2 domain sales - valuations?

[Explorer]

According to domainingblog.com, tie.com changed hands at 30K. Sedo's home page shows blue.com at 500K. I'll take tie.com before blue.com any day. What do you guys think?

[Rubber Duck]

According to domainingblog.com, tie.com changed hands at 30K. Sedo's home page shows blue.com at 500K. I'll take tie.com before blue.com any day. What do you guys think?

Well I have the equivalent of blue.com in many languages but tie.com in none, so I guess I would have a vested interest in disagreeing.

[Explorer]

Or maybe American Express can be behind the purchase...?

[Rubber Duck]

Or maybe American Express can be behind the purchase...?

Maybe, but if they are branding on a colour then they might want that colour in other languages!

[gammascalper]

I would agree. tie.com has commercial value, although most searches are probably for the plural.

Assuming 50% of searches are for the plural, revenue at 1.5% footprint and average net CPC at $0.70, that's $2,773 a year.

$30k actually seems reasonable -- return of 9.2% a year if you ignore the risk.

I can see the old-timers who picked these up back in the day continuing to do well, but if there's a dip in the advertising industry, the newcomers who are building massive portfolios for parking revenue will quickly be under water. I can't wait for the domain equivalent of the LTCM crisis! There will be cheapies for sale and lots of bids hit.

After the sale of brown.com for a few hundred grand, I've given up trying to understand brandables like blue.com.

[touchring]

As explorer has said, probably a big corp end user that treats anything below a million dollar as an expenditure the ceo can approve without consulting the board.

[Explorer]

I would agree. tie.com has commercial value, although most searches are probably for the plural.

Assuming 50% of searches are for the plural, revenue at 1.5% footprint and average net CPC at $0.70, that's $2,773 a year.

$30k actually seems reasonable -- return of 9.2% a year if you ignore the risk.

I can see the old-timers who picked these up back in the day continuing to do well, but if there's a dip in the advertising industry, the newcomers who are building massive portfolios for parking revenue will quickly be under water. I can't wait for the domain equivalent of the LTCM crisis! There will be cheapies for sale and lots of bids hit.

After the sale of brown.com for a few hundred grand, I've given up trying to understand brandables like blue.com.

Not sure if we are going to be seeing any dip in the advertising industry just yet. Google's average price per keyword continues to go higher and PPC is the best alternative so far. Some of the retailers like Blue Nile actually complain that keyword pricing are out of reach. As competition heats up, the keyword pricing will go higher, as it's the best way to attract a customer.

[Rubber Duck]

I would agree. tie.com has commercial value, although most searches are probably for the plural.

Assuming 50% of searches are for the plural, revenue at 1.5% footprint and average net CPC at $0.70, that's $2,773 a year.

$30k actually seems reasonable -- return of 9.2% a year if you ignore the risk.

I can see the old-timers who picked these up back in the day continuing to do well, but if there's a dip in the advertising industry, the newcomers who are building massive portfolios for parking revenue will quickly be under water. I can't wait for the domain equivalent of the LTCM crisis! There will be cheapies for sale and lots of bids hit.

After the sale of brown.com for a few hundred grand, I've given up trying to understand brandables like blue.com.

I don't think that a market meltdown in domains is real possibility. Domains have always been a very illiquid asset, with only a very small porportion of the total registry ever changing hands for serious cash. Illiquid markets such as Real Estate are much less prone to crashing than Equities, Bonds and Currencies.

Brandables are very high risk compared with product related generics. It is very easy to brand against terms people are very familiar with and have an inherent ambiance all of their own. Not quite sure why you would go for brown.com, though unless some very large organisation has been named according to the surname Brown, unless of course it is for use as an adult site. Blue by contrast oozes sophistication!

[gammascalper]

Yes -- all speculation of course. I have no idea about an imminent dip, all I know is that in every kind of market, crashes happen far more often than a normal distribution would indicate.

These large firms/funds don't seem to be giving themselves much of an operating cushion to weather that sort of dip.

[touchring]

I don't think that a market meltdown in domains is real possibility. Domains have always been a very illiquid asset, with only a very small porportion of the total registry ever changing hands for serious cash. Illiquid markets such as Real Estate are much less prone to crashing than Equities, Bonds and Currencies.

Brandables are very high risk compared with product related generics. It is very easy to brand against terms people are very familiar with and have an inherent ambiance all of their own. Not quite sure why you would go for brown.com, though unless some very large organisation has been named according to the surname Brown, unless of course it is for use as an adult site. Blue by contrast oozes sophistication!


Judging from past experiences, what would happen is the market will probably dip a little (due to fraud clicks), and then rise again gradually as more companies start to advertise online.

It is also possible that, business from new companies is buffering the impact from businesses that stop advertising due to click fraud, so the overall effect is that the market would not seem to dip at all.

While many people are lamenting about click fraud, let's not forget that internet advertising is taking market share from traditional advertising, and traditional advertising isn't exact "cheap" to begin with, even if we factor in click fraud.

[thefabfive]

Not quite sure why you would go for brown.com, though unless some very large organisation has been named according ...

UPS has a large campaign calling themselves 'brown'. 'What can brown do for you?' seems to be their slogan right now. I don't find it particularly catchy but what do I know. :)

[gammascalper]

UPS has a large campaign calling themselves 'brown'. 'What can brown do for you?' seems to be their slogan right now. I don't find it particularly catchy but what do I know. :)

If they had delivery type ads served would they infringe on UPS?

(atm it's Brown U./university enrollment ads for the most part)

[thefabfive]

I doubt UPS has trademarked 'brown' or even if they could. Brown University could easily show that they were in existence prior to UPS anyway :p. If someone put delivery ads I suppose they might get a C&D letter.

UPS probaby just registered their slogan - 'What can brown do for you?'

With regards to colors, unless it's branded what are people really looking for when they type it in? :confused: It would be interesting to see the user searches for color domains.

[Rubber Duck]

Yes -- all speculation of course. I have no idea about an imminent dip, all I know is that in every kind of market, crashes happen far more often than a normal distribution would indicate.

These large firms/funds don't seem to be giving themselves much of an operating cushion to weather that sort of dip.

I have to agree with you. I think those that are starting to treat domains as routine investments with commenserate returns are sticking their necks out a bit! I think it as on par with venture capital investments where the expectations are 30% or higher.