News China Is Making Domain Name History

[Vendot]

This story is unfolding as we speak but has been in play for almost the whole of 2015 so far and it looks like records are going to be broken in 2016:

China Is Making Domain Name History | TechCrunch

China is buying up the Internet - Business Insider

Further news I previously reported on this:

https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...oom-2-0-a.html

Any of you have 3L or 4L or 5L dot coms? Obviously it depends on the letter combinations but I'm finding that (and even higher if has meaning or is pronounceable):

2L is often selling at > $500k
3L is often selling at > $50k
4L is often selling at > $3k
5L is often selling at > $1k

Dot com numerics? They're doing even better... and there is still shit loads available to be registered and mined for profit as we speak. Go start registering!

[Ferus]

You wish 😊

[Oracle Porn]

i got the same guy offering me between 350-500 bucks for a 4L domain, i told him 5k or fuck off, he didn't pay 5k.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by Oracle Porn

i got the same guy offering me between 350-500 bucks for a 4L domain, i told him 5k or fuck off, he didn't pay 5k.

Is it dot com? Does the 4L have meaning and is easily understood? Certain letters don't appeal as much to China people such as vowels and letter V but they're not the only ones in this market and generally it looks like most 4L dot coms are selling for at least $3k, give or take.

The way things are going, I daresay the prices rise even further next year...

[BIGTYMER]

I've got a bunch of LLLL coms. Lost a really good one a while back.. Expired card on file. One reason why I hate drop services. Its impossible to manage hundreds of domains across 50 different registrars. One of these days I'm going to get organized! Moved them all to one registrar.

The chinese have been hounding me for months with shitty $500 offers.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by BIGTYMER

The chinese have been hounding me for months with shitty $500 offers.

Yep, everyone is getting the same thing now because they're extremely aggressive with the email spam. Ask a higher price though and you may be surprised with the answer as there are more wealthy people in China than in any other country. You might also take the time to write some Chinese characters using Google Translate

I suggest something in Chinese like: "Im also Chinese you know - increase your price!"

If you have anything with letters Q, Z and J — these are considered premium in China.

[BIGTYMER]

Originally Posted by Vendot

Yep, everyone is getting the same thing now because they're extremely aggressive with the email spam. Ask a higher price though and you may be surprised with the answer as there are more wealthy people in China than in any other country. You might also take the time to write some Chinese characters using Google Translate

I suggest something in Chinese like: "Im also Chinese you know - increase your price!"

If you have anything with letters Q, Z and J â?? these are considered premium in China.

No Q or Z in any of them but I have J's. All of mine are free of A, E, I, O, U, V. So Chinese premium. I got lucky.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by BIGTYMER

No Q or Z in any of them but I have J's. All of mine are free of A, E, I, O, U, V. So Chinese premium. I got lucky.

Yep, in fact we have quite a few and none of them have Q, Z or J and some even have vowels but that doesn't seem to stop the China interest (I guess it just reduces it). In numeric dot com, worth noting that they especially love numbers 7 and 8 and dislike the numbers 4 and 13.

You obviously did some smart planning - I don't know how long this thing can go on for but you might want to think about lightening up a bit on the load. Next year (2016) might be the perfect time to offload some....

[Ferus]

make me an offer for cuul.org or 20xx.org then

I still think my other domains; nextsmartphone.com and futuresmartphone.com are better

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by Ferus

make me an offer for cuul.org or 20xx.org then

I have no clue about the .org space, except that from what I've read random 4L .org are selling in the range of around $300 USD and more if it has a meaning or perhaps more if has no vowels. Though, I have seen higher prices reported. Since there is no market price for domains and the sale depends on what someone is willing to pay and you can just get an idea just by browsing or posting at the domain name forums:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ala...omains.894584/

The other one probably could sell too because its 20 and two repeating letters which the Chinese told me they like but I don't know if the two combined works. The downside is that its a .org - I guess probably $120 max for it but its just a complete guess. If you read the forums, you'll see that a lot of western people are completely perplexed by the incredible demand for these domains - no-one seems to know what's going on except the Chinese themselves, and they seem to have some kind of a secret rule book.

Didn't like your two word domains but you can try your luck on the forums.

[woj]

come on guys, 99% 4 letter .orgs are close to worthless...

for example:
Leke.org - LLLL 4 Letter .org Domain at GoDaddy, NR!

