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Domain Names Worth Their Weight in Gold Again
prostoalex writes "So far in 2006 domain name on.com fetched $635,000, Macau.com was sold for $550,000, blue.com was sold for half a million, and Jasmin.com was bought for $310,000. With the exception of the last domain name, which is currently used for erotic video chat, the rest of the domains run some sort of domain parking ads. USA Today talks about revived interest to domain name trade, and companies like Marchex, a 'leader in vertical and local traffic', which happens to own a .com domain for every single zip code in the United States. There's also a report that in the few days that .eu domain names were made available, 1,454,218 European domains were registered."
To all those companies that are being so helpful in "parking" domain names for me and then charging outrageous prices to "register" them........ FSCK YOU!!!. Seriously though, how many of you have tried to go out and register even the most obscure of domain names for your website only to have companies like Marchex or GoDaddy say "Sure, we'll get that domain for you for the low, low price of $5000.00" (or more). This is the concept of the middle man taken to criminal levels. Can someone enlighten me as to what benefit(s) they provide? What services do they provide? Is there anything good at all about these companies or are they simply parasitic ticks feeding off the belly of the Internet?
:-)
And what does it say about the market audience when domain names with misspelled words (like Mortage.com) can go for $242,000?
Oh, I forgot.... at least one domain level parking company provides Microsoft with advertising because they "parked" all of their unused domains on IIS servers....which......appear at some level to be able to handle those traffic loads.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
.com is for companies companies should be registered therefore only your company is allowed your.com this is actually the case with .com.au to the point that you can't sell the domain without the company, additionally business names have rules (for instance can't have a business that sounds like someone else's or purports to be something it is not like a corporation)
.com administrators apply the same rules instead of going for a money grab
Why can't
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
"Why can't .com administrators apply the same rules instead of going for a money grab"
Don't you hate it when land developers buy up all the land and refuse to sell it to you at the price you think they should?
I used to laugh at people that said we are experiencing the Dot-Com Bubble all over again, but after reading stories like this... Should those people be dismissed so quickly?
-William Brendel
First, why did the price of registering domain names get so cheap? I mean, how much are these companies paying now to register domain names? $1 each? Less? Where does this money go? Does it go to the people who have to maintain these DNS servers with bogus parking domains? If we think about how spam got out of hand, you could imagine that someday 90% of all domain names are "spam".
Why did we have to make registration so cheap to begin with? I don't see what's wrong with charging $50 for a a year for a domain name. If someone needed it that bad they should pay up. Now with the ultra low cost anyone can buy up a bunch of domain names and sell them back for an excessive fee.
So... when will legislation be inacted to prevent domain parking? It's obvious that parking a domain can bring no benefit to the economy or society, it's just an unecessary middleman tactic. Also, registering a domain name and a copyright are two seperate things. If you own the copyright you should definately be able to sue these domain parkers for infringement.
It's just absolutely ridiculus that we got into a situation where every imaginable word, phrase, or typo is now registered.
WTF? What does this mean? They drive vertical and local traffic by redirecing 90210.com to local Beverly Hills companies? Sure they do...when I want to perform a search for Beverly Hills (90210), for example, I type in the Zip Code instead of the city name. Dumba$$es. Let's test their theory of driving vertical and local traffic when I type my zipcode plus .com into IE and Firefox....
15 seconds later...in both Firefox (with Adblock) and IE 6 SP1...I get NOTHING but blank screen. Maybe Spysweeper is blocking whatever I see or is preventing a redirect to some sort of shitty ad or malware infested site. In either case, as long as users continue to implement antivirus, anti-malware/spyware and anti-spam software, squatters like Marchex will not make much money and eventually won't even be able to afford the domain renewal fees, even from Bob's Domains-R-Us type of registrars.
"That was to expected from a company that went public and reports to their shareholders. Lots of money and values don't go together."
Yeah! Just look at the Catholic church.
This is basic capitalism in action. As long as there are people willing to pay up a fortune, there will be people to try to sell it for a fortune.
