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Rant: Crazy Domain Prices (Update: domain name found)

Hyped
Has anyone tried to be a decent domain name recently?  One thing I have noticed is the moment you express interest in a domain the price instantly goes up 500% from where it should be priced. Case in point: working on a top secret new project here.  I like two names for the project:  www.Ballyhoo.com and www.BlogBuzz.com

So if you are like me you are thinking maybe $10k on these and go up to $20k if I am in a good mood.  Wrong.  So two months ago I approach Ballyhoo.com and offer $10k looking to take it down fast.  No dice.  The owner wants $100k and wont budge so I go over to BlogBuzz.com and offer $10k.  Owner thinks about it and says he will do a deal for $20k.  I am not sold on BlogBuzz.com and really wanted Ballyhoo.com so I put the deal on ice for two months with plans to go back to Ballyhoo.com  I go back this week and no change on price, $100k.  So I go back to Blogbuzz.com going to hard ball him down from $20k and see how close I can get to $10k.  Guess what, in the last month he has got all sorts of calls and offers, new price is…. $100k with no negotiating.

Now I have high hopes for our new project but going $100k in the hole on a domain before the launch didn’t make it into the business plan so I am back to square one.  I could blame Business2.0 for bringing domaining mainstream but instead I blame Mr. Hagans and Mr. Provost for hyping domaining to seos.  Have you also seen a recent spike in domain prices?

Update: purchased Hyped.com for this project.  Price was a fraction of $100k, just don’t tell Hyped it was our third choice ;)

June 15th, 2007 | Posted by Patrick Gavin in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

digilee on Jun 15th, 2007 at 11:45 am

Give me 10k and I’ll come up with a decent name for you!
It’s a sellers market out there, always has been, always will be

Barry Schwartz on Jun 15th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

That is nuts. Yes, Andy is to blame, I agree.

Tropical SEO on Jun 15th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

The guys you dealt with are typical 5th tier-speculative-domainer-muppets, not SEOs…

El Fiscal on Jun 15th, 2007 at 12:46 pm

I don’t think it’ll always be that way. At one point or another, these sellers will be sitting on so much inventory that prices will necessarily come down… and they will hate themselves for not having accepted a $10k offer.

Peter Davis on Jun 15th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

It’s not really recent. Since the first bubble, some people have had unrealistic expectations of the value of their domains/websites.

I do think prices are generally higher now than they were in 2003 (which I consider the lowpoint). It’s been a gradual rise though.

There are certainly great opportunities for great domains in the $10,000 range. I think you just need to go back to the drawing board.

I’ve helped people with domaining before (for a small fee), let me know if you need help.

tom on Jun 15th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

I haven’t personally used this service but it looks interesting

http://www.pickydomains.com/

julien on Jun 15th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

neither of those domains is worth 10k. that’s so insane.

AffiliateInsight on Jun 15th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

Of course, the flip side of your experience is when domain owners are approached by would-be buyers with ridiculously lo-ball offers. (I’ve personally been offered $500 for a domain which was already generating way more than that per month. Did the person just think I was stupid or gullible, or did he not bother to do any research?)

As far as I can tell, the so-called ‘market’ for anything but the most spiffy domains is grossly inefficient, with buyers trying to pull the wool over sellers’ eyes, and sellers hoping to pull the wool over buyers’ eyes. That kind of thing isn’t sustainable in a real market, with some degree of efficiency — but as long as it remains an inefficient wilderness, you’re bound to come across cowboys and hooligans on both sides of the buy/sell relationship.

Brian Provost on Jun 15th, 2007 at 2:33 pm

Why it gotta be my fault?!

It’s an irrational speculators market chock full of people who can barely log into their AOL dial up, yet have their GoDaddy account set as their Home Page.

That said, if you can put in the work on geo-specific .com’s, the tables are flipped and you can get some niiiiice stuff for 1997 prices.

Hit me up on IM if you want to hear more horror stories.

BP

Cameron Olthuis on Jun 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm

not sure if you’re looking for keyword specific domains but I have a few short (5-6 letter .com) ‘brandable’ domains you might like.

Loren Baker on Jun 17th, 2007 at 11:09 am

I don’t mean to be salesy but I’m currently shopping BlogSearchEngine.com around, looking for a buyer.

I’ve come up with a fair minimum price, and have had lowball offers come in for 5% of that price, and then some serious offers placed on the table as well.

It’s a difficult market in some respects, especially if you’re not part of it.

As a seller, I have my selling price.

Buyers have their budget and know the highest amount they can offer.

The trick to domains/sites, are variables such as brandability, authority, incoming links, age, keyword usage and so forth…

Using my site as an example, the site has been live for almost 4 years, with top quality incoming links, organic traffic and excellent web citations.