LEKE.org sold for $15.50.... there are 100s of 4 letter .orgs for sale for under $50 on various domain websites... I wouldn't even be surprised if there are plenty of unregistered .orgs that you can get for reg fee...

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by woj

come on guys, 99% 4 letter .orgs are close to worthless...
LEKE.org sold for $15.50.... there are 100s of 4 letter .orgs for sale for under $50 on various domain websites...

Maybe many are but I wouldn't say 99%. It does depend on the letters and how do we know that the purchaser isn't getting an absolute bargain? He might well flip those domains the next day for a decent profit and people do that all the time.

It's important to understand that a person selling a Domain Name has the freedom to list their asset at a price of their choosing and it will sell for a price agreed between a buyer and seller. No-one can predict what that will be.

We've bought domains for $50 or less and flipped them for $xxxxx and even $xxxxxx. It does happen more often than you would imagine. Those who are buying in this market, are buying for a reason and there is a plan and an investment strategy behind the purchasing.

I wouldn't even be surprised if there are plenty of unregistered .orgs that you can get for reg fee...

In 4 letters? There's no need to be surprised, prove it to us.

If you browse the forums maybe you'll find many 4L .org selling for $50 or less but you'll also find them selling for $300 and up, it just depends on the letters, meaning, combinations etc and so on.

Well if I just browse the YTD reported sales of 3L .org sales, there have been numerous reported sales of 3L .org selling at $15k plus. There's a few sales reported in DNJournal at around $10k over here:

DNJournal.com YTD Top 100 Domain Sales Chart

So if you assume 3L .org selling at an average of say $12k, maybe its not so surprising to see 4L .org selling at around $300 USD which is 40 times less <shrug> But of course, there are no rules to this, its just a market place and people will offer whatever they want to offer. I would add that there does seem to be an irrational exuberance in the market right now.

[mineistaken]

Originally Posted by Vendot

They're doing even better... and there is still shit loads available to be registered

Doing better and free to register does not correlate well.

[BIGTYMER]

Originally Posted by Vendot

Yep, in fact we have quite a few and none of them have Q, Z or J and some even have vowels but that doesn't seem to stop the China interest (I guess it just reduces it). In numeric dot com, worth noting that they especially love numbers 7 and 8 and dislike the numbers 4 and 13.

You obviously did some smart planning - I don't know how long this thing can go on for but you might want to think about lightening up a bit on the load. Next year (2016) might be the perfect time to offload some....

Thanks. When the price of 3L's exploded I immediately jumped on the next best thing. Any price I get is a win. They were all bought on drop or for low to mid $xx on the domain forums.

Didn't see the numeric rise coming.. Don't own any.

[Roald]

We sold abag.com 2 months or so ago to a CH person. € xx.xxxx range.

Multiple (5k) offers for chck.com but holding on to it. We don't need to sell so the offer better be at least 2 or 3 times that

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by Roald

We sold abag.com 2 months or so ago to a CH person. € xx.xxxx range.

Since random 4 letter are going for around > $3k so it just shows that you do much better often with VCVC.com which is also sometimes selling as well as CVCV.com but it looks like you outperformed.

Again, it's all about the buyer, seller, letters, combinations, extension so on. There are so many different factors involved that it's impossible to judge how a sale is going to be and the seller and the buyer can never be 100% sure who got the better deal. But never argue with cash in hand and it was a great sale.

chck.com is just as sweet as can be if I consider random 4 letter dot com. CH can be china and CK could be just about a range of possibilities but they're both very good letters and its nice repeating C which is always a good letter because it can often mean company etc. CHCK can also be just a cool way of writing chick so you could have a girl brand of clothing or something like the FCUK type thing. There are quite a few possibilities.

I would agree that $5k isn't worth taking on this one and your idea is probably about right. If it was ours, we'd probably hold out and be prepared to wait a while for at least $20k but that's just my view. It's also easy to get too attached to domain name.

The problem with Domain Names is that nobody can know what a Domain Name is worth... we've sold only a handful and often wondered whether we sold too low. On the other hand, we didn't renew many domains which others picked up on the drops and sold for very decent money like $xxxxx

[bns666]

i was consistently receiving 3-4 offers weekly for one pretty much worthless and unpronounceable LLLL.com (nothing special about it, done some research) and sold it for $500 at the end.

tried to push it to $1k or more but negotiations would stop there...

[seeandsee]

never know who will buy your shoprt domain

[amvcdotcom]

been holding on to AVPO.com for a while.

