Oversee.net has acquired domain registration and auction powerhouse Moniker for what is believed to be $65 million.
Oversee.net previously purchased Snapnames in May for $35 million and will integrate Moniker into its Snapnames Live service.
Moniker has become a leader in the continually growing second domain names market. We’ve covered Moniker auctions twice before (here and here); they may not have the volume of some of their competitors but they had carved out a strong niche at the top of the market.
Both parties said that the acquisition would strength their positions in a highly competitive market.
(in part via Domaintools)
wow… I need to get out of the cave more, I have never heard of moniker.com.
well then expired domains market in not dying as many had predicted.
actually its completely in google’s hands to kill the value of expired domains but for some reason it does not and I really wonder why.
I transferred all my domains (about 300) from GoDaddy to Moniker after the “GoDaddy makes security site disappear after MySpace complains” story..
Moniker are way better than any registrar, they are worth more than $65M
Way to go!
Only domainers even know about this Web 1.0 company. How is this Web 2.0 news?
Were these guys once own by Kanoodle? What a weird fit. What do they do now after missing the acquisition binge last year? Not much by the loook of things.
The synergy of these two companies will be perfect for all domain buyers, Sedo.com is an excellent source of domains for finding after-market domain names but it isn’t as vast as the services offered by these two companies, especially when combined. Good purchase, I just hope it works out.
You know it’s crazy to see a company like this, with their basic yet clean looking website make giant purchases like this.
Notice that they haven’t even changed the copyright date in their footer. =)
An interesting part of the story that no one seems to be focusing on: why did Kanoodle sell Moniker?
Look at monikers alexa, its dying quickly. Not a good buy.
@9
Using Alexa to declare something dying is pretty stupid. Alexa’s stats are USELESS! based on their tool bar.
And Moniker is one of the best domain registrars out there. I just started moving my entire portfolio over.
Do some research beyond the voodoo magic of Alexa before making such an ignorant statement.
Moniker is not dying, Alexa toolbar is
Tony K
I’ve not tried Moniker for domain registrations, but I’ll have to take a look, but on the auction side its where the big name auctions are held now and they attract serious business. Man (#9), traffic with something like Moniker means nothing, the value is in the quality of the people who use it, and these guys are really close to the top of their market.
maan, big time ka-ching for Monte Cahn…Moniker’s main man
This has been a good buy. The two companies complete each other perfectly well. Moniker is certainly worth that much, in my opinion. They’re the best domain registrar I’ve used so far and they provide some other good domain services, too. For example, their escrow service for domains is far better and more secure than Escrow.com, they provide domain appraisals and their domain auctions have always been a success so far.
It’s the combination of Moniker’s live auction experience and SnapNames’ online auction system that should help these companies grow faster than their competitors in the coveted market for domain auctions in 2008.
And yes, it’s definitely not important how “1.0″ Moniker’s site looks or how much traffic their site receives, because chances are good that they have the most valuable clients in the domain registration business. Most domain professionals, who do not have their own ICANN accredited registrar, have their names registered at Moniker.
@5 – Moniker was previously owned by Seevast Corp., a venture capital-backed holding corporation that also owned pay-per-click text ad specialist Kanoodle and a contextual advertising brand Pulse 360. Seevast is retaining those properties and will presumably use the $65 million in cash to pay down debt, repay venture capitalists or make acquisitions.
Hope that helps,
Doug
Not 65. well below.
All this differentiation between web 1.0 and web 2.0 gives me a laugh:
http://domainna...and-thats-good/
Thanks for the news, i copied it to my new blog
but if you need my review about moniker
it’s famous by it’s marketplace
and snapnames.com