The million dollar UK domain name. Perhaps the biggest news item of recent weeks is that the sale of Cruises.co.uk broke the record for the most expensive UK domain name. The buyer, who also owns cruise.co.uk,  paid in the region of $1 million, which is about £560,000.

Next – here is a question. Anyone heard that there might be a recession? Well there has been a lot of speculation about how a possible recession might affect domain names. At the time of writing it seems like the majority of economic commentators think there is a good chance that we will slip into a prolonged recession. So if it does happen what might be the possible impacts on our domaining activities. Paul Sloan writing in the US business journal Fortune Magazine says that domain names may be recession proof. I dont think he is right and neither does Mark Jeftovic, from easyDNS.com. His appraisal of the possible impacts is well worth reading.

King Domainer Rick Schwartz had a cool interview in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald    

Social networking site MySpace recently won what might become a landmark decision after it won a case against the owner of MySpace.co.uk. Importantly, the owner obtained the domain many years before the site MySpace was created.Scott from the entrepreneurs blog Self Made Minds is an active domainer with some great names in his portfolio. He recently blogged about an domain name appraisal he received from domain name sales site SEDO.co.uk and reproduces the appraisal, which makes interesting reading. It is interesting to see what a Sedo appraisal takes into account. Scott is kind enough to share his domaining strategies on his blog. Here he taks about turning down an offer of $57,000 for a few of his domain names. Finally, domainers who use eBay for buying and selling domains will be interested to read how eBay now stops sellers leaving negative feedback for buyers. Whether this is a good idea that will improve the user experience or just lead to a increase in non – paying bidders remains to be seen.

To start off I really enjoyed DNJournal.com’s great article on the life of domainer and NewYork.com owner Leyland Hardy. It makes great reading.

I was pleased to see a report from DomainNews.com about a recent survey of UK marketing professionals about their use of the .co.uk ccTLD. I was reported that:-

.co.uk is the Internet domain of choice for 60% of UK marketers, an independent online survey has found. The survey showed that of those companies that maintain a .co.uk domain, 83% have chosen it as their primary domain.

Basically, the .co.uk ccTLD is a strong brand, so thats very good news!

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal discussed a new facility in Google Adwords that permits the blocking of domain parking pages. He writes that Google Adwords is  

running limited testing of a feature which lets its advertisers block domain parking sites which their AdWords ads will be served on; specifically ‘Domain Ads’ and ‘Error Page Ads.

Quite rightly he goes on to advise advertiesrs to think carefully before blocking domain parking sites as the parked domain could be a site with type in traffic that converts well. Nevertheless, Google has put doubt into peoples mind about the quality of traffic from parked pages. Could this be a mistake that Google might regret? As the Search Engine Journal article suggests, parking companies may simply look for ads from paid search companies. I will be watching this story to see how things develop!

Michael Gilmour has recently started a series on domaining called Domaining 101.  Mark Fulton of DotSauce also posted an article covering domain name investment called Domain Name Investing 101. Both will be invaluable to newer domainers.

CNN discusses the future IDNs. IDNs present a great opportunity for domainers with the skills to exploit them. Frank Schilling posts his response to this article, here 

Finally, I have added a new page to this site listing all the domain name internet discussion forums (20+) so far. Check the Page/ Article list in the sidebar, and visit the forum listing page to make sure that your favourite forum is on there – and if I’ve missed it out leave a comment and I will add it in.

There are a number of sources of sales data and I want to outline the main ones below. 

I have found the UK domains sales listing at DomainPrices.co.uk very interesting and useful if you want to see what UK ccTLDs have sold for in the past. Some UK domains are selling for some really nice prices at the moment.

The sites NameBio.com and DNSalePrice.com, are comprehensive searchable databases of domain sales including .com, .net etc.

DNJournal.com  is another good source of domain sales data. A weekly summary of reported domain sales is available here and year to date sales chart can be found here.