[SIK]

Originally Posted by amvcdotcom

been holding on to AVPO.com for a while.

holding it with a crossdresser store on it?

[amvcdotcom]

Originally Posted by SIK

holding it with a crossdresser store on it?

yep. been making me amazon money for some time now.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by amvcdotcom

been holding on to AVPO.com for a while.

Nice, presumably amvc.com is also yours? That one is awesome sounding - the way a 3/4L dot com sounds when you read it out is also very important. When it comes down to the algorithms, you can always have your domains appraised by estibot which uses all the latest Chinese rules, past sales data and keys on a lot of other stuff:

EstiBot.com - Free Domain Appraisal and Domain Productivity Tools

We've sold way above and way below estibot appraisals so it is not necessarily accurate but it will give you an idea and provide help you learn about your domain. Accordingly, here are valuations estibot gives to some of the Domain Names in this thread:

Chck.com - $18000

Amvc.com - $13000

Ampo.com - $2700

These three don't seem wildly way off base but I'm sure you can fetch a better price for Ampo.com in todays market. Also looks like chck could be relating to payments, which makes me think it might be much more valuable than $20k.

[mce]

It would be nice if China did for the virtual real estate market what its doing to real estate IRL.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by BIGTYMER

They were all bought on drop or for low to mid $xx on the domain forums.

Same here and it looks like you'll fetch at least 100x (100 times your original investment) which is an unbelievable ROI.

The amazing thing is that if you look back on the forums, you'll see so many here complaining in 2006 that they were too late for the dot com land grab, when in fact, it turns out that it was only JUST BEGINNING around that point. People had just not figured out what they needed to register or acquire or what would become popular in the future.

The last decade has seen huge action but even the last year has seen record "registrations" as per the above reports and so that's why I re-iterate it's something that anyone can get into right now - there is shit loads to be mined. All that is required is:

(1) A bit of cash (not much)

(2) A Laptop

(3) A Brain

I reckon most GFYers have (1) and (2) in spades. And a few also have (3)

[ArtificialTraffic]

Most LLLLL's don't have any breath taking value. Even LLLL's with bad characters are not really worth it. Many dropping every day.

[Colmike9]

Are they only looking for .coms?

I'll sell hot18.xyz for $500

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by ArtificialTraffic

Even LLLL's with bad characters are not really worth it. Many dropping every day.

Sure but you're not talking about dot coms are you? We're talking 4L like for example: xvbc.com

If you that's what you're referring to, then show us proof.

[Sednub997]

Surly day are mad for this domains

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by Sednub997

Surly day are mad for this domains

Well it's looking bubbly but the Chinese have only just come on board in the last year so it could be even bigger in 2016. It was reported just yesterday that they completed a live auction that made over 23 million USD in sales. That's bigger than any of the US domain auctions including TRAFFIC as far as I'm aware (but don't quote me).

If you're curious to know what the Chinese are buying, take a look at the sales list:

Chinese Live Auction Nets over 150 Million RMB ($23.1 mil)

[BlackCrayon]

exciting times in the domain industry but i missed the trend early on so I am not getting on board and just sticking to selling to end users instead of playing this domains as stocks game. why do you keep posting about it though?

[Roald]

Originally Posted by Vendot

Well it's looking bubbly but the Chinese have only just come on board in the last year so it could be even bigger in 2016. It was reported just yesterday that they completed a live auction that made over 23 million USD in sales. That's bigger than any of the US domain auctions including TRAFFIC as far as I'm aware (but don't quote me).

If you're curious to know what the Chinese are buying, take a look at the sales list:

Chinese Live Auction Nets over 150 Million RMB ($23.1 mil)

girl.com for 350k

[JFK]

Originally Posted by Roald

We sold abag.com 2 months or so ago to a CH person. â?¬ xx.xxxx range.

Multiple (5k) offers for chck.com but holding on to it. We don't need to sell so the offer better be at least 2 or 3 times that

Nice, Congrats !

