Doe-mainer Comments on DOMAINfest’s Auctions

Silent Auction $481,000 vs. Live Auction $600,000 and the Trend of More Alternative Domains

It is no secret to those of you involved in the domainer world (not to exclude the growing doe-mainer population), that the silent/extended auction from DOMAINfest closed last Thursday with almost $481,000 in sales. This was a continuation of the events in L.A. hosted by Oversee.net, where the live auction sold over $600,000 worth of premium domain names.

As a recap, the highest sale in the live auction went to wife.com at $100,000 with lower figure names such as incrediblebargains.com for $500. However, as I pointed out in my previous post, the trend to see more and more alternative domains is apparent.

Take a peek at the Premium Live Alternative Domain Name Sales:

movie.info $7,000

europe.travel $5,000

contact.me $10,000

lenders.org $5,500

homevalues.net $7,500

england.mobi $5,500

Like the live auction, the trend continued in the silent auction with the highest bids for two .com domains: blooms.com and resorthotels.com at $58,830 each. However, I have outlined an assortment of the “uncommon” domain names as well:

blooms.com $58,830
resorthotels.com $58,830
salud.net $6,256
clothes.info $3,900
british.org $2,250
european.org $2,000
images.info $1,900
gardening.info $1,770
estate.mobi $690
interviewing.me $300
pediatric.de $300

Could it be that the trend that we are seeing with the economy and the highly inflated prices of .com names are driving savvy investors to look elsewhere? Interestingly enough, I am not the only person writing about the topic. I stumbled upon other writers that are commenting on the lack of .com names and their price. Check out a related article from Namecake.com

The majority of the selected silent and live auction names above don’t end in .com, but they still follow all the rules of what constitutes a great domain name: keywords that are popular on the Internet, short and sweet, easy to recall, and names that are associated with products or niche markets.

From the sales in both auctions, it is evident that .com is still top dog, but watch out for other domains that are nipping at .com’s heels. I have witnessed country codes such as .co.uk, .de, and others rise in the ranks as well as newer tlds that are specific such as .asia, .travel, and .info.

So the question is....are these alternative domain names unchartered waters to be explored? Are those taking the investment now the pioneers of a great investment opportunity? I believe so.