No sooner do we finish writing up Yahoo deadpooling yet another project, Gallery, do we get a tip that Yahoo apparently has another money saving/making plan: Selling off domains it owns. That’s exactly what it has done with contests.com, which sold during a live auction last night.
What’s really odd though (aside from an Internet giant actually selling a domain rather than buying one), is the price at which it sold. Contests.com is a killer domain name. People like my mother love nothing more than going online and searching for contests to enter to win stuff. But what’s crazy is that Yahoo sold it for only $380,000.
Let’s put that in some perspective. In February, Toys.com sold for $5.1 million in auction. Sure, that’s a better domain, but not over 10 times better. And a few weeks ago, Candy.com sold for $3 million.
How Yahoo failed to secure even a million for the name is beyond me. Just poor luck in the auction? This guy, who apparently left right before the auction started last night is flabbergasted as well.
I just really would like to know why Yahoo would even sell it in the first place? I know times are tough at Yahoo but is $380K really going to help much in the long run? No. Hell, it’d probably be better to keep the domain and just put a load of ads on it, perhaps even Google ads. Or, I don’t know, run some Yahoo contests on it. People on the web love that stuff, I hear.
[photo: flickr/.larry page]
[thanks Sahar]
A non Twitter post. Congratulations MG!
haha.
Btw, only $380k? Right…that’s just pocket change for most of us.
Yahoo is next AOL
Obviously no small change. But that’s absolutely a steal considering the value of a name like contests.com.
Yahoooo!!! Hahaha. Yes, finally no more of Twitter from MG.
I need some help… can anyone help?
My gmail account got hacked, and by the ‘Activity Log’ feature of Google, I could figure out the IP address from where my email account was logged in.
The IP was 204.15.23.171
I do not know how to figure out which browser is this. Is there any software that can figure out whose machine is this where my account was opened and emails were tampered?
How to track down this hacker with IP 204.15.23.171 ?
You told Facebook to login to your Gmail account and email your contacts… and it did so for you.
Great move by yahoo. From next year you can buy
cont.ests
con.tests
contests.contests
MGS.contests
batman.washerecontests
or anything you can dream up. So domain names should technically be worth nothing in few months time.
IMHO stupid move by ICANN
Just like how .tv took the world by storm?
For whatever reason people are attached to their .coms. They don’t really feel comfortable with anything else.
Actually, as browsers morphed to greater acceptance of extended validation SSL we see the first signs of changing what had previously been a purely “see the lock” experience in browsing audiences. So too will the manner in which you reach a given website.
AOL keywords worked for quite a few reasons. They were paid for and easily remembered. They came from a walled garden.
Imagine for a moment that a link origination service today ending in .im .us .ch etc… that are essentially URL shortening services become widely used.
Oh wait.
They are.
.com .net and .org will mean less and less as the Internet widens scope and inclusion — it will have to. It is pedantic to make the the future match your past expectations of use cases.
any other big words you forgot?
hahaha, you made me choke on my cough drop. He probably had Thesaurus.com open in another tab
hahaha.. rofl.
yeah jay, could you dumb it down for the people who can’t understand english?
No, but thank you for taking time to bescumber this site.
Did your grade 3 teacher put you on a two-syllable diet? “Okay, Adam, say it after me… in-ter-net… you can do it!”
Well-said, Jay.
Thanks Blake.
Great points Jay! Extended Validation SSL has proven highly effective as alerts for spoofing urls, phishing, MITM, and so on. The visual cues are easier to read and follow and users should see ev ssl at sign on – thru checkout at an e commerce site. The more users look for it, the higher the demand, the more sites adopt it and the more effective it becomes.
Exactly.
And while I didn’t dig too hard into the prior comments — anyone that reviews vetted reports and expansion news from sources like Verisign, ICANN, and even their own critics with their own reporting would also see that there’s a lot going on within this space outside of English speaking US markets. (p.s. Hi there BRIC nations)
A .com domain is much priced than any of the other domains.Yeah that would be great to have domains like that but i still think .com’s would be the preffered one’s.
rofl worth nothing how many trillions of $’s do you think has been spent in making .com the default web address?..
The sky is falling the sky is falling!
Interesting comment. When does this come into effect, exactly?
