ICANN Approves Investment Policy Statement Update for 2014

Sedo Powers 16,216 Domain Sales In First Six Months Of 2014

Sedo was behind 16,216 transactions worth a total of $35.9 million in sales over the first six months of 2014, the company announced in its First Half 2014 Domain Market Study.

Domain values increased year-over-year, with the mean average sales price up 17 percent to $2,214 and the median price rising seven percent to $616.

The report from the world’s largest premium domain marketplace and monetisation provider notes the biggest trend this year has been the emergence of new gTLDs, which started to become available for the first time in January and have quickly made their way onto the second-hand market. More than 300 new gTLDs have launched in 2014 and domains representing 38 of them have been traded on the Sedo marketplace. The highest public sale of a new gTLD domain was eat.club reaching $20,000 and the highest confidential sale reached more than $100,000.

“It’s exciting to finally start seeing new TLDs being traded and already commanding significant market value,” said Tobias Flaitz, Sedo’s CEO. “Even with this influx of new extensions, we’ve always predicted that .com domains would remain strong and the market is beginning to reflect that. We’re still early in this process and new TLDs are definitely being adopted at a much slower pace than many in the market predicted. There’s still a big need to better educate businesses and the public about the benefits of these new TLDs, and it will take some time until they’re being used by brands and corporations. But once that happens, we’ll see positive impacts for the domain industry.”

During the first half of 2014, .com retained its position as the most popular TLD, with over half of all sales (55 percent) being for a .com domain. In addition, the mean price for a .com domain reached an all-time high at $2,807, compared to $2,775 in 2011, $2,148 in 2012, $2,235 in 2013.

The popularity of Buy Now sales, where domain investors, consumers and business owners sell and purchase domains at a set price with no negotiations, continued to increase in the first half of 2014 as more end users wish to purchase domains quickly and simply. Forty-nine percent of all sales were Buy Now sales, an increase from 44 percent in 2013.

Additional Facts and Figures from Sedo’s 1H 2014 Domain Market Study:

• First Quarter of 2014 was stronger than the second in terms of the number and value of sales, accounting for 9,241 transactions with a value of $19 million.
• The top three public sales for the year were mm.com for $1.2 million, true.com for $350,000 and malls.com for $320,000.
• The top three public domains sales under Country Code endings were kaffee.de (€100,000), mi.co.id ($60,000), and rabatkoder.dk ($36,500).
• The top three public sales for domains under new gTLDs were eat.club ($20,000), jobboerse.berlin (€8,000) and print.club (€3,750).
• Looking at the traditional alternatives to .com, .biz saw the biggest increase in mean price to $1,896.
• Buyers appear to be willing to spend more on a domain than in the past, as the gap between price ranges narrowed over the year. Forty four percent of all sales for the year were valued at $500 or less, while domains that sold between $500 and $2,500 accounted for 40 percent of all sales. In Q2 2013, 53 percent of sales were $500 or less, and 35 percent were between $501 and $2,500.
• More than half of all buyers throughout 2014 originated in Sedo’s two largest markets, the United States (36 percent) and Germany (22 percent).

An infographic providing some more details from the report is available for download at:
https://sedo.com/fileadmin/images/press/2014-q1-q2-domain-market-study.jpg

Tou.com Wins Weekly Sales List at $194,000

Tou.com,sold for $194,000,topped Domain Name Journal sales list of reported domain names for the week,ending July 27,2014.

 

Sedo had a great week in the sales chart,taking 17 of the top 20 positions .Correspondingly, Fumi took 1 of the top 20 positions .

.COM dominated once again the list,with 13 of the top 20 positions.

Here are the top 20 positions for the two weeks ending July 27,2014 :

1. Tou.com      $194,400    
2. Lurk.com      $30,420    
3. Liberty.ch      $28,140    
4. Europe.org     $23,000    
5. TTS.net     $18,000    
6. MakeYourDay.com      $17,018    
7. FlyRouge.com     $17,000    
8. Grossiste.com      $13,132    
9. Campings.uk      $12,675    
10. Fumetti.it      $12,060
11 EKQ.com     $10,000    
11.tie     QYK.com     $10,000    
13. OFZ.com     $9,999    
14. GoRacing.com     $9,500    
15. TravelBags.de      $9,380    
16. SearchThiis.com     $8,500    
17. 10Past10.com     $7,999    
18. Retinol.com     $7,849    
19. MDGlobal.com     $7,000    
20. MyProtein.hr      $6,700

EURid Announces New Expiry Date For .EU Domains As Of 15 September

[news release] On 15 September 2014, EURid will launch its new registration platform. Thereafter, newly registered .eu domain names will no longer expire at the end of the month but rather at the end of their registration term, calculated in years starting on the registration date and ranging from one (1) to ten (10) years. Domain names registered on 29 February will always expire on 28 February.

 

This change has been incorporated into new versions of the .eu Terms and Conditions and .eu Registrar Agreement, which will go into effect on 15 September, when the new registration platform is launched. New versions of these documents in all languages are available below.

For existing domain names – those registered before 15 September 2014 – registrars have been given the option to apply the new expiry date approach or to keep the existing system whereby domain names expire at the end of the month.

The default option, which sees domain names expire at the end of the month, will apply to all registered domain names whose registrars do not indicate their preference by 15 September 2014.

As is already the case, transfers will not change the expiry day but will add an extra year to the registration term of a domain name.

Example:

Current situation (for existing domain names registered before 15 September 2014)
Registration date = 15 January 2014
Expiry date = 31 January 2015 (= 15 January 2014 + forward to the end of month (31 January) + 1 year)

New situation after 15 September 2014 (for existing domain names registered before 15 September 2014)
Registration date = 15 January 2014
If registrar has not made a choice (i.e. default current system applies)
Expiry date = 31 January 2015 (= 15 January 2014 + forward to the end of month (31 January) + 1 year)
If registrar has chosen the new expiry date option:
Expiry date = 15 January 2015 (= 15 January 2014 + 1 year)

New situation after 15 September 2014 (for new domain names registered after 15 September 2014)
Registration date = 15 January 2015
Expiry date = 15 January 2016 (= 15 January 2015 + 1 year)

New Terms and Conditions

BG	CS	DA	DE	EL	EN
ES	ET	FI	FR	GA	HR
HU	IT	LT	LV	Mt	NL
PL	PT	RO	SK	SL	SV

New Registrar Agreement

BG	CS	DA	DE	EL	EN
ES	ET	FI	FR	GA	HR
HU	IT	LT	LV	Mt	NL
PL	PT	RO	SK	SL

This EURid announcement was sourced from:
www.eurid.eu/en/news/jul-2014/new-expiry-date-eu-domain-names-15-september-2014

ICM Registry Acquires .SEX For Up To $3 Million

ICM Registry, the company behind .XXX extension may have paid up to $3 million for the new gTLD .Sex .

 

There was only one other applicant for the new gTLD .sex – Internet Marketing Solutions Limited. However, the company withdrew its application this earlier this week.

According to DomainIncite, it seems that ICM Registry paid aroun $2-$3 million for exclusive rights of the new gTLD.

ICM Registry is also the only applicant for .adult, .sex and .porn.