Blog

With the amount of interest that the keyword “pizza” has garnished these past 2 weeks, is it any surprise that a great typo of this keyword is seeing major interest. Pzza.com had expired and is closing today at NameJet. With 2 hours left the price is currently at $2,299. So where will this gem of a typo end? Good question. A few interesting figures about pzza:

• There are a couple advertisers for the keyword - (Domino’s is #1)
• PZZA is Papa Johns stock symbol

So, what does this mean for pzza.com? I think we can expect to see a sharp gain at the end of the auction. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

Justin

After my posting earlier today about bartsimpson and FundraisingPrograms.com, I received an email from one of their representatives . He explained that the non-payment was actually in error and was simply an oversight. They were quite displeased not to be receiving this domain name. He agreed of my assessment that the name was at a good price, and they wished they could have that one back.

The focus of my previous posting was really to uncover if NameJet was giving preferential treatment to its big spenders not to question the business tactics of the domain group using the handle “bartsimpson”. As it would seem, everything does appear to be on an even keel.

Justin

I reported earlier today that FundraisingPrograms.com was back at auction because of a non-paying bidder. As it turns out, the bidder’s handle was bartsimpson. Anyone who bids at Snapnames or NameJet would recognize this handle as a familiar foe. It was a surprise to see someone I recognized as a player, not paying for an auction they had won. I checked a few other auctions I was in, to notice he was in a few of them as well. I started to wonder about NameJets policy. Were they giving the big guy the ability to pick and choose which auctions to honor?

I called NameJet, asking what their policy was in regards to a non-paying bidder. The customer service rep on the phone explained that each bidder is allowed a non paying auction to happen once, without penalty of closing the account. The only catch is when the domain is re-auctioned, they are not permitted to bid. I was relieved to hear that there wasn’t an unfair advantage given to bigger bidders.

(Update: After speaking with a representative of the “bartsimpson” domain group, this was an unintentional error, the no-bid was by accident)

Justin

Another domain name thats making a second round at NameJet, FundraisingPrograms.com is ending today. It originally sold at the end of March for $2,600 but with a non-paying bidder, the domain was re-auctioned once more. It has a few hours left and is currently at $2,000. I happen to think this a great name, because despite the fact that “fundraising” is connected with “non-profit” believe me when I say, there is plenty of money in the business of fundraising. There are plenty of potential suitors for this domain name, and I thought even last time around this was a great price. Perhaps someone might even get a better price the second time around (which seems to be the trend).

Justin

The owners of Pizza.net have ingeniously put the domain up for sale on TDNAM.com. On their site, they have a bold graphic displaying the final price for Pizza.com (which sold for 2.6 million just days ago) with a link directing to the auction page on TDNAM. The current bidding is over 420k. The auction does include the site, however with an Alexa ranking of 790,000 - this auction is nearly all about the domain name.

The largest .net sale ever, occured in 2006 when Sex.net sold for $454,500 at a TRAFFIC conference. Pizza.net at its current pace looks to break that record. Who would’ve thought Pizza would become more popular than Sex on the internet?

Justin

A few names I have coming up for renewal with Godaddy that I just dont have time to develop. Some have age, some were pickups from drops. Go ahead and shoot me an email or click the contact link to inquire.

AffordableHobbies.com - $100
CoinsAuction.com - $100
BestSitcoms.com - $100
GotOpinion.com - $100
BackupMasters.com - $50
vDisease.com - $150
RankingWizard.com - $25
ArenaTalk.com - $25
AdultRelaxation.com - $25

Thanks,

Justin

On March 27th I posted about the Domain HomeTools.com which had just sold for $6,000 on NameJet. I questioned the value of the domain name and why someone would spend that much for what I considered a brandable type name, not commonly used keywords. Well, as it turns out the high bidder failed to pay and the domain was reauctioned. It closed today lower, $5,220. I still think this price is on the high end, but I find it interesting that a domain I discussed as being sold for too much ends up back on the auction block. Perhaps the bidder read my blog post?

Justin

Finally, one of the search functionalities I’ve longed for, we’ve been able to turn into a reality. You can now search all english dictionary keywords in NameBio’s database. Additionally you can also check any prefix for those dictionary words like i, e, my, your, ect. To access this feature, go to NameBio.com and click the “advanced” tab on the search bar. You’ll then select “Yes” for dictionary words only, and either add a prefix or just click search. You can further narrow down search results by going back to the “general” tab and selecting any other search criteria you want.

You asked for it, you got it.

Justin

There has been some discussion recently about the five - 3 letter .com domain names that sold on Afternic this past week for well under wholesale prices (Click here for that story: http://namebio.com/NameBioBlog/2008/04/04/the-rape-of-ireit/). Just about every domainer realizes that these sales are a fluke and quite frankly a lucky grab by a domain investor who happened to have his eyes open and be in the right place at the right time. As story worthy as that was, even more interesting is the debate to include or exclude them from the record books.

The issue is simple, some domainers feel that by recording these sales in the NameBio database, we are suggesting that this represents a lower wholesale price of this type of domain name. Their fear is that this might reverberate in the domain world and cause the wholesale prices of 3 letter .com’s to decline. I quite frankly feel that is rubbish. I don’t think a repository of information should exclude any data because it didn’t fit the historical pattern.

I want to state that when it comes to NameBio.com, one thing you can always expect is the truth. If it happened, we’re goign to do our best to record it. No ifs, ands, or buts. On DNForum.com I wrote the following line which I want to reiderate on this blog:

Transparency is needed in our industry, in nearly every sector. That is going to be the only way we will ever legitimize ourselves.

In the end, I dont expect anything to change. I fully invision 3 letter .com domains to reach a wholesale minimum price of around $10,000 by the end of this year.

Justin

As it turns out, one lucky soul was able to claim all of the three letter .com domain names that iReit had accidentally sold. Michael Bilde, can count his lucky stars that he got a domain break of a life-time. Managing to secure five 3 letter.coms for about $3,300 dollars total. I attempted to reach Michael, but he is located in Bangkok according to the whois for each domain name.