ccTLD Investors Magazine

Sedo released their most recent list of ccTLD sales and two domain hacks top the list with w.TO selling for $53,000 USD followed by Insure.IT at $13,250 and lawsuit.US going for $4,750. Now I’m just guessing that these two are domain hacks but they sure look like it as w.TO is most likely going to a company whose acronym is WTO and Insure.IT is most likely going to a company branding around the phrase “Insure It”.

In 2012 ccTLD Domain hacks have been hot sellers and I don’t see this trend slowing down anytime soon. Another hot ccTLD this year has been .TV and Hobby.tv went for a cool $10,000 last week. Of course not a week goes by that we don’t see a .ME name in the list of top ccTLD sales and last week it was moment.me selling for $3,500 EUR. The full list of Sedo’s ccTLD sales from last week can be found below:

Sedo just released their list of ccTLD sales from last week and topping the list at Lampa.pl for 12,000 EUR followed by fikus.ru for 7090 EUR. Not surprisingly .CO took one of the top spots with Cigarettes.co selling for $7,000 USD.

It was nice to see a .IN name in the top ten last week with Travellers.in selling for $5,000 USD, there have been some nice .CO.IN and .IN sales lately as that market continues to heat up. The full list of Sedo’s ccTLD sales from last week can be found below:

Wow, another blockbuster week of ccTLD sales at Sedo with Sommerhus.DK selling for a whopping $115,000. For those who don’t know, .DK is the ccTLD for Denmark and Sommerhus means “Holiday” in Dutch and I can tell you that whoever owned this name is probably enjoying a nice holiday right now! Taking the #2 spot is another ccTLD that has been seeing some incredible sales this year, .ME with the sale of EthyloTest.ME for 11,500 EUR.

Also in the top sales list is shell.CO.IN for $7,800 showing that the .CO.IN still has some nice sales potential if you have the right name. Of course .CO.UK and .DE are in there with a surprising .DE sale at 4000 EUR for Fussball1.DE. It’s not often you see a keyword domain with a number at the end sell in this range but with .DE it really would take a lot to surprise me given the strong liquidity this TLD has seen.

The full list of Sedo ccTLD sales from last week can be found below:

The top European Domain conference, aptly named Domaining Europe kicks-off in Spain today with an incredible first day. Initially I had planned on attending the conference however since our wedding is only a few months away our weekends are packed with wedding planning so for the first time, ever, I had to cancel. It was a very hard decision to make since this is THE ccTLD conference of the year, but as those of you who are married know, family comes first.

Still, that doesn’t mean that I’m not missing-out on some absolutely incredible sessions, panels, and networking opportunities. Of course since this is the top ccTLD conference of the year, you can bet we’ll still be covering it here on ccTLDInvestors.com. Ron Jackson did a great post on DNJournal already covering some pre-show highlights that I highly recommend you read.

Below is the schedule for the first day:

4:00PM – 4:30PM: Opening speech by Jason Boshoff

4:30PM – 6:00PM: Sell your Domain: WW-Domain Brokers round table with Toby Clements, Frank Tillmanns , Jeff Gabriel,

6:00 – 6:30PM: Break for Smokers

6:30PM – 7:00PM: Annalisa Roger: The .green Project

7:00PM – 8:00PM: New Domains (gTLD’s) New Business Opportunities: Annalisa Rogers from .green, Sergey Gorbunov .ru, Paul Keating from law.es

I will do my best to get as many updates, photos, and highlights from everyone attending. Needless to say if you’re a ccTLD Investor, you really should be at this show. If you missed it this year definitely attend next year, there’s an 100% chance I’ll be here next year, and I’ll be watching the updates and talking with everyone there every chance I get to catch as much of the action and excitement as I can!

Stay-tuned, there’s a LOT more to come!

(Photo Credit)

As a big fan of .TV I am very excited to say that last week three .TV names sold together for a whopping $65,000. Film.tv, Filmy.tv, and Filme.tv were sold as a set on Sedo making this deal the top ccTLD sale of last week! Premium one-word ccTLDs like these have real value and this is a great example of how much they can be worth to the right buyer.

Another great example is with Hike.in which sold for 20,000 GBP (~$32,000), it’s a great one-word domain and while many Domainers wouldn’t pay $1,000 for it, someone just paid $32,000! Of course .CO.UK and .DE were in the top ten as well with some nice sales like Code.CO.UK for 18,000 GBP and Fantasyrama.DE for 14,280 EUR.

.US was also in the top ten with Lawyer.us selling for $7,500. You can see the complete list of Sedo’s ccTLD sales from last week below:

This weekend I was searching for tours of San Francisco, I am headed up in a few weeks with a friend that hasn’t been there before and want to show them the city. I was pleasantly surprised to find SanFranciscoTours.us both advertising and enjoying first-page placement on Google. When I looked at the domain, and thought of myself as someone looking for a tour of San Francisco, SanFranciscoTours.us really does sound like a company that provides exactly what I am looking for.

They have done a great job building-out the site with exactly what you’d expect. I especially like the top ten list showing you all the top attractions and an easy way to book them. Compare this to SanFranciscoTours.com which is parked and I think you’ll agree that the .US is getting more traffic and making more money.

As if one wasn’t surprising enough I also found City-Sightseeing.us advertising at the top of Google as well. Lead generation for tour bookings can be a good business and it’s clear that both of these companies have built strong brands on a .us domain. While I’m not as crazy about a .us with a dash in it, when it comes to looking good in a Google Adwords Ad, this more than fits the bill.

