BBI.net, Requirements.com and ApartmentsNow.com lead the pack.

NameMedia continues to sell over a half million dollars worth of domain names each week, a thousand or two thousand dollars at a time. Last week the company tallied just over $550,000 in reported sales. The median sales price for .com domains was at the company’s typical $1,200 and the median for non-.com (mostly .net and .org) was $1,000.

The top sale was BBI.net at $11,800, followed by requirements.com and apartmentsnow.com at $10,000 each. I like requirements.com, which would be perfect for a requirements software vendor. The domain appears to have been purchased by a business analyst community.

Here are other .com domain sales of note:

advancedpractice.com $5,839.20
LetsGIVE.com $5,800.00
socialtv.com $5,500.00
entertainmentbusiness.com $5,188.00
sattva.com $4,800.00
computerandelectronics.com $4,700.00
inventoryliquidators.com $4,000.00
mallplus.com $3,888.00
onesee.com $3,788.00
callsoft.com $3,750.00
organiz.com $3,741.00
dancefanatic.com $3,740.00
nylighting.com $3,591.00
orthosurgeons.com $3,513.61
viewprice.com $3,321.00
freefox.com $3,300.00
nativehealing.com $3,190.00
creditcardlenders.com $3,141.00
digitalsugar.com $3,088.00
eyet.com $3,000.00
churchlighting.com $3,000.00

And here are .net/.org domains:
blook.net $8,250.00
ldk.org $5,000.00
biblesearch.org $4,000.00
savelives.net $3,988.00
performanceparts.net $3,372.00
moneymaker.net $3,188.00
urns.org $3,188.00
environmentaleducation.org $3,000.00

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Could move foreshadow image ads on parked pages?

Today Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that it will start adding relevant banner ads to the bottom of link ad results pages.

Link ads are part of the Google Adsense program. Instead of showing ads that link directly to an advertiser’s site, a link unit includes keywords that link to a page full of Google ads.

The banners are shown at the bottom of these ad pages:

Google says that it found revenue increases when adding the image ads, which means that a combination of text and image ads produces higher revenue than text ads alone. That begs the question, will this soon be applied to parked domain names, too?

Google Adsense for Domains uses pages that look very similar to link unit results pages. It will also be interesting to see if Google starts to syndicate its image ads to it partner parking companies. Google restricts which types of ads these partners can show, but it may wish to insert its own image ads to boost overall revenue.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Use DomainTools’ whois history to research the history of a domain name you’re buying.

When you’re ready to shell out a bunch of cash for a domain name, it’s important to understand the ownership history of the domain name. There’s no title insurance for domains, so the onus is on you to make sure the domain isn’t stolen and has clean title.

In fact, it was DomainTools’ whois history that saved me from buying a stolen domain name for $5,000 back in 2005.

To access whois history, just search for the domain on DomainTools. Scroll down to “DomainTools Exclusive” to see if there are any archived whois records:

Clicking on the link will bring you to a page that shows all of the dates of recorded whois records. Red dates indicate records protected by whois privacy, and shading generally indicates similar records.

You should look for frequent changes in ownership, as well as short ownership periods. In the case referenced above, the domain was owned by one person until it briefly changed hands (and registrars) for 5 days, only to jump to a different owner and registrar after that. I ended up calling the previous registrant who told me the domain was stolen. The extra effort was a small price to pay to avoid losing $5,000.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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