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100,000 Domains Sold for $164 Million
miller60 writes "Here's a news item that puts some hard data on the domain typo millionaires post from a couple weeks back. Marchex Inc. just paid $164 million to buy Name Development Ltd., an obscure company that displays pay-per-click keyword ads on 100,000 domains. It's not a stock swap, either, as $155 million of that was in cash. The seller reportedly built the portfolio by scarfing up expiring domains (including hardware-update.com, previously owned by Microsoft and linked from within the Windows 2000 OS) and replacing the content with pay-per-click ads."
Because you don't just want any old domain, but the ones that are most often visited by mistake.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
This isn't spam - you request a page, you see an advert, it's not forced into your inbox.
This is seeing an opportunity and using it, and they deserve a bit of success from that. Whether they deserve $164m worth of success is another matter.
Who meta-moderates the meta-moderators?
What's horrible is that the guy who sold it was given the site as directed by the pervious owner's Will. He died and left it to this guy who sold it. Isn't that nice?
That is truly horrible.
You know, when I die, I think I will put a clause in my will that requires my next of kin to pay the estate taxes themselves, and LIVE in my house, not sell it. I mean, the thought of a next of kin selling something they don't want to maintain is just horrible.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I grew up on Long Island, home of 1-800-FLOWERS (now 1-800-FLOWERS.com) (really), and I saw articles about the company getting pissed off at competitors who did things like this. Some competitors bought 1-800-FL0WERS (with a zero) and 1-800-FLOWER5 (with a 5).
Ever wonder why 1-800-MATTRESS ends every commercial with people spelling their name melodically? It's because they don't own 1-800-MATRESS -- or at least they didn't years ago.
For more information, click here.
What a lot of the "this isn't fair, this is criminal, this is predatory" posts seem to be predicated around is the mistaken belief that life is fair and that the stupid should have the same good life as the intelligent.
This is not a life insurance-selling shill forcing his way into some poor ignorant grandma's house, putting pressure tactics on her to buy into scam xyz. Much like people caught up in ponzi scams, Tom Vu seminars, what have you, it is entirely up to the user what he sees. Remember that truism about lotteries being a tax on people who're bad at math? Well there you go.
Nor are these guys pushing (for the most part) spyware, trojans, credit card theft, viruses, what-have-you, on unsuspecting PC users who've taken all reasonable precautions. I understand that your post is facetious (at least I hope it is) but referring to what I wrote above, the stupid, ignorant and lazy have exactly the same chances as everyone else. What they make of them is entirely up to them, including learning how to spell slsahdot.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Well, the number is actually spelled "googol" and not google (which was an accidental misspelling of googol) or googil. Googil is actually closer to the real spelling.
About Warren Buffet: Buffett believes that much of the problem with the economies of the United States and other industrialized countries in recent years results from the proliferation of persons and organizations who produce nothing directly but are compensated based on the volume of business which they transact. He feels that most stock trades are recommended and made primarily to benefit the brokers rather than the investors and has stated that he feels that the world would benefit if each person had a lifetime maximum of twenty stock trades. He steadfastly refuses to split Berkshire Hathaway stock because the purpose of this would be to facilitate trading, which he has no desire to do. -Wikipedia entry on Warren Buffett Read that passage, then read it again..and when you're done reading it, read it one more time. Then you'll understand why some knucklehead will pay 160 million clams for absolutely nothing of real hard value.
Internet domain names are a lot like commercial real estate. The value is based on traffic count much like the number of cars that pass by a retail shopping center. Real estate investors also use solid investment analysis when considering the purchase of properties which makes the sale of these domains interesting.
It was noted on NetCraft that these domains get about 17 million unique visitors a month and at a $5.00 CPM (which is quite generous) that would be $85,000 a month ($1.02 million a year) in revenue. Consequently, the ROI (Return on Investment) would be 0.622% which is a very poor rate to receive.
In order to get a decent ROI, the new owners are going to have to increase traffic, create better content for higher paying ads, or provide some upsell item with a high profit margin and conversion rate. If this were a real estate property, this rate of return would definately make this property a "don't wanter".
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