[Fat Panda]

i unloaded millions of monies worth of domains years ago to chinese

they very nice and wealthy people

[$money$]

where are you guys selling these domains at

[Colmike9]

I was trying to register porn.ru last week or two because I thought it was unusual for it to be available. But since I'm not living in Russia, by the time I figured out how to get it, which wasn't long at all, fucking Godaddy took it! Fuck them, it's not the first time it's happened, and they don't live in Russia, either. Bunch of greedy elephant hunting bitches. </rant>

[BlackCrayon]

Originally Posted by Colmike7

I was trying to register porn.ru last week or two because I thought it was unusual for it to be available. But since I'm not living in Russia, by the time I figured out how to get it, which wasn't long at all, fucking Godaddy took it! Fuck them, it's not the first time it's happened, and they don't live in Russia, either. Bunch of greedy elephant hunting bitches. </rant>

huh? domain: PORN.RU
nserver: parking1.nic.ru.
nserver: parking2.nic.ru.
state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED, VERIFIED
person: Private Person
registrar: RU-CENTER-RU
admin-contact: https://www.nic.ru/whois
created: 2000.02.04
paid-till: 2016.03.01
free-date: 2016.04.01

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

huh? domain: PORN.RU
nserver: parking1.nic.ru.
nserver: parking2.nic.ru.
state: REGISTERED, DELEGATED, VERIFIED
person: Private Person
registrar: RU-CENTER-RU
admin-contact: https://www.nic.ru/whois
created: 2000.02.04
paid-till: 2016.03.01
free-date: 2016.04.01

..Weird. When I tried to buy it, it said it was available and went through all of the paperwork to "verify that I was a Russian resident"
Then I went back later when I worked it out, about 30 minutes, and it was taken and a Godaddy rep on live chat literally told me that they must have seen the purchase attempt and got it themselves.

Their system must suck, then. Either way, fuck Godaddy.

Whoever owns porn.ru sucks, too, why park it for 16 years?

[mikesouth]

I own Seysha.com and would part with the url for the right price. Right now its developed just to remonetize scenes and age it.

anyone interested hit me up

[Mediamix]

Originally Posted by Colmike7

..Weird. When I tried to buy it, it said it was available and went through all of the paperwork to "verify that I was a Russian resident"
Then I went back later when I worked it out, about 30 minutes, and it was taken and a Godaddy rep on live chat literally told me that they must have seen the purchase attempt and got it themselves.

Their system must suck, then. Either way, fuck Godaddy.

Whoever owns porn.ru sucks, too, why park it for 16 years?

I really like you, but the fact you put any trust in GoDaddy makes you a little bit ignorant.

I hope you do better with other companies. Fuck GoDaddy.

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by Mediamix

I really like you, but the fact you put any trust in GoDaddy makes you a little bit ignorant.

I hope you do better with other companies. Fuck GoDaddy.

Only because I had a good coupon, sorry..

[BlackCrayon]

Originally Posted by Mediamix

I really like you, but the fact you put any trust in GoDaddy makes you a little bit ignorant.

I hope you do better with other companies. Fuck GoDaddy.

godaddy can be great. they are my main registrar, i have a dedicated rep who is knowledgeable and helpful. however the lower level customer service reps are often very dumb and get things wrong.

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by Roald

girl.com for 350k

Some guy in the comments converted many of those sales into US dollars and got the following sales amounts:

DOMAIN/USD

yao.com 3,316,000
gg.com 2,622,000
house.com 2,499,000
hg.com 2,468,000
banana.com 2,036,000
lp.com 1,030,000
nr.com 879,000
886.com 858,000
828.com 679,000
123.cn 648,000
689.com 540,000
262.com 509,000
183.com 440,000
girl.com 355,000

Five domain sales of 2 million dollars or more.

[ArtificialTraffic]

Originally Posted by Vendot

Sure but you're not talking about dot coms are you? We're talking 4L like for example: xvbc.com

If you that's what you're referring to, then show us proof.

Thank you for explaining me what LLLL means.

And as I nice person, I'l do your homework and show you proof that LQ LLLL's are not worth much. Yes, they are 5+ times more expensive than year or so ago ... but still nothing special.

https://sedo.com/auction/auction_det...rigin=homepage
https://sedo.com/auction/auction_det...rigin=homepage
https://sedo.com/auction/auction_det...rigin=homepage

[Sednub997]

Big money deals

[SekobA]

Those're overpriced

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by ArtificialTraffic

show you proof that LQ LLLL's are not worth much. Yes, they are 5+ times more expensive than year or so ago ... but still nothing special.

You obviously haven't read all the links in this thread. There are plenty of losers here at GFY. All you've proved is that you're one of them so why am I not surprised that you absolutely do not understand the Domain Name market?

