Taking a look at some of the biggest reported new gtld sales on Namebio and it seems like a lot of people spent a lot of money on domains that are doing nothing.
Wine.Club purchased for $140,000 and the name just shows a 101Domain.com landing page.
Web.Hosting was purchased for $52,500 at NamesCon in January of 2016 and it’s being used as a redirect to iBeeHosting.com. IBEE Hosting is part of XBT Holding and other flagship products of XBT like Servers.com, Webzilla etc.
Luxury.Estate purchased in 2014 for $50,000 was one of the first big sales. The domain was sold by Domain Holdings. The domain is a Go Daddy landing page.
Pro.Flowers was purchased for $50,000 in June of 2015, the domain does not even resolve. Uniregistry was the seller and FTD the buyer.
Net.Work was sold for $100,000 by Minds + Machines last July, the domain does not resolve.
The only domain doing anything in the top 10 is Autism.Rocks which sold for $100,000. Mike wrote about it when the domain sold.
All reported sales of $50,000 or more reported by Namebio
| Domain | Price | Date | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.xyz | 181,720 USD | 2016-04-24 | West.cn |
| 9.xyz | 175,166 USD | 2015-12-21 | West.cn |
| wine.club | 140,000 USD | 2015-06-14 | .CLUB Registry |
| 6.xyz | 125,000 USD | 2015-11-22 | FindYourDomain |
| net.work | 100,000 USD | 2015-07-05 | Minds+Machines |
| autism.rocks | 100,000 USD | 2015-06-18 | Sedo |
| a.top | 96,670 USD | 2014-12-31 | Com.top |
| m.top | 93,600 USD | 2015-12-06 | Jiangsu Bangning |
| 6.top | 93,600 USD | 2015-12-06 | Jiangsu Bangning |
| 8.xyz | 81,741 USD | 2015-09-11 | 4.CN |
| 1.top | 80,712 USD | 2015-04-22 | eName |
| 9.top | 80,669 USD | 2015-04-20 | eName |
| c.top | 80,530 USD | 2015-07-03 | eName |
| g.top | 80,382 USD | 2015-01-05 | Com.top |
| 8.top | 79,000 USD | 2015-10-18 | Jiangsu Bangning |
| y.top | 78,501 USD | 2015-09-01 | HiChina |
| 88.xyz | 70,000 USD | 2016-01-11 | NamesCon |
| 66.xyz | 65,450 USD | 2016-04-24 | West.cn |
| xx.xyz | 59,417 USD | 2015-12-21 | West.cn |
| web.hosting | 52,500 USD | 2016-01-11 | NamesCon |
| c.club | 50,000 USD | 2015-12-06 | Eachnic |
| pro.flowers | 50,000 USD | 2015-06-14 | Uniregistry |
| luxury.estate | 50,000 USD | 2014-07-16 | DomainHoldings |
What do you thing? Are those domains bought to protect a brand, planed to be something or for investment to sell it again? I think most are bought for flipping, that’s why they are not developed…
How could you flip something, in which you grossly overpaid to acquire?
Given that most of the sales were directly from the registrars, I would bet that more than half of those sales are backdoor deals where registrars tried to be market makers and fell flat on their face.
I can envision some poor noob seeing Wine.club sell for six figures and in-turn register anything/everything in anticipation that he/she will have same success. Be careful kids; things go on behind the curtain that they don’t want you to see.
I doubt “Wine.club” was bought for flipping but at any price it’s a great Domain with a large potential for a great business. If you type in “wine club” in google you will see a large number of paid ads competing for exposure with this phrase. If the person who bought it wants to make a Wine of the Month Club, he/she probably has the best domain for the business. Can he/she make profits to exceed the $140,00 Domain investment? YES!
the best domain would be wineclub.com
Many internet users don’t understand wine.club so it’s hardly the best domain for that purpose.
If traffic these days are less type in and more search engine/bookmarked, then all things being equal (keyword/content), then wine.club is better than wineclub.com because of less letters, better aesthetics
The current drawback is lack of familiarity currently and browsers viewing wine.club as a valid link.
Both situations that can change in time.
Your comment is reflective of the attitudes of retailers 20 years ago, the best option is bricks & mortar, this internet thing is just a fad, it will never catch on.
Then with the advent of .cc’s, you need a .com, no one will ever use the .com.au, .co.uk extensions
.com is valuable yes, but the new GTLDs can fill a niche. Some will likely fail, others will find their place.
Type-in and direct navigation are not the same things. Type-ins are down, direct navigation is not down.
If you run a TV ad nearly 100% of your audience will understand that wineclub.com is an internet address. Many will not understand what wine.club is.
If you run an ad campaign you will just burn a lot of money with wine.club
Agree! Best would be WineClub.com. Anything else is worth zilcherooni.