Thing is, you don't have to have the money if you have the imagination. I've recently started brainstorming for domain ideas for some projects I'm releasing in the next couple of months, and I can assure you that despite it being difficult and sometimes frustrating to find a good name for free, it's ALWAYS possible to get one, if you so wish.
When I mention my domains I always get the question "how much you paid up". So I say: "Well I paid up 10 bucks" and get a frown of disbelief. Thing is I've better ways to spend a $5000 than for a domain name.
Here are a couple of very recent examples:
futuremethod.com/net (and fmethod.com/net for short): For my little web design firm team.
binaryconcert.com: Where I'll soon post experimental electronic music.
JUGAI.com: A home for a virtual gaming console concept I'm still working on.
DonBeats.com A site selling hip hop beats I did for my friend, who goes by the nickname Don Perinion. This site ranks on the first or second pages for terms like "beats for sale", "hip hop beats" or "buy exclusive beats".
FlashBeyond.com A new project for free and commercial Flash scripts, components, tutorials...
All those were free for taking and purchased relatively recently (except the web firm ones), and I've found hundreds of other good names in the process which are still free, but I won't list here for obvious reason of someone quickly "parking" them.
To recap: don't let the squatters make you believe there is NO good domain left free on the web, because they neither have the resource or money to keep up with the imagination of the entire world.
Okay. New rule
No.... No new rules. We have enough, thanks.
People who have no idea HOW SOMETHING WORKS, are no longer allowed to use Slashdot as an outlet for their ignorant ranting.
You do have an ID in the mid 600000 range, so you have not been around here long, have you? Slashdot is one of the biggest rantspaces on the Internet. That said, I understand exactly how the process works as explained below.
Those domains displaying domain parking pages are OWNED. That means someone exchanged goods, services, or currency for property. The property was the registration of the domain name. Still with me?
OK, that is perfectly understandable. Do you have any idea of how these companies "OWN" these domain names? Of course you do as you are trying to use/justify this same model to make money for yourself. For others here that may not know, they buy them up in bulk and find any and all possible relevant combinations of names in the hopes that someone will find a need for that name and then exchange again, more money to buy that domain name at a later date. Simple parasitic business with no real contribution to anything other than lining their own pockets.
1. After registering a domain, your nameservers typically default to some that the registrar provides.
Yes, and that drives more revenue to the domain name registrar who can then run statistics on how much traffic that name gets which then allows them to "valuate" that domain name for cost increases for ownership.
2. These at-the-moment "unused" domains, which number in the millions, get between a little and a LOT of traffic that would otherwise go nowhere.
See above explanation to 1.
3. An enterprising registrar sees this as an opportunity for offsetting costs, and profit (see: capitalism).
Yes, yes.... capitalism. I'm all for it, but hopefully that capitalism actually does something that contributes to society.
1. Someone registers a domain, and puts a program like the aforementioned on it to drive revenue - either while developing a site for it, or they simply are doing so well with it that it is "maximized". (Lingerei.com is an example)
Or.... statistically more likely and factually born out by the evidence, they simply sit on the domain and let it lie fallow until someone comes along that wants to buy it.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
No, what he's showing disdain for is people who profit at the unwilling expense of others, through no effort or cleverness of their own. And i'm sorry but i think there are probably a good number of people who agree with him (myself included)
Besides, using "yeah well they did it first" doesn't mean that it's right, or that other things should be modeled in the same fashion, even if one was to accept that land development is a suitable analogy to domain squatting.
There are lives at stake here!
So being a "timeless trade" makes it okay. Like armed robbery, white slavery, "protection", etc. And the term "development" is misleading. A parked site is not developed like land; land is usually developed by providing access and services. Nothing in a parked domain is useful except the name itself. Youi'll notice hte other "timelsss trades" I mentioned are illegal. Though domain speculation shouldn't itself be illegal, it should certainly not be encouraged.
They've created a bunch of TLDs - that no one cares about. People want the classy .com and they won't settle for anything else. It's not the control of the names that causes these issues, it's the desires of the consumer.
Most of the posts on this article can be summed up as "I hate when someone makes money."
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