You can read more about the new unrestricted gTLDs here – http://en.wikip...estricted_gTLDs
Thanks @honger Information like this makes me come back to TC.
One more thing, How did Matt W get http://ma.tt/
way before all of us?
Yahoo doesn’t deserve to remain independent. Hmm..what can we do with contests.com. We could run contests but require people to sign up to Yahoo services in order to win the contests, or have people interact with Yahoo services in some way in order to participate in the contests…that would be the kind of forward thinking that might actually save the company.
Or we can sell it for what amounts to a pin drop. This makes me think that things at Yahoo are very, very bad, and they need cash quickly.
Replying to BombayNinja. Although you are right that ICANN will sell all sorts of domains liek you said, it will likely put a higher value on generic .coms since those people who own and develope domains like con.tests will lose a ton of traffic to contests.com. .com will always be king and benefit from the mass confusion
You could be right, you could be totally wrong.
There is, IMO, a fair chance that this change will massively dilute existing .com domain name values, when marketing people can dream up memorable new combinations.
The contests.com sale price could be an indication of the new valuation levels investors are willing to pay (old dot.com price divided by 10).
Another perspective: Sell a domain, make payroll for quite a few people for 12 months. Get real, MG.
If Yahoo is selling domains to make payroll, they are in deep, deep shit.
And quite a few people? That’d be like 3 engineers.
Yahoo is right to sell domains they don’t need.
It’s like Bill Gates and his garage full of Ferraris. You should only keep what you use. The stock market is for investments.
You should only pay for what you use. Everything else should be liquidated. Had AIG followed this, they would not have needed the bailout.
Couldn’t agree more. Selling non core assets doesn’t strike me as a bad move.
Could argue all day about how much the domain is actually worth, but to a company the size of Yahoo! I doubt it really makes a diference.
Maybe Yahoo could buy it back once it becomes a hit! haha, they could always just lease it or create a incubator program to launch ideas from the properties they own. IAC just bought a bunch of domain names for millions. I think Yahoo should buy media outlets like NYT or sell to TV channels.
The likely scenario was someone forgot to pay the renewal fee. THey should just hire interns to develop these beta sites. Contests.com can become the next Facebook, with everyone and their mother joining to win prizes and free stuff.
Right on to that. Too many things in *our* closets unused over the years, gathering dust. “Well yuh oughter keep that, it’ll come in handy some day,” and well, a year later, “Ya oughter keep that, it’ll come in handy some day.” Wasted space. Yahoo! needs to get lean and mean. That Carol Bartz knows what she’s doing.
Maybe he is reffering to indian engineers who works for Yahoo from India
. Those are cheaper.
I can stretch a buck. I still remember the bubble. Do you?
They may be cheap, but they are far brighter than most, if not all. Check the number of Indians in SV. The valley wouldn’t be what it is if not for them.
Cash is king right now. Don’t underestimate what $400k can accomplish.
that’s like 20 YC companies
contests.com seems really valuable, especially compared with candy.com. They should have gotten a lot more. I wonder what in the world is going on in Yahoo to require such a fire sale.
http://www.trad...spx?symbol=yhoo
What Lah-Lah land are folks living in right now? Makes you *think* Yahoo needs cash?
Uh, ya think?
Bet ya can’t name five businesses that aren’t hungry for cash right now. Wake up, sleepyheads.
Well, my point wasn’t really that they needed cash. It was that they could develop contests.com for not very much money, under $30k, and easily then flip it for far more than $380k.
$30K to develop a site????? What with 3 High Schoolers who will code for cheap porn and Red Bull?
You cannot get a Lawyer for under $30k….
ahem: http://bix.yahoo.com/
ahem: what does this have to do with a site that would needs lawyers to validate and ensure legal ramifications for each and every contest? Durr… Sure I could set up a site for less than a grand showing how your mom makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches but that is not the point to the address. (have her bring one down for me while I visit you in your “apt” in her basement)
Smart.
Shouldn’t the SEC investigate something like this, to make sure that Yahoo wasn’t selling on the cheap as a favor to somebody?
When I was there, somebody sent me a list of domain names Yahoo owns that they were doing nothing with…some (like contests) were pretty good, and it was shocking, even in 2005, that they weren’t even parked with ads on them. Sad.
I agree with Jeremy, this should be investigated. It could be a favor, we need to investigate who purchased it and what relationship they have to Yahoo or the execs there.
