Keyword domain names dominated the top selling domain sales through online marketplace Sedo in 2009 according to the latest Sedo Domain Market Study. The study found that .COM continues to be the dominant Top Level Domain with 44 per cent of all domain sales.The value of domain names sold through Sedo grew markedly in 2009, continuing the ongoing trend and in spite of the global financial crisis. Year-on-year, Sedo saw a 22 per cent growth in the value of domains traded from 2008 to 2009 and a five per cent growth in the volume of domains changing hands in 2009.The top selling domain name through Sedo for 2009 was fly.com (£1,152,173.24 or $1.760 million)*. Of all reported domain name sales for 2009, fly.com came in third according to Domain Name Journal’s list of top sales for the year. The top two were toys.com in a bankruptcy auction, which sold for $5.1 million followed by candy.com ($3.0 million).The next top selling domains for Sedo were russia.com (£904,319) and call.com (£678,750). Rounding out the top ten for 2009 were server.com, christian.com, talk.com, brazil.com, top.com, body.com and resumes.com.Among the generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), the average sale price declined for .COM (from £1,282 in 2008 to £1,260 in 2009) although the total value of domain sales more than doubled from £22,488,940 in 2008 to £48,732,030. For all other gTLDs, the average sale price and total sales jumped for all except the total value of domain sales for .INFO. The biggest jump in average sale price was for .BIZ, increasing by more than 50 per cent to £946..COM dominated gTLD sales with almost three-quarters (74%) of all sales followed by .NET (11%) and .ORG (7%). However among all sales, .NET accounted for six per cent of all sales in 2009 following .COM’s 44 per cent.Among country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) sales, .DE dominates with 54 per cent of all sales followed by CO.UK (13%) and .EU (11%).Median (or average) domain name sales however are a different proposition. The median sale for CO.UK, .AT, .ES, .DE and .EU all declined, while .CH and .FR increased. Among the gTLDs, .COM saw a decline while .NET, .ORG, .BIZ and .INFO all reported increases when comparing 2008 to 2009.However when comparing 2007 prices to 2009 prices, all of the reported gTLDs saw decreases apart from .BIZ. The steepest decline in average sale price from 2007 to 2009 was .COM with prices more than halving from £2,563 to £1,260. Among the ccTLDs, .UK and .ES also saw steep declines in the median domain name sale price from £3,461 to £1,543 and £2,363 to £1,034 respectively. Meanwhile .FR went the other way with prices more than doubling from £1,301 to £2,647.Sedo also continued to dominate the aftermarket, accounting for 64 per cent of the top 100 public sales in the domain industry, with the next closest competitor coming in at eight per cent.”Sedo’s continued impressive growth in 2009 demonstrates the tremendous stability of the domain market, as evidenced by its ability to weather the economic downturn,” said Jeremiah Johnston, Chief Operating Officer of Sedo in a Sedo statement.”We expect to see ongoing demand for premium virtual real estate in 2010, with geo, descriptive, .ORG and .COM domains leading the charge, as domain investors and marketers from organisations of all sizes continue to leverage domains to meet their business goals.”The most popular method of sale through Sedo is sold via “offer-counteroffer” (where a sale is negotiated via the marketplace) with 47 per cent of all sales made in this way. Marketplace auctions make up a third of all sales (33%) while fixed price (those that have a “buy-it-now” price) and external transfers each make up six per cent of sales.Sedo expects fixed price transactions to grow in coming year as this pricing model has been shown to appeal to end-user buyers. In 2009 there was a four per cent growth in sales via this method.And the top selling domain categories of 2009 included software, employment, services, regions, country and cities, tobacco, insurance, three-character domains, hardware and casinos.To download Sedo’s 2009 Domain Market Study in full, see:
www.sedo.co.uk/press/domainmarketstudy2009-uk.pdfDomain Name Journal’s list of the top 100 reported domain name sales for 2009 is available from:
dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2009/ytd-sales-charts-2009.htm* All prices in pound sterling are from the Sedo 2009 Domain Market Study and were converted to pound sterling on the day of transaction