How much is your domain name really worth?

I’m sure some of you have heard of a few of these amazing domain name sales, like the infamous and controversial domain Sex.com that was sold in January 2006 to a Boston-based company for US$14million. Then there are other mega domain name sales like – Beer.com for US$7 million, Telephone.com for US$2 million, Shop.com for US$3.5 million, and others such as Computer.com, College.com, Diamond.com, Timeshares.com and CreditCard.com.

A quick look at those domains and you’ll see that they all have universal appeal, they’re almost generic everyday words that a lot of people can relate to. So with quite a few of those gone in the early domain name land rush, can the domain name that you bought and parked somewhere of any saleable value? And further, can the Caribbean domain name you’ve bought parked or even are using worth anything? How is the value of domain names determined? In my mind and based on what I’ve read and researched, is that in a capitalist environment the price of anything is pretty much based on demand and supply, based on the wants of the buyer and seller and on this other thing called- timing. But let me tell you about a company and how they’ve been creating value for their domain names and grown it into a multimillion-dollar business.

The story of internetrealestate.com

Internet Real Estate Group, InternetRealEstate.com and its founders, Andrew Miller and Mike “Zappy” Zapolin’s have a track record for the acquisition, development, and sale of domain names such as Beer.com, Diamond.com, Telephone.com, Creditcards.com, Shop.com, Music.com, Computer.com, Timeshares.com, and Luggage.com. Here’s how they typically do their business.

They bought control of beer.com for US$80,000 in 1998 and built an audience for the site by giving out free e-mail addresses and having fans rate different brews. Less than a year later, they sold it for US$7 million to Interbrew, a beer company. The pair then bought creditcards.com for $100,000 in 2003, created a comparison site for credit card offers, and sold it to a private equity buyer for $2.8 million in 2004. Now that it’s valued at several hundred million dollars by some, they admit to selling too soon. Other brands/domain names they own. Deals for resold domain names hit US$700 million in 2007, about double the figure in 2005 and quadruple the 2004 level, according to Sedo, a domain name brokerage and appraisal firm also based in Cambridge, Mass.

I’ve registered a couple of domain names myself and will continue to do so. I registered wheretobuygas.com, reggaemusicfans.com, shopthecaribbean.mobi, so I’ll tell you if and when I sell those and for how much. Mind you that’s of course nothing compared to Sandor Panton. I am prepared to lose US$100 dollars if anyone can find the person who owns more Jamaican and Caribbean domain names than Sandor Panton. He revealed at Kingston Beta, the networking event for Caribbean tech professionals and entrepreneurs last year, that he has some 1200 domains bought and parked with a few hundred of them active with content.

 Where to buy and sell your domain names?

The best resources for buying and selling domains I’ve found is sedo.com, where you can buy, sell, appraise and auction domain names and also greatdomains.com which is a premium version of Sedo. 

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