Keep watching the auction site, maybe you too can buy it on the “cheap.” Know someone with an extra $400k just sittin’ around to risk?
Spending $380k isn’t a risk on a domain like Contests.com if the buyer keeps it for a while (to let the sale price buzz die down) then they will sell it for a profit easily or they could develop a contest site which would fit perfectly on that name.
John: $380k isn’t exactly a risk for a name like Contests.com which although wouldn’t produce great ppc revenue would probably make nice revenue if it is developed correctly. Although should National A-1 (I believe they are the ones who purchased Contests.com) keep the name for a while and let the buzz of the sale die down could easily resell the name and with abit of advertisement on the sale get around $1million or so for the name in my opinion which is a decent return
ok guys…
since none of you have ever run a successful business. running a business required more than, ohh.. that’s a cool name…
it’s the ability to actually put resources into it that gives the name the value. contests.com isn’t that special..
another way to look at this.. the other names were/are over priced.
and if you get your biz advice from mg…
you deserve to be bent over!
geez…
thank you!!!
Actually having a product verse a cool domain name? What a concept!
What the F… is a google, twitter, or a yelp? Isn’t Apple a fruit, Yahoo a drink, and Bing a Cherry? But those companies are somewhat good?
Would Google be a better company if they had search.com?
The dot.com sales are very much like real estate speculation.
What should be driving sales prices should be the potential “rents” (advertising, subscriptions etc) you could receive from the site, not the potential for domain name price appreciation.
Maybe this is the turning point, like late-2007 was the turning point for real estate.
“like late-2007 was the turning point for real estate.”
June 2005 was the peak.
And if history is any indication, the bottom is 2012, if not later.
Hey,
Yahoo.com domain name for sale $380,000
[Buy it Now!] no bidding need. LOL
darn those cybersquatters. nice price.
BTW MG: “Yahoo deadpooling yep another project, Gallery,” the “yep” should be “yet”
When did those other domains sell? Unless it was in the midst of one of the most wealth devastating and investor ball shrinking recessions in recent history, you’re comparing apples to oranges mate.
Sell some, buy some.
Isn’t it like “Fire people, hire people.” ? Not necessarily a sign of crisis.
Maybe now they can buy SmartAd.com from me for $380K : much more relevant to their B$ business in Ads.
Where did it sell at, or was it a private auction? Is there a list somewhere of the domains yahoo is selling? This post makes it sound like they are having a firesale. Is contests.com the only one you’ve seen so far?
What makes a domain valuable.. I have smsmuch.com and pcroids.com but I couldn’t get $10 for them.. am I missing a key point about URL’s.. I don’t find candy.com all that exciting… are these URL’s going to become killer sites? Am I going to wake up someday and think toys.com.. I know the basic rules but is it just real words.. Facebook, techcrunch, myspace, google, yahoo are not normal words.. the best companies have fun names so what is the big deal about a contests.com?
Gebadia: The domain is generic and will get naturally type-in traffic.
When was the last time you or anyone on this thread visited Contests.com
Useless analysis propagated by vested interests.
See that is the thing… if I type in candy, toys, contest.. I want a google search not a website…I would hate to type in a generic word and get a URL…. I like the name google, twitter, techcrunch.. my friend says that is part of the problem on my app.. I name my buttons urlsmack.. or gebalish.. he is like nobody knows what that means but to me.. I would rather go broke than be boring. contests, candy, wealth.. are so dam boring.. my life is boring.. I want the internet to be exciting..
good luck going broke then. You can make up your own words or letters and hope that someone accidentally finds your website.
Umm, natural words are easy to remember and one words are simple to type. If its quick and efficient to get to a website, it will get traffic. It you can’t spell it or pronounce , then that company is screwed. Some names are cool slang words that catch on mainstream as well.
the price seems about right to me
agreed.
As I wrote on DirectNavigation.com, this makes no sense. Will Yahoo learn it’s lesson? The only way we will see if Yahoo realizes its mistake, is if they do a similar sale in the near future.
Larry, as you mentioned, there wasn’t enough advertising/promotion.
Since, the domain meeting was poorly attended and only a few people at DRT would be in a position to pay $400K and up (today), the price was destined to be sold at firesale pricing.