Domain Names are not like a commodities market where there is a fixed market price for a commodity determined on an exchange. As I explained previously, not all LLLL.com are created equally and I never said LQ LLLL are going to necessarily sell for high prices because the issue is precisely the quality, the letters, combinations, connotations, radio friendliness, potential uses, etc and Finding the Right Buyer. There are also MANY factors that determine value.

There may well be many that sell for low prices but conversely, just because they sell under $300 USD does not mean they not flipped for 4x or 5x in short order - which is where the opportunity is. The buyers could well have got themselves a bargain as LLLL dot coms can and do very consistently sell in 4 figures. All three of your examples, estibot values, taken as an average, well OVER $4k. We would have paid considerably higher than those sale prices you showed us, had we known about them.

There are 1000's of closed auctions for 4L dot coms at $3k to $10k or even higher. There are at least thirty LLLL.com sales at over $2k over the last couple weeks alone reported here in the industry magazine:

Two 6-Figure Sales Top This Week's Chart - Three of the Four Biggest Sales Are 3-Letter .Coms

Reported sales are usually a tiny fraction of a real sales volume.

[Vendot]

The news is coming thick and fast here.

77.com Sells For Over $5 million USD.

https://www.namepros.com/blog/breaki...00-000.905314/

If that doesn't turn you green, you should obtain some paint from a local store and paint yourself green

[VRPdommy]

I know the valuations come as a surprise to many. It did me also until I learned hat was really happening.

Since the Chinese Stock market has all but crashed and they can no longer play BitCoins. The money from the new middle class is looking for liquid portable investments. The domain market is not regulated in any way in China.

A few smart guys turned domains into a commodity.
Bringing in investment money that had to be invested in domains.

The language there is of 2 types. Many names are bought on the idea of sounds and may make no sense in English at all.

Not many are investing in "words" yet. And most words do not translate well between Chinese and English in just one or even two words. Google translate is not a good choice for real translations where money is on the line.

The market could go higher, but will last be shortened by it's height.
Now is a good time to make a profit and sell if you are holding.

I still believe the value is a bit overpriced in this way for some, not all of the niches they seem to be interested in.
The value placed on a name has to represent what a end-user of a name might pay plus a profit margin. This is a investment. We are not buying marbles or snowflakes or paintings to be admired.

Most of what they are placing a high value to will have little to no chance of a end user need or want let alone competition for it from more than one player in the next 10 years.

Unless something changes, that does not apply to the 2L & 3L .com's but in that case, they are pricing them high enough that they will not have a likely buyer even if there is a need or want.

If they do not change their buying rabbits and concentrate on names that have a chance of end-user demand in 8 years or less... well ...how do you spell bubble market ?

[Vendot]

Originally Posted by VRPdommy

Most of what they are placing a high value to will have little to no chance of a end user need or want let alone competition for it from more than one player in the next 10 years.

Well 4L Dot Coms which exclude letters a, e, i, o, u and v are known as CHIPs in Domain Name terminology. They were selling for $30 just 7 or 8 years back and today $2k seems to be the floor in most cases and $3k plus sales happen quite often.

Yes its true that the Chinese are investing in the internet but as you say, they are looking for portable wealth, in order to thwart capital controls but also to evade a likely forthcoming devaluation of the Chinese RMB.

Unless something changes, that does not apply to the 2L & 3L .com's but in that case, they are pricing them high enough that they will not have a likely buyer even if there is a need or a want.

It doesn't apply to 2L or 3L dot coms because taken together, there are only around 18,000 in total. For perspective, there are over 50,000 cities in the world.

If they do not change their buying rabbits and concentrate on names that have a chance of end-user demand in 8 years or less... well ...how do you spell bubble market ?

I presume you mean habits rather than rabbits (which are eaten in China).

Anyhow, the point is it all comes down to the numbers, rarity, demand and supply etc. I definitely think that short Domain Names in LLLL.com (CHIP or otherwise) are now proven to at least some degree because they are in wide use and are acronyms of words which have actual meanings in Chinese.

LLLL.com = 457k combinations
CHIP LLLL.com (excl a,e,i,o,u,v) = 160k combinations
CHIP 6N (excl 0,1,4) = 117k combinations

No-one can predict how the market will develop but for sure, short domains are going to be in demand going forward the chinese market also has a real penchant for numeric domain names.

[pimpmaster9000]

too late to get in to the LLLL.com thing now...its already peaked...going 5l or 6l is crazy...

you are too late for this train....