But a lot of buyers don’t see the value in that. If the site is live, they want to know one thing only… revenue; and don’t look at the other value points.

In some respect, it would probably be easier to sell only a domain :)
So, PGav, from a seller’s perspective, it’s grand to hear your frustrations as a buyer.

Colm @ Online Marketing Ireland on Jun 17th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

I agree with julien - noway are they worth 10k

jeff king on Jun 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am

hmmmm need http://topqna.com

or http://zartoo.com
?
regards J

Search engine marketing on Jun 18th, 2007 at 9:45 am

People are only interested in making money in that case, so no surprise to see prices going up!

Domain buying binge on Jun 18th, 2007 at 12:19 pm

It is crazy…but it’s market-based craziness. Much like home-prices in San Francisco, muscle-car auctions, and, er, text link ads.

Good luck, guys.

Wendy Piersall on Jun 21st, 2007 at 12:39 am

I have used PickyDomains and they are very good (and way under-priced).

But if you can’t find anything, I’ll sell you blogggs.com for way less than $10K. :D

Search engine marketing on Jun 21st, 2007 at 7:25 am

That’s good to know ;)

Luigi Salas on Jun 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 am

Where I can find information for text link ads in spanish?

Paypal2u Bloggers on Jun 24th, 2007 at 5:43 am

I’ve experiance the same problem when developing new project. After checking, the domain name price will be extremely upgraded to more than triple the standard price.

I think it because many domain hunter is still out there looking for the right domain to outbid others.

Ann Clemmons on Jun 27th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

I like BlogBuzz! Although I agree with digilee! I will be happy to come up with a few!

Daniel Dessinger on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 11:45 am

I’d like to hear someone’s opinion on the state and value of domains today. For example, I bought some domains that I expect to sell for approximately $10K. Then I have one or two which I expect will go for at least $50K in the next two years.

But which is more valuable today? Unique brandable names or keyword rich names? I see the value in both, but I’m wondering if, with all the hundreds of new 2.0-ish sites popping up whether these weird branded names are now considered more valuable.

Thoughts? Does it completely depend on the business, or is Bibsy.com (just made it up) now worth more than reputationmanagement.com (one that I actually own)?

Daniel Dessinger on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 11:46 am

Sorry, I actually own reputationmanager.com, not reputationmanagement.com. That’s what I get for commenting before lunch.

Tamar Weinberg on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am

I actually like hyped.com a LOT better than the aforementioned two. That’s a definite score — nice work :)

AffiliateSeeking on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 7:12 pm

Personally I think the hyped domain name is better than the first 2 domains, but then I guess it depends on what you are doing with them. The domain hyped is much shorter than the other two which will help you when it comes to your visitors having to remember it. I have never approached anyone to purchase a domain off me and I have never tried selling a domain after purchasing one. I have some domains that I am not using, which I may try to sell.

I hope you have success with your new project and hopefully it will be a successful just like the other projects you have made a success of.

John Hewitt on Jul 2nd, 2007 at 8:20 pm

Wow, I had no idea domains went for that much. I’ve been sitting on creditmoneydebt.com for a long time. Maybe I need to look for a buyer.

Digilee on Jul 4th, 2007 at 10:36 am

I agree that hyped.com is a better domain than the others but, come on, was it really worth $30k?

Mark Fulton on Jul 5th, 2007 at 3:12 pm

Nice buy. Agree those other sellers had ridiculous prices.

I have Astounded.com and BlogTies.com for sale if you would like for another project.

Mike on Jul 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 am

I can’t even imagine buying a domain for $100.00 besides up to $100,000! I can’t even picture someone trying to sell a domain name for that much.

Mike Rundle on Jul 31st, 2007 at 3:35 am

Man I like hyped.com infinitely more than any other other ones, at least this is an actual word, especially one you can tell to someone else without having to spell it :)

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BlogEarners on Aug 8th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

Is a (domain) that valuable? There are still plenty of catchy names available that you can register for a few $ yourself.. why would anyone spent this kinda money on a name??

arindra on Aug 12th, 2007 at 11:15 am

seriously , never thought someone can pay that much for a domain

Chelyabinsk on Aug 13th, 2007 at 6:50 pm

Never

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E-commerce websites on Sep 21st, 2007 at 3:26 am

Blogbuzz.com is a good domain, also Hyped.com is. Good choices.

stewart on Oct 1st, 2007 at 6:56 am

awsm m8 you gonna get there would you buy my domain http://www.txtginxb.com or visit at least

stewart on Oct 1st, 2007 at 6:59 am