For example, it would have gone for a higher price at Traffic because of the stature of attendees. Lets not get off on a tangent by saying the auction was also online. DRT had a number of failure. It probably would had been worse if more people were online.
The biggest mistake was made by the person responsible for selling the domain. The person should have done their homework.
Hi,
I don’t share the same opinion. Historical biggest domain buyers were there, National A1 (auction winner) and Larry Fisher (Anything) are part of these top domain buyers in the world.
If Larry decided to not bid it’s probably because he did not find the domain enough appealing (trust me these people buy names everyday).
The domain sold for the maximum intereted domainers were willing to pay at this moment.
Everytime it’s the same, once a great auction happened most said it was a bargain.
If it was a bargain why they did not participate?
It’s probably true the auction has been poorly advertised outside the domain industry but I can tell you +90% of the domain pros known very well this name was for sale, because with TRAFFIC and Domainfest auctions this one is part of the 4 or 5 more inportant domain auction event of the year.
My personal feeling is Yahoo though it was a good venue to auction their name, and it was.
Because while there is not a very motivated buyer with a project in mind (end-user) only domainers are able to spend so much to buy such names.
Contests are not toys, each name has his price!
Yahoo should have taken the $44 Billion Microsoft was giving them and ran. Yahoo is sort of like Myspace, somebody that revolutionized their industry but was beaten by somebody with more business sense (in this case Facebook and Google respectively.)
But with the success of bing yahoo has got to be worth a lot less…
Monopolies rule….. BS!!!
Go back to your Walmart and hangout in the P&G aisle where you can feel at home.
LOL @ Gebadia Smith
How about a little startup selling netbooks.com? (speculation only)
what’s crazy is that Yahoo sold it for only $380,000. ….lol…
As a consumer, I have always been leery of any web site that has too plain of a name. (Coupon.com, toy.com, win.com, etc… and yes, I avoid Buy.com) Because I assume that the people who have the domains are squatters who are trying to scam their way to my money.
But then I am not suckered/lured by a domain name like my wife’s relatives in Texas. (who knows… maybe it is because I am in the 8% minority because I know what a browser is)
“Because I assume that the people who have the domains are squatters”
What an ignorant comment.
So, if a company owns a premium, generic domain they are a squatter?
Generic names were early adopters and most of the sites were terrible looking. Then when the professional off-line retailers created their branded sites, they look a lot better. I tried Buy.com one time but they were conveniately sold out of what I had ordered so I had to cancel it. It just didn’t seem very professional or a good user experience.
ignorant from experience….
Most of these bidders were at a conference about domains or tuning in remotely online. It’s fairly safe to say they know a bit more about domain names and values, but to say that this was a steal of some sort is classic post-game blather. Why not buy it yourself then? The price is what the market would bear at this given time, given the circumstances and with these given buyers (many of whom represent the wealthiest/top buyers of domains in the world). They all had their shot at it.
Bingo, Adam.
Ya snooze, ya lose. OR cash is pretty tight right now, and what was fetching $1M – $2M six months ago no longer applies.
It’d be interesting to know whether they DID any substantive pre-pub/development prior to auctioning it off though.
(And I know several extremely talented folks who could do a kick-ass site for $30k, Red Bull included)
So, The Next Logical Question:
Do readers think that the perceived plummet in price of this domain will affect the “comparables” on other seemingly prime domains? Or, is it an anomaly?
(Much like a foreclosed-on house kills the value of comparables in the neighborhood)
Yahoo is right to sell domains they don’t need . Will buy one good unique domain if it for cheaper price.
When was the last time anyone here made a transaction on a generic names website?
Too much hype. Useless consensus on value. Too late now.
How come Yahoo wasn’t a cycbersquatter for owning and not using Contests.com, while a small time domainer has to defend what they do for a living?
Biases, biases all the way.
Yeah, a good name helps. And any name can be good and valuable if developed right.
Now tell your kids to visit Contests.com every day, lest they lose out on what they site may dish out.
If they didn’t need it and couldn’t think of something creative to do with it, selling it was probably a good move. Although the 380K probably didn’t put a punch into their books, maybe if they had 200x the volume of domains to sell, it would impact their bottom line.
That’s a good point; if they had 200 domains they could unload quickly for 380K, that would obviously give them some quick, significant bank. $76 million would help.
