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Website Domain Trends

December 12, 2007

Website Domain Trends

The trade of website domains has been a lucrative industry in the past few years. Advertising expenditures have increasingly shifted from traditional media such as newspapers and television into the Internet. Almost $4 billion were spent on Internet advertising in the first half of 2005 alone. Such developments contributed to the rising of domain prices as the industry attracted the attention of corporate buyers and venture capitalists.Prominent business publications such as the Wall Street Journal have featured the website domain business which further increased interest in the burgeoning industry. Industry leaders have also conducted trade conventions such as the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and Domain Roundtable conferences for domain owners, developers, and investors. These trade conventions enable domain insiders to interact and discuss important issues about the industry.

A 2006 research conducted by Emiliano Pasqualetti of DomainsBot on secondary market sales trends in the website domain business found that domain names that were sold for more than $10,000 are growing exponentially in value. The research also showed that the total value of domain names that were worth at least $100,000 had the fastest rate of growth. Sales of English domains dominated the market from 2004 to 2006 with a market share of 82.5%.

English domains sold for a total of $76.7 million from 2004 to 2006. Pasqualetti also found that .com domain names composed of a single English keyword had the most demand. Pasqualetti’s research concluded that 54% of the domains that were sold are being used for traffic monetization purposes.

 Domain sales in 2007 are being dominated by adult domains based on market reports conducted by DNJournal.com.The adult domain Porn.com has so far topped the domain sales chart for 2007 with a market value of $9.5 million. Seniors.com ranked second with a market value of $1.8 million and Tandberg.com ranked third with a market value of $1.5 million. Rounding out the top 10 are: Vista.com ($1.25 million), Scores.com ($1.18 million), Chinese.com ($1.12 million), Topix.com ($1 million), Poker.de ($957,937), Dollars.com ($650,000), and Cardiology.com ($550,000).The leading website domain vendors in 2007 include: Moniker/T.R.A.F.F.I.C., Sedo, DRT Auction, and Afternic/BuyDomains.

Real estate domains have so far ranked prominently in the Global Contenders sales category of DNJournal.com for 2007. Global Contenders category includes domain names that end in .biz, .info, .mobi, .net, and .pro. RealEstate.net topped the Global Contenders sales chart with a market value of $300,000. DIY.net ranked second with a market value of $200,000 and Chinese.net ranked third with a market value of $180,000. Rounding out the top 10 for the Global Contenders sales category are: Ringtones.net ($175,000), Sportsbook.mobi ($129,800), Travel.info ($116,000), Hosting.mobi($101,000), Army.org ($99,000), RealEstate.mobi ($85,000), and Bingo.org($75,000).The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently revealed its plans to hasten the development of country-coded top level domains (ccTLDs) and local language scripting at the 2007 Internet Governance Forum. ICANN is an international non-profit organization that is in-charge of regulating the World Wide Web’s domain name system.

ICANN has also launched its campaign to assign internationalized ccTLDs with the assistance of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). ICANN’s efforts will further help in the globalization of the website domain industry. 

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