What's in a name and How much does it cost?

[Anat]

Here are a couple from the last 2-3 weeks:

Mortgage.com - 1.8 million dollars (that's after the site went down...)

Printing.com - 350,000$

Not bad, considering the dot com doom....:)

[blinc]

What dot com doom? I missed something didn't I? Is that what it costs to buy the name? Or is it what they invested to come up with a name?

[Anat]

Haven't you heard? The dot com industry is falling apart...

Check out these threads -

http://www.frappydoo.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=454

http://www.frappydoo.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=101

The money is what they paid the previous owners of the domain to buy it off them. Whoever registered it originally paid the regular domain registration fee (70$ or so) and now sold it for this vast sums. Not a bad deal IMO :)

I know that pets.com also sold their domain (after they went down). PetsMart.com bought it (I don't know at what price - at least six figures).

[blinc]

Oh, I didn't miss it then. I thought the .com part of a web address was going to be stopped... everyone would have to use .web or .whatever instead of .com!

Man, those are some hefty prices they got for a domain name! You know that reminded me of a news story I saw where people were buying the rights to celebrity names. They were buying and registering the names of celebrities... that's just wrong somehow, dont' you think?

[TWTCommish]

It's not quite falling apart. What happened is it was totally over-hyped! Tons of people try to get in on the action, and all of a sudden they realize there's more supply than demand.

There are tons of great dotcoms left now (people realize things are slowing down and let them expire)...heck, I snatched up MovieForums.com months ago - it's one heckuva domain name considering a lot of people think there arn't any left! :)

I'm hanging onto the 12 or so I own...even the 4 or 5 I am hoping to sell. Thing will settle back down and the people left standing with their domains will be able to make a little bit of cash, in my opinion. But no, we won't see anything like before, where a bunch of nutty people scrambled to buy and reserve domains all over.

[CommunistPanda]

Interesting to see this thread, because earlier today, I was price-hunting for a domain-name. Now that I've got the money, I thought it might be a good idea. I was rather surprised to find some decent deals - AU$120 for 2 years on a .com address.

[TWTCommish]

Uh, I don't know if thats a good deal - what's 120 in US dollars? I can get a domain for roughly $10-15 US dollars.

[jamesglewisf]

Originally posted by TWTCommish
Uh, I don't know if thats a good deal - what's 120 in US dollars? I can get a domain for roughly $10-15 US dollars.
Depends on what $120 Australian is, but it does sound high.

[Adam]

i got my domain for around $19 bucks Canadian, Thats $13 American.

[Anat]

I'm going to buy about 10 more domains for possible future projects. I'm waiting for January, that's when I can finally use my company's credit card. I found several places that sell domains for 10-12$.

I'll let you know what I buy.

[CommunistPanda]

Crumbs! Did someone say US$13?
That's AU$26!

Where?

[TWTCommish]

http://www.000domains.com
http://www.gandi.net
http://www.register.com

The first two are quite cheap. I've used 000Domains roughly a dozen times - highly recommended! Register.com is the second largest registrar in the world, and Gandi.net is the cheapest I've ever seen.

[dreuby]

I don't know anything about this subject at all - what happens when the 2 years are up? Can you renew if you want to, or have "first option" to renew if you want to?

[TWTCommish]

You can renew it beforehand, and (I think), right when it expires...but it's not worth the chance. :) If it expires, anyone can take it.

With "Notwork Solutions" (http://www.networksolutions.com), however, they take forever to let expired domain names become available again - I've got two good domain names that expired each over a month ago, but I still can't reserve them! NetSol is infamous for this.

[Anat]

I bought 3 domains today for 10$ each.

I used http://www.RegisterFly.com. They're very cheap but they seem credible.

I checked - renewal is not a problem. They let you know a few weeks before it expires (or rather remind you :)).

[CommunistPanda]

Thanks guys...you've just saved me a rather large amount of money.

[Anat]

Just to let you know - I have registered 3 domains with registerfly. All went fine - they seem to be very reliable.

[CommunistPanda]

Neato!
I'll have to look into that...eventually.

[Tim]

Have you seen how much those .tv addresses go for? The prices are outrageous for 2 or 3 letter domains. For instance, you can buy "buy.tv" for $500,000 a YEAR. Sheesh! I would just come up with a creative dot com...

[Anat]

Just to let you know that a friend of mine had serious trouble with hosting with registerfly.com. I still recommend them as a place to buy your domain at, but don't be tempted by their cheap hosting plans.