How much of each domain is worth depends on how it's being sold. For example, I was asking a domainer how much my domain eskimokissing.com would be worth the other day, and this is what he told me:<p>If it expires and drops, 300 - 600 dollars.<p>In a wholesale liquidation of an entire portfolio: 800 - 1200 dollars.<p>On it's own, with a list of 50 potential companies that you're willing to cold call, and you've put in the work to find the right person within each company: 6,000 - 20,000 dollars.<p>The above scenario, but if there is a bidding war between two or more companies: 15,000 - 40,000 dollars.<p>So the answer is basically it depends how much work you are willing to put in to sell them. With some of these domains it's clear that you can put together a list of 100 leads if you're willing to put in 10+ hours per domain, but with others I would guess that you would probably have to liquidate them at bargain basement prices to get any money back.
The fact that business.com cost $345,000,000 makes me weep. I mean, look at it!<p>I guess the old real estate saying is true: "location, location, location"...
One other data point for you. Groupon.com was purchased in May 2009 for $250,000. Source: <a href="http://mixergy.com/domain-business-tip/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/domain-business-tip/</a>
One of the valuable ones that I can spot is daz.com, "Daz" being a popular Procter & Gamble brand of soap powder (at least, in the UK): <a href="http://www.dazwhite.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dazwhite.co.uk/</a> - I'd guess they'd quite like the .com for their brand.
I see these prices as a clear sign that the current DNS system needs to be replaced. It's ridiculous. They are driven up by "scarcity," but there isn't any real deficit. Names are just letters and numbers, and there is infinite number of combinations, there is virrually infinite number of relatively short combinations.<p>The biggest problem, as I see it, is that there are only a few TLDs, none of them are very meaningful, so it all effectively converges into a single namespace.<p>If there were TLDs like .games, .mag (magazine), .press, .news, .comp and so on, no single domain would hold so much "value".<p>For companies, you could have a reserved .corp TLD where every entry has to be verified (so only a registered business with matching name can own it). For products, you could have .prod.
Domains are worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay, not what people in this thread or automatic tools on the internet believe/suggest.<p>I've had domains that I hand-registered in the last two years sell for 4-5 figures and other that according to experts/tools are very valuable, but that simply do not attract any buyer.<p>And I'm not even a regular domain investor (or domain squatter as people on YC seem to believe all domain investors = squatters).<p>Anyway, I think the blog poster has a pretty good idea of what his domains are worth, but he's just trying to raise attention and possibly start a bidding war on the 2-3 interesting ones. Some choose to do their auctions through auction houses, other uses more creative forms.
Speaking as someone with a fair bit of domaining experience, unfortunately a lot of the domains listed are worthless, with the exception of daz.com which is a 5 figure domain, ww.com which is a 5 (possibly 6?) figure domain, secondhandcar.com which IMO is a 4 figure domain, webcamsoftware.com which is 4 figures, and a few others which hold a <$100 value. So there are some valuable domains, but the majority are worth $0 in my opinion. <i>(Note: I don't mean to sound insulting when I say they're worthless - indeed, I literally mean it that their valuation is $0)</i>.<p>It's also worth noting that the domain industry got hit a fair bit by the recession, and it's possible that some of the above domains would sell for slightly higher than the rough range I've given (espeically the two 4 figure domains I quote, which could go for low 5 figures in the right circumstances).<p>It's quite common to see people (as the blog post says) regging domains on a whim since they look good, but usually such domains regged on a whim are worthless. And unfortunately it does seem to be the case here.<p>Anywhoo, I'll send my semi-informed appraisals along to the blog author now. I've been a domainer since I was 16/17 (am 20; 21 next month), so whilst I'm not an expert or anything, I have a fair bit of domaining experience and hope my appraisals are somewhat useful.<p>And I'd possibly advise that he looks at DNForum.com and NamePros.com (the two big domaining forums; the former is paid-only though) a little bit to get a general feel of domain prices.
daz.com and ww.com are valuable (~$100k-250k), the rest he'd be better off keeping.<p>secondhandcar.com could be valuable to the right person. You could probably get $50k from the right buyer.<p>The rest are nice, but not "must haves". Unless a domain is rare and generic its not worth > $10k. Color.com, Mint.com, Tires.com are rare and generic, most of these are not.
PSA: the "historical domain sales" are <i>wildly inaccurate</i>.<p>I suspect there was a bug in the script/procedure he used to scrape, because they don't match up to the sources below.<p>Edit: here's a decent list <a href="http://www.webcooltips.com/the-most-expensive-domains-sales-ever-big-list.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.webcooltips.com/the-most-expensive-domains-sales-...</a>
Can anyone recommend a good domain name marketplace or auctioneer that doesn't have some kind of volume requirement? I merely want to unload a single domain name that I think stands a chance to chip in on my DSLR habit.
It seems that the jury is still out on domain name value in this new age of panda-monium. If I had a trendy green biz the greenbits one would be nice.<p>ww.com is the aesthetic winner though.
Just throwing it out there, if any of you are looking to get into the gay business I'm the owner of MeatGalore.com and it is looking for a good home.<p>:( it was the bastard child of to much beer.