keyword ‘navy seals’ will cost you on average almost $2.50 per click.
How much does the Navy spend per day to advertise online with Google Adwords? According to a reverse look up tool called KeywordSpy.com that tracks online advertising spending in Google Adwords pay-per-click ads, the Navy.com and NavyReserve.com websites daily ad budget was more than $4,000 per day combined for the month of March.
In 2009, the Navy signed an “$800 million” dollar five year contract with Campbell Ewald an advertising firm with offices in Detroit, Los Angeles and San Antonio to manage their advertising campaigns including their multiple recruiting websites. The Campbell Ewald advertising firm’s main goal is to find young people with target marketing and this includes developing creative advertising campaigns to meet the recruiting goals for the U.S. Navy. The Navy has renewed their multi-million dollar contract every year since 2000.
Although their contract continues to be renewed, using a domain name like NavySeals.com in their campaigns would certainly help Campbell Ewald surpass their yearly recruitment goals and probably reduce the very costly TV ads and event sponsorships. The U.S. Navy was one of the premier gold sponsors in 2009 of the Winter X games at a cost of over $2 million dollars. And again in 2010, the U.S. Navy was a premier media sponsor of the X games and had U.S. Navy banners posted on the sides of the snowboard half pipes.
Despite the millions Navy spend on advertising, their advertising contractor Campbell Ewald currently has no interest in bidding on NavySeals.com. Kathleen Donald, Campbell Ewald’s Managing Director for the Navy account had no comment about this article nor did their public relations office.
They should donate the name to the real Navy Seals if not I wish they come after them!!!
Without our fine Armed Forces, we won’t be here enjoying the freedom of Domaining.
This is retarded, how is this not a TM violation ?
Ed
Is there a trademark for navy seals owned by the government?
There’s only 1 live treademark on USPTO. Owned by Master Cutlery, Inc. for knives.
buy the .com isn’t necessary
they can use NavySeals.gov
I believe this name is fairly safe from TM issues but there needs to be a warning for how it is used AND sold. Judges will frequently toss technical legal analysis/opinion out the window if it looks and smells suspect, going with their gut on what feels right and wrong. Higher courts may also not look very kindly on the owners in appeal, making this a valuable but somewhat risky investment. You may be able to prevail legally but could be costly. Just a thought.
BullS –
Should Digimedia.com (Scott Day) donate CoastGuard.com too?
Should FanMail.com donate Army.com too?
Ed –
Sony/Playstation uses Navy Seals in their games. I haven’t heard of the us government suing them.
Chip –
The domain was registered in 1996 and put into use as an ecommerce site. The current owner has never had any TM issues.
AMAppZon –
The Navy does recruiting with dot coms not dot gov – Navy.com and NavyReserve.com
@IVH
yup, they should donate to the govt – it is a Patriotic thing to do.
Sometimes it is not the money,it is the right thing to do.
I believe that,oddly enough, the US Armed forces are excluded from TM’ability…
There is actually a clause excluding them.
Maybe they should sell navyseals dot com to the aL- queda for terrorist recruiting.
This is clearly not a seven figure domain.
Brad
Brad –
The 2011 U.S. Military budget for recruiting advertising is approximately $1.7 billion and has more than tripled in just the past 10 years. The Navy’s current share of the 2011 budget breaks out to around $253 million for 2011. Would you like some more stats?
IVH
-You can try to convince people all you want, but I don’t think you’re going to convince anybody here that its going to sell for 7 figures. That’s fine and dandy about how much the government spends, but how about this stat for you., At any given time, there are only about 2,500 Seals. Kind of a small market, granted, the term appeals to more people than that. Maybe the government will start an internet affiliate program for you,
@ IVH
Who cares? That is not a seven figure domain.
They already own Navy.com and could set up any .gov they want pretty much.
Brad
I wish a “seven figure” NavySeals.com was something I could actively short.
I don’t see how anybody could make money with NavySeals.com but the owner by selling it. The U.S. Army could use it for recruiting. When the news about the capture of Osama pass no one will visit this website but people wanting to join special forces units. Well, let me go back to my website because a lot of visitors are applying for jobs. I am trying help people find good jobs.
And credit card industry in US alone is worth billions yet the domain creditcards.com sold for a couple million
NAVY SEALS is a descriptive brand of sorts that may have taken on secondary meaning.
Are there Navy Seals outside of the USA ?
If in fact the domain is really worth mils – the gov will take it away in my opinion.
That said, I feel safe with ArmedServices.com as they are in countless countries.
If the military (aka Government) spent money buying this, I would have a problem with it.
One thing to always remember… the Government does NOT make a single cent. Every bit of money the government spends comes from the TAX PAYERS (i.e. you and me) .
I would not want them wasting my money or yours for some domain name, when they could just get the .GOV version of it (to make it official) and spend the money hiring people to build and edit the site with some great SEO.
Just my opinion.
Cheers
People who are searching for “navy seals” are looking for info about the subject (read about, heard & seen from movies etc) – not b/c they want to buy stuff or looking to become one.
LOL @ using the domain to “recruit” Navy Seals
One has to join the navy first, before trying out to become a ‘navy seal’..
This domain only has 1 potential buyer – and after all these years they clearly haven’t gone for it.
Other than that, it has limited ecommerce possiblilties.
LS Morgan –
You would lose lots of money – the NavySeals.com website in it’s best year grossed 1 million in revenue selling gear.
Tech Savvy –
The average recruit to the US Armed Forces cost the taxpayers almost two thousand dollars
each…that was in 2003.
If you don’t believe me read the GAO report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d031005.pdf
Bogdan –
Thanks for the comparison! Creditcards.com website sold for $145 million in 2010!
Slate –
In 2009 the US Navy signed a five year contract to pay an advertising firm 800 million. Your
tax dollars at work…
Aggro –
Your wrong. A large majority are looking to join as evidence by the search terms and
the high bounce rate for the NavySeals.com website. Navy Seals just might be a billion dollar brand. After all how many people have an Old Navy store at your local mall?
The NavySeals.com website had 72,954 unique visits just yesterday – May 3rd.
“In 2009 the US Navy signed a five year contract to pay an advertising firm 800 million. Your tax dollars at work…”
The thing about some of these advertising firms is they don’t want to make the job easier (or cheaper) for their clients…maybe even more so when its government contracts. They are looking after themselves as much as they are looking after their clients IMHO
Why pay a domainer 6 or 7 figures when they can keep that money themselves and eek it out longer to do the job.
“You would lose lots of money – the NavySeals.com website in it’s best year grossed 1 million in revenue selling gear.”
I would’nt EVER want to sell it if it earned that much…stuff em 😉
Its a great domain for sure but there are MANY great domains that will never reach the hands of the “perfect enduser” because they don’t agree with the values placed on them.
Scotland.com, Dubai.com etc etc …tons of them
Good luck with a potential sale though 🙂