Afternic.com  is large seller of domain names and its completed sales listing can be found here.

Finally, don’t forget that if you are registered with eBay.com (or eBay.co.uk and probably any of the other eBay sites) you can look at the final selling prices of domain names sold on that site by searching for “domain names”, then clicking the box next to “completed listings” under “Search Options” on the left hand side.

ScottishSalmon.com was sold for around £1,500 ($3,088) on Afternic and JobsUK.net sold for around £1,000 ($2,041) on Sedo.

There were also some interesting .co.uk sales. Emigrate.co.uk was sold for a respectable £6,000 ($12,249) on Sedo. Meals.co.uk sold for a tasty $8,602 at Sedo (around £4,300) and Sedo was involved in the other two reported sales, C2.co.uk for £1,200 ($2,450) and Slogan.co.uk for around £500 ($1,050). All of these domains are currently parked.

I would guess that 12 months from now these sales will look like real bargains!

This article on Domain Name Consultant Dominik Mueller’s Blog has some interesting advice on becoming a successful domain name investor. Dominik’s advice is very good, and includes the following ideas…….

Register lots of domains – sell them at low prices and make money through high turnover of domains

Buy names at auction

Buy names specifically for development into websites

Dominik’s article is very good and well worth reading – to inform novice domainers and to remind those with more experience as well…………

Domain king Rick Schwartz has put together a very thought provoking article on a similar theme – how timing will dictate your domaining strategy. In the article Time, it is measured in milestones not minutes, Rick explains how the point at which people begin domaining varies from person to person and that the strategy they use to make money depends on timing and taking advantage of what is going on now, not what went on in the past. Clever stuff…………….

Sahar Sarid is another top level domainer and his blog The Conceptualist is in my recommended reading list. In a recent blog post Sahar considers How to start in the domain business without any sort of funding? Great article – read, enjoy…………………..

This was an exceptional facility as you could look at the sale prices achieved for domains sold through the site. This was a very helpful part of every domainers eduaction.

I was very pleased to see Adam Gross, from NameMedia, Inc., announce on DomainNameWire’s brief review of Afternic’s redesigned site  that they plan to reintroduce the sales page soon.

Adam advises domainers to use the following link until the sales section is reinstated.

http://www.afternic.com/names.php?sold=1
 

In my opinion the best bargains were Employment.co.uk for £17,000 ($34,000) and PublicRelations.co.uk for £8,500 ($17,000). Two nice generics at bargain prices.

See what you think – here are the domains that sold on the day and the prices they went for in pounds sterling and approx current dollar equivalents):-

• PrivacyProtection.co.uk £1,400 ($2,800)
• TubeTickets.com £875 ($1,750)
• Bluffing.co.uk £700 ($1,400)
• VirtualPoker.co.uk £1,500 ($3,000)
• Transplants.co.uk £1,300 ($2,600)
• Reference.co.uk £3,100 ($6,200)
• Xyz.co.uk £3,000 ($6,000)
• PDA.co.uk £9,000 ($18,000)
• Painters.co.uk £2,850 ($5,700)
• Prisoners.co.uk £750 ($1,500)
• Morals.co.uk £700 ($1,400)
• Employment.co.uk £17,000 ($34,000)
• Bikinis.co.uk £5,000 ($1,000)
• PublicRelations.co.uk £8,500 ($17,000)
• HotelBookings.co.uk £7,000 ($14,000)
• Fly.co.uk £87,500 ($175,000)
• Dive.co.uk £7,500 ($15,000)
• Locals.co.uk £6,000 ($12,000)
• Farms.co.uk £7,000 ($14,000)
• Threesomes.co.uk £2,750 ($5,500)
• Walk.co.uk £6,500 ($13,000)

TOTAL £179,925 ($358,850)

Read more about the auction, and about the domains that did not sell on the day on Sedo.co.uk – (10/9/07) Sedo Completes First Live UK Domain Auction.