Travelzoo, a publicly traded travel site launched in 1998, has annouced that it purchased the domain “Fly.com” for $1.8 million. According to Travelzoo’s announcement, Fly.com will be the home of “a new information web site to be launched in Feburary”. A visit to the site itself offers a slightly less vague description:
“Fly.com will launch a new travel search engine within the next few weeks that will help you find
the best travel options. Please visit us again soon.”
The $1.8 million price tag might sound like a lot (and it is), but pricey domains are nothing new, even in the down economy: Vibrators.com sold for $1 million a few months ago and A&T’s YellowPages.com paid a whopping $3.85 million for YP.com in December. Of course, good domain names are no guarantee for success – let’s hope Fly.com has more behind it than yet another generic travel search engine.
Recently I wanted to buy a good domain name travel related (and has “travel” in its name)…the owner’s price: under 30,000
Now it seems like a bargain comparing with this fly.com….
Waste of money. Umm, kayak.com anybody? I recommended shorting TZOO when they were trading at $11. Now they’re at $4 and seem determined to run it into the ground.
WOW … a bit high … NO?
agreed
freefreebiefinder.com
Stories like these often end in tears as noted with Pets.com. I do think that 9/10, you’re far better off with a name that is brandable as opposed to generic, though fly may be different you never know.
The travel space is tough though, I can’ understand why more companies keep entering with often copycat services.
No, you are not better off with a lame brandable domain. ANYBODY starting a website today can think up a “brandable” name for their business. Nothing really makes these startups stand out, at least from the name stand point.
Now, a startup with a generic address…that is rare! Speaks volumes in terms of credibility, and memorability. Also, a lifetime of type-in traffic. The thing most people haven’t clued into (amazingly) is the way generic domains rank in Google once developed. Music, Credit, Software etc… These extremely high searched terms in Google produce the .com as one of the first results for these keyword searches.
If you want the best chance of succeeding, make the domain name your number one priority. Not some damn meaningless brandable.
“The thing most people haven’t clued into (amazingly) is the way generic domains rank in Google once developed. Music, Credit, Software etc”
They still have to be developed correctly. Look at html.com. Doesn’t rank in the top 300 for html. That’s pathetic for a developed website.
I totally agree with you Derek about domain names, and here’s great example of a company that have very shitty domain name “vehix” wasted a lot of money on TV ads plus also they have shitty app too.
Love the logo – I hope the re-vamp parts of the old TZ site and run with it. Definitely expensive and sounds like a lot – but not terrible all things considered.
No worse than buying a fairly small piece of new office space.
Great choice — generic names like this get thousands of type-ins a month unadvertised. An established brand such as Travelzoo has a good shot at turning this into a hot web property.
Congratulations on your Forbes (and Momversation) mention…looks like a gateway to somewhere special, I expect to learn alot.
Wow, that’s amazing even in these economic times. I guess their marketing department is looking into the future and feels that the name has that memorable, brand ability that’s so important to stand out in a large crowd.
what i would have done to have squatted those domain names when the internet took off.
the name pets.com is still worth a million plus even though it originally failed. Fly is a great investment that will forever appreciate. Common Sense Natural Language generic domains appear to be the fastest growing investments in history. Who knew? …………….the “cybersleuths” knew.
EquityLocator.com – Value in the Eye of the Beholder
Its not worth the money, but good for people who sell.
And people still wonder why TZOO is at a 52 week low… what a waste of money. For 1/10 of the price of the Fly.com domain name, TZOO could hire a leading SEO company to do intent modeling and dominate the travel space.
With Google Chrome and mobile search, it does not matter what your domain name is.
Congrats to the sellers!
@SocialJulio
I think it’s funny that they felt it necessary to add “BETA” to their parked logo.
As for the domain, I think it’s a good buy at a good price. For a corporation like TravelZoo, $1.8m is a good investment for instant brandability and recognition. Random brandable domains are all well and good, but they require massive investment and time to make them work.
And I don’t think anyone can argue that fly.com>travelzoo.com
Pets.com
Did anyone try out http://www.four...raveldeals.com/ – different take on TravelZoo deals. With some elements of Woot – one day, four travel deals.
apart from the valuable domain name, fly.com is a more than 12 year old domain with pagerank 6 and more than 27,000 pages indexed in yahoo. looks like a seo gold mine to me.
See the proofs in my post at http://binaryda...15-million-usd/
I think this domain is a bargain for that price.
Interesting also that Sedo.com brokered that one again, they seem to sell quite a few of those high-profile there days…
I heard that the domain “are.us” (domains.are.us, blogs.are.us, etc) had a $1.5m offer and the owner refused to sell it… nuts.
The domain gets around 4k uniques a month in type-in traffic. That’s worth about $10k a month based on standard PPC rates for that vertical.
I think for $2M they could have picked up something that would have a better SEO upside. The search term “Fly to” and then an associated city (example “Fly to Miami”) get very few daily searches. They paid a premium for the branding potential. Part of the problem is that they purchased it from an end user who had owned it since at least 2001. This wasn’t owned by a “domainer”, had it been they would have paid less. Especially in this economy.
Sounds the right price – 3-character dictionary dot com domain with loads of type-in traffic and endless SERP positioning possibilities.
Interesting also that Sedo.com brokered that one again, they seem to sell quite a few of those high-profile there days…
Language generic domains appear to be the fastest growing investments in history. Who knew? …………….the “cybersleuths” knew.