Both of these are real businesses that have built nice brands on .us. As a regular person searching online I absolutely see the value in .us and think this is a great example of how this TLD can actually be advantageous when displayed in a list of search results or adds. There’s something about the .us that adds authority when looking at businesses or content geared around the US, and these sites have the infrastructure behind them to back it up.

A great example of how a ccTLD like .us makes a great investment and an excellent home for a successful business!

Hello and welcome to a brand new weekly segment here on ccTLD Investors – the weekly news spotlight. Each week we will put-together some of the top stories in the ccTLD world so you can catch-up on anything you might have missed. The exciting thing about ccTLDs is the incredible amount of opportunity and growth in the space. Enjoy these hand-picked articles and as always feel free to share your own news or recommend a story to us!

Via.Me: a .Me Development Program Success Story

Via.Me, a new iPhone application developed by RadiumOne using a domain name acquired through the .ME Premium Names program, is an application that allows users to share pictures, video, audio and even stories across several of the leading social networks.

By distilling the function of several different applications into one easy to use stream, Via.Me users are able to utilize a variety of communication tools without leaving the app. With automatic updates to Facebook and Twitter, Via.Me is the fastest way to share photos, video and audio clips with friends across the social landscape. (Read More)

11 Considerations For International SEO

When you think about International SEO, it is easy to imagine Global 2000 companies with offices and employees around the globe. It can be equally important to the small business that sells globally from one location.

How do you convince the search engines to include you in their international rankings on a country by country level? (Read More)

.tv Spotlight – Watch Great Content on Your TV with Zappo.tv

Remember the old days when you would sit down in front of your TV and could only watch what the networks and cable wanted to show you?

Those days are over as a variety of devices and apps now allow you to watch content from a variety of sources and producers anytime YOU decide. (Read More)

Instra Corporation Announces .CO Accreditation

Instra just keeps getting better and better. Today Instra has announced it is one of the accredited registrar partners for the .CO extension. As one of the world’s top domain name providers, this is just another way to extend the global footprint and offer a piece of the web to everyone.

The .COM name shortage has been visible in the last few years. With domain investors buying up premium domain names, this announcement comes during a fresh new era for the millions left without the ability to find available options in a global domain to get online. More importantly, becoming a .CO accredited partner illustrates Instra’s effort to identify with the needs of their consumers. (Read More)

It has been my favorite ccTLD on the planet since 2007 and now I’m excited to say Neustar is taking it to the next level and promoting .US in a new campaign aimed at small businesses. Kickstart America is all about Small Businesses and how they can build their brands on .US. For many Small Businesses shelling-out $10,000+ for a domain name just isn’t possible, think of the flower shop down the street from you or your local independent coffee shop.

I have always been a big fan of .US because I think it’s a great way to identify a business in the US or a site with information that is US-specific. There are plenty of brands that have already established a home on .US and with the Kickstart America campaign in full swing the TLD is back in the spotlight and in front of Small Business owners across the US. A new site, About.us was launched yesterday as part of the campaign, the site gives Small Businesses the chance to learn more about .US, collaborate, and learn from other businesses that have build brands on the .US.

The new site looks great and I think this campaign will do a lot to really help get the .US TLD in front of so many small businesses that probably didn’t even know it existed. I’ve been waiting for something like this for years and look forward to following along, go .US and rock on Neustar, the new campaign looks great!

Lately we have been seeing a lot of .DE names take the top spot but this week is different with Sedo Klik.pl selling for 10,500 EUR ($13,700). Of course some of the usual top-selling ccTLDs were in the top ten with chocolat.FR selling for 10,000 EUR, Fahrradanhaenger.de 5,355 EUR and Toys.ME for $5,050.

What was interesting to see was the .CC, .US, and .AT sales making their way into the top ten! Whois.cc sold for $5,100 (a great deal IMO given the term), Coloring.US went for a solid $5,000 and Investor.AT sold for 3,750 EUR. While I wouldn’t recommend you go dump all your money into .CC or .AT domains, it’s always nice to see that all ccTLDs have liquidity, it just takes having the best names.

A full list of Sedo’s ccTLD sales from last week can be found below:

When most of us see a dash in a domain, we head for the hills and with good reason, in most TLDs a dash in the domain dramatically reduces the resale price. However, when it comes to .DE, it’s a whole different story. First, in case you didn’t know, in Germany .COM is not king and you will not find .COM domains on billboards, .DE is the dominant TLD and dashes are actually better in some cases, than non-dashed domains!

That’s right, it might sound crazy to most people but in Germany dashes are in and it doesn’t look like that trend is going to change anytime soon. The first time I heard about this I spoke to a friend of mine who is big in the .DE space to better understand why dashes would make sense, or more sense, that two words simply placed together. He said that in many cases there can be very long German words that are challenging to read when they are smashed together with another word or two. This means it can be hard to sometimes easily see when one word stops and another starts. The dash then acts like a space making it easier to read the domain.

Below are some recent .DE sales with dashes in them:

die-lottozahlen.de - $1,971 (3/9/2012)

kinder-ferienlager.de - $1,311 (3/14/2012)

trainer-vermittlung.de - $1,332 (2/24/2012)

nordic-walking.de - $4,371 (2/21/2012)

blu-rayler.de - $33,121 (1/10/2012)

Special thanks to NameBio which we used to pull this sales data.