Hey drf,
Who are you to say WineClub.com is better than Wine.club? Do you have facts for that statement Im sorry, but I really cant understand how you can make that defined statement. Do you run any successful websites? Do you buy cpc traffic? Do you advertise in print, or radio? I do advertise my successful websites. If I was to advertise http://www.Wine.club the user will visit http://www.Wine.club Are you talking about miscellaneous “type-ins”? Website owners cannot make a living on miscellaneous “type-in traffic” because in the scheme of things, it really amounts to nothing. People with real websites are going to market them. Neither Wine.club or WineClub.com is going to make a good living on “miscellaneous type-ins” without advertising of some sort. I have no doubt that Wine.club will advertise the crap out of their site in order to get their initial customers. That being said, Id rather have the Pure and Shorter domain “Wine.club” which should be easier to remember and brand. Who wants to have their visitors type in three more characters than necessary any way? And what does “com” mean anyway? Oh yes it means commercial, which is a dirty word to many and makes no sense for a wine club. If gTld’s came out before “.com”, what people would really want the “.com” lagging on the back of their Domain? I find many Domainers have a large “.com” portfolio and want to try to keep the value up. I too have a large “.com” portfolio, but Im not shallow enough to say gTlds are not good. I have made many investments in the new gTlds that have already paid off for me. You can contact me in private if you want details.
He is saying facts from every survey done, instead of living in delusional land. At the moment the majority of people don’t know or trust any new GTLDs
Sounds like farmacia.tv
Nothing new, music.mobi $616,000.
“.mobi” was never a gTld and was not intended to be a domain extension for Branding options. It was intended to repair the Mobile view of a website on the old browsers before there were other tools, css, fixes, etc.
too many domains … too few ideas
Too many domains…too few ideas…too many suckers.
GTLD = Good To Lose Dollars
stakeholder-backed purchases to create a “market” — same thing happens in various financial markets around the world every day
As a developer I can tell you the new tld’s do fine when developed properly.
Who knows what is going on with the names you mention. People shouldn’t pay so much for a name when they have no development plans. On the other hand, why buy a domain name these days if you do not plan to develop it?
Well- it certainly documents there is still plenty of speculation money – not just the guy that wakes up with a great idea 20 years late asking to buy a very decent dot com for a whopping $100 🙂
There’s an American in Hong Kong who travels to Macau each week to play poker against freshly minted Chinese billionaires. The Chinese poker player likes this American because he usually wins. On those rare occasions when he loses, the Chinese players are not happy.
After a while, the American realized he wasn’t such a gifted poker player, even though he still wins 90% of the time. They nickname the American” The Launderer” and “The Cleaner”. His job is to win: to extract money. The Chinese come to lose. The more they lose, the happier they are.
The Chinese used to buy luxury properties in California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), but that stopped, after the government in China established more rigid rules to deter corruption. So why not “cyber real estate” rather than “luxury real estate”, as another instrument “to lose money”.
Some choose to gamble. Others wishing to get rid of monies choose other means, such as buying domains. The primary goal: is to have receipts and documentation for these losses.
The American gambler will keep going to Macau as long as the Chinese gamblers want him to take their money.
and so it goes….
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who is that stupid to pay that much for a .crapolla gtld deserves to lose his shirt.
What I think these buyers discovered is that the name they bought totally sucks and they just need to wait for a bigger sucker to come along to rescue them. That day will never come.
Very simple reason. Most of the reported domain sales are not legitimate, and were transacted in the same method used for the 4L’s to establish false valuations for domains 99% marketed to domainers only. A lot of suckers out there, and a lot of new GLTDS that exist only within the domainer realm with no saturation externally. Even .club and .xyz has nearly a 999 of 1000 negative recognition rate through any polling done by ad agencies to test market awareness. Scam of the century, and followed up closely by the unified group of companies and individuals that have been feeding you N and L .com properties while helping to pad their pockets. While a few insiders transact sales to help bypass US currency controls. They are gleeful at the naivety of their target market trust me.
top 3
Domain Price Date Venue
1.xyz 181,720 USD 2016-04-24 doesn’t resolve
9.xyz 175,166 USD 2015-12-21 doesn’t resolve
wine.club 140,000 USD 2015-06-14 Money down the drain. (if still in doubt ask Madison Avenue)
yes domo
just a reminder of how much stupid money – someone elses money – is out there
When you’re playing with “house money” (or in this case, State Money, Country Money), what does it matter if you paid 1000 X the valuation of the domain.
And of course many of the transactions were coordinated as such.
However, these domains, web.hosting, net.work, wine.club, seem like good investments. I’d like to have the .com to go with them, but I know that’s costly and kinda defeats the purpose.
I really do like wine.club. Lots of potential with it.
VALUABLE and NEW GTLD should never be used together in the same sentence.
Are you an English teacher? Donuts.co has priced some NEW Gtld’s at Thousands of dollars because they are VALUED higher. So YES they are NEW VALUABLE Domains.
Wine.Club is always shorter and better than WineClub.com
The most visionary/creative company will choose Wine.Club over WineClub.com….period!
You might not like to hear it, but it’s a reality……..
Give it in 2 years…Wine.Club is always look more global, sexy and hotter than WineClub.com, WineClub.com.au, WineClub.co.uk or WineClub.de etc
Raymond, Well said. I agree with you 100%. Who cares what Domainers invest in? It’s up to the Company who chooses which domain he/she wants to brand and use for business. I consider gTld’s Good News for Businesses, yet Bad News for most Domainers. Years ago domaining was simple… If you could get your hands on a good “.com” at a good price there was nothing to think about. Now you really have to think and have deep pockets. This already has brought a large number of domainers out of the game.
If the person who bought that domain names earned millions of dollars every month from his/her businesses I guess it’s just penny for them or maybe they just want play with their money.