Unbelievable
Contests.com is a very good domain, is $380,000 a serious price? or Yahoo is falling down not its Asia but the whole world.
MG,
I read many of your blogs. I find that almost everything you wrote about Yahoo is full of hatred and bias. On the other hand, almost everything you wrote about Google is nothing but … Puffery!
No offense. But I do have a feeling that you are either hired by Google or simply a narrowed-minded person.
narrow-minded *
As long as you get the information, stop complaining about how you think he is narrow-minded. I’m sick of everyone always commenting about MG’s views. Get the information and form your own view from it and discuss it in the comments. Don’t waste your time slamming MG.
Just my .02, inb4 rage.
That is insane. It is enough Yahoo! shut down GeoCrappies… my first site was there and even though I call it GeoCrappies instead of GeoCities… at the time, it served its purpose.
This is just insane. Wonder if Yahoo! is about to sit out on the street and beg for money because selling these domains is kind reminding me of a virtual, yet glamorous way to do that.
contests.com is not a very good domain name.
Yahoo! seems to be getting $1-5 million worth of blog/media buzz on their $380K sale of Contests.com
Perhaps they are coming out ahead in an indirect sense!
Think Different!
http://www.twit...er.com/aainslie
I don’t think that’s a bad move by Yahoo. It’s a smart strategy to sell of assets you don’t need any more, and focusing on the core. It’s like cleaning out your attic.
I’ve personally gone through lots of old web projects and sold a couple names through http://www.sedo.com, and that has netted me a few ten thousand $$$.
Roy,
You will find that all of MG Sieglers work is far from impartial, in some of the instances nothing more than column filling controversial stories bordering on the lines of slander.
Begs the question why would such an individual be employed with such opinions as it is far from reporting on a story, Tech Crunch can’t be taken seriously as news reporting, alot of opinion is formulated in the stories and seems to be ok with the ethos within the organization.
yahoo i like u
.com is a Ghetto
Domain names are a thin market: if there’s somebody with deep pockets who wants your name, you can get millions. If there isn’t, you don’t.
Quite a few domain name buyers are domainers who want to buy low and sell high. I get offers from people like that for my domains all the time. I don’t sell to them because I know I could get 5x as much selling to an end user who really wants the name.
Some domains are worth a lot because they get significant type-in traffic, but there aren’t so many of those: a domain like “candy.com” is definitely worth more than “candy.info.” Competition is fierce for that sort of name, and the only way you’ll get one is to anticipate trends or to register the next “twittter.com.”
The rest of us are trying to promote sites by social media and SEO. Domainers want us to think that “.com” does better there, but I don’t believe it. I’ve had great luck with all kinds of TLDs. Certainly our “mothers” are more familiar with .com, but a clever TLD can have great branding power. As “domainer blight” in .com drives real businesses elsewhere, I think that our “mothers” are going to get used to other TLDs.
From the viewpoint of buyers: it’s like this. It’s not crazy to spend $10k on a domain name if you’re going to spend $100k developing the site. On the other hand, is the $10k domain going to get you $10k worth of marketing, or are you better off spending that $10k elsewhere?
Isn’t this entire Yahoo turn around effort based around shedding non-core assets and being great at a few things? If so, then this was the right thing to do.
Also, it has nothing to do with the cash secured from the direct sales of the name and everything to do with the cash saved from the non-development of a non-core property. Its not $380 made, its $5 million saved.
Also note that bidding opened at $150,000. In the end, 13 bids were placed from 3 different bidders. The auction was held during a domain name conference which has in-house bidders and online bidders via Aftermarket.com .
Was the advertising “selling” the domain poor? For the company that was selling it, Yes! A simple link on Yahoo.com that the domain was for sale would of spread the word nicely.
According to Whois.sc, Yahoo owns over 20,000 domain names, so 1 sold in the group is really nothing to them and was likely more of a test. Also consider that only a handful of domain names alone sell for 7 figures each year.
Comparing Contests.com to Toys.com or Candy.com really should not be done, because Candy and Toys are in a whole different league!
Looks like National A-1 was the only “smart one” when it comes to all those saying it sold so cheap.
“Yahoo owns over 20,000 domain names . . .”
That’s some serious cybersquatting
Whatever the value, it will always be subordinate* to the prime domain, contest.com. Most activity names are more naturally stated as a singular, such as festival.com, concert.com, funeral.com, meeting.com, announcement.com, etc. So while it may have been a disappointing sale for Yahoo, the price was about right considering it was the plural.
* standing below in order or rank
Yea, and contest.com belongs to the biggest squatter in the world, FMA.
It could have been more rewarding if Yahoo had develop the domain name Contests.com into a brand and used its marketing power to publicise it.
The domain name industry is pretty interesting. It has a lot to do with who you know.
May be it’s just the process clearing off their junk or unused stuff to replace them with useful and new stuff that will make rounds?
Regards
Anita
selling domain names cheaply indicates the downturn in the industry.thanks for the article.
OK, I’ll weigh in with a few thoughts. I’ve studied top tier domain name sales for a long time. (Why? because I have several.)
Inevitably, when a high profile top tier domain sells, lots of people post that domains are worthless, and obviously one can brand any business with a meaningless name. It happens all the time. Then they give plenty of examples. Then lots of people post say the domain was worth millions and it went too cheap.
So I actually decided to study the top 200 historic domain sales and see what I could determine. Here is some of what I found.
92% of all top domain sales are dot coms
88% are domains which exactly match keyword search terms
86% of all top domain sales are single words.
41% are 5 characters or less.
So what about traffic? Do top tiers sell primarily for the type-in traffic? I compared traffic data for 8 various high profile domain sales
http://www.40z....vs-traffic.html
and type-in traffic is apparently NOT the reason most top tier domains sell for high prices.
That still leaves a few reasons on the table.
I found 2 studies, although admittedly did not find many studies on the subject, about response rates to ad compaigns using top tier generic domains vs company brand type domains.
Both studies showed a signficantly higher click through rate for internet ads using category specific generic domains vs other types of domains. So it appears that generic domains can increase advertising efficiency, and perhaps as a result lower the cost of advertising and branding.
It makes intuitive sense.
Besides a startup wanting to sound ‘big’ by owning the dot com for their industry, what about a seasoned end user who wants to keep competition out?
I developed a list of large corporations who own top tier generics for their industries
http://www.40z....using-them.html
Most certainly some of these companies are not using these domains for ad campaigns, even if some are, however as a defensive strategy they at least prevent competitors from using the domain to drive traffic and capture new customers.
Do top tier generic domains increase search ranking? I don’t have any studies to support that, but I have plenty of personal experience that shows me they do. When a domain exactly matches the keyword being searched for, and their is a site with relevant content for that subject (i.e. not just a parked page) it seems the generic domain branded sites leap frog past others. Of course all my SEO friends will tell you that you can reach the top of page one at the search engines with any domain, on any subject, be it XYZdomainonanything.com. And I’m sure they are right. But my experience shows, generic domains help.
So why do generic domains sell for high prices? Here is what I believe:
1. They give a lesser known competitor in an industry the appearance of an 800 lb. gorilla.
2. They are more efficient in advertising campaigns. Both online and offline. Because they sound authorative on the subject, and they are easy to remember later.
3. End users buy them not only for marketing uses, but to keep competitors out.
4. Some get type-in traffic, delivering new potential customers at zero cost.
5. They assist in search engine ranking
6. They are easy to remember, and to type in, and thus increase return/repeat traffic.
Some of these points, I’ve been able to show with research, and some are just my 2 cents…
I also suspect at exit strategy time, a generic with a viable business might more easily attract a buyer than XYZanydomainaboutanything.com, but I’ll have to do some research on that idea.
40z
It is hard to compare Contests.com to an ecommerce domain like Candy.com or Toys.com, because I don’t think people who enter contests care that much what domain they are on, assuming they are entering free contests. I have a bunch of good contest domains like WinContests.com, BigContests.com, and PrizeWinner.com, etc.) and I think those would do just as well for a big contest site. Contests.com would do better in the search engines and has more built in traffic, but that is only part of the value. On the other hand Contests.com would be an industry leading domain for a company that provides contest related services, but there are much fewer of those types of companies out there than there are toy or candy companies. Also keep in mind there is a big difference between sweepstakes (like Publishers Clearinghouse) and contests (contests require skill, they don’t just have a random winner). End users usually don’t know the difference or care, but this distinction would be very important to a company buying the domain.