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PALM BEACH – Within the last few weeks I pointed out that now is a good time to purchase your GEO domain dream as many once super-premium “untouchable names” are now for sale.
You may or may not have noticed that within the last year or so, many premium domain names which would have been rejected for near ‘any price’, now sit, many as vacant wastelands, for sale waiting for their potential future owners / buyers.
The typical answer you may well have received in years past if you wanted to “try” and acquire one of these super premium names would have sounded something like, “Sorry, it’s not for sale and planned for development; there is no price….. it is priceless.”
Today is a far different day, different year, and a different time and environment in domain names, evidenced by their plentiful selection, leading to what near appears as a littering of venues with super-premium GEO domain names representing large regions, cities and even states, vacant of any accompanying feeding frenzy.
Here are the names for sale currently, from what I am aware of as well as what’s buzzing around the domain space; we can now add LosAngeles.com and SanFrancisco.com to the pack according to industry news publication DNJournal.com.
Cities:
| Albany.com |
| AtlanticCity.com |
| Boulder.com |
| Burbank.com |
| Denver.com |
| Detroit.com |
| Houston.com |
| Indianapolis.com |
| Kissimmee.com |
| LaJolla.com |
| LosAngeles.com |
| Malibu.com |
| Mesa.com |
| Minneapolis.com |
| Oakland.com |
| Philadelphia.com |
| Raleigh.com |
| SanDiego.com |
| SanFrancisco.com |
| SantaClara.com |
| Sausalito.com |
| Scottsdale.com |
| Shreveport.com |
| StLouis.com |
States:
| Alabama.com |
| Arizona.com |
| Connecticut.com |
| Illinois.com |
| Florida.com |
| Tennessee.com |
| Texas.com |
If you know of one not here, please feel free to let me know about it. As you’ve likely noticed, I like keeping a keen eye on the domain space when it comes to Geographic domain names.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®
Hey John, Thanks for putting this list together. No doubt, spectacular names.
Putting aside the fact that monetizing these names isn’t an easy feat (which you’re fully aware of), the main elephant in the room is the obvious one: Namely, that there’s nothing to stop any of these states or municipalities from coming after the owner via UDRP or via some federal or state eminent domain proceeding.
My view is that someone with very deep pockets, who can strike a rev-share deal with the jurisdiction would have a good chance of avoiding problems; but if some smaller domainer decides to ‘bet the ranch’ on one of these names he/she could be very sorry they did.
Maybe there’s some precedent by now that I”m unaware of that has settled this matter in favor of the domain holder; but unless that law has been settled, (IMO) it’s a far greater risk to make one of these bets than to buy ETHEREUM or BitCoin.
Hello Gene, thank you for your comment. There is indeed already precedent for the protection of GEO domain names in U.S. jurisdictions, however, there is still risk, and the obvious desire to try and try again. As we move further and further into the future, what seems obvious and well settled in this past, is never a good enough deterrent in the future.
First of all this is pure speculation. These domains should be monetized produce an annual revenue figure. With strictly an empty domain name that looks great but produces zero revenue this is called :blue sky:
An empty building is worth less than a building that has a paying tenant. Now if this portfolio was producing revenue like Nashville.com, or palmsprings.com. The seller has a legitimate revenue producing asset for sale.The Castillo brothers informed everybody about this over 10 yrs ago.
As it now is the sellers are selling hopes, dreams and wishes. When rick sold porno.com is was producing one million a yr in ppc. This is why rick was under no pressure to sell this domain.
And its no big deal to assemble a list, contact people and produce a sale. Buckley has done it many times. She stated: she sent out letters, contacts and emails and consistently produces high six figure sales.
Its the same with a land owner. They cannot build a building. It takes a contractor to do this. So after sitting on an empty piece of land for decades. What does a seller do? lower his price.
10 years ago was a very different time for independent domain owners. The Google beast has gobbled up a huge amount of the traffic we once had. We let them in and gave them the keys to the castle by using Adsense and Analytics..
A small company can generate income but it now takes a lot more work. Those that had large portfolios can no longer maintain and develop more than a few viable city brands.
We are waging an attritional war with these dominator monopolies. True, the trustworthiness of these city brands can make for good a good business model and they still deserve upper price valuations.
What is now occurring was predictable since the geodomain “honey hole” was a large target for these companies. At some point these monopolizing platforms will have to give way to anti-trust action for their unfair business practices.
There will again be a boon for these city brands but I can understand why some owners are now ready to step aside and cash out. It’s a win for them and a win for the new buyers if they have a long-term plan to monetize them until we trend upwards again.
You just can’t beat a brand like Denver.com with a plan and commitment. The public still reacts positively to them as we continue to see with our Nashville.com and PalmSprings.com brands..
This is correct. The general public still reacts positively to these city brands which creates leverage from a “ad sales” perspective. What has particularly hurt is the free traffic they once received prior to exact-match-domain weakness, and Google gobbling up the local space with their own local listings…. Additionally painful to city brand owners has been the ease of advertising your small business on Facebook. It is these two giants who have diminished the ability to compete, especially when it comes to Google Maps and Google Business Listing Packs. To add even more difficulty, what has hit city brand sites potentially even harder is the dominance of 100’s of additional local players in local yellow pages listings. These city sites, in the past, had a unique leverage in local, that is much less powerful today due to further competition in local search from Yelp, YP, Superpages, Yext, etc. There is now 100 times the competition in local search verses years past, and city brands must fight to compete, something they did not need to do years ago, they just sat and earned. Those days are long, long gone.
So Denver.com is now only a cannabis businesses, not sure what that implies about the GEO landscape for an ROI.
For these sites to make money, they need advertisers and advertisers want proven traffic models, there is no reason to spend ad dollars on digital speculation. The infrastructure necessary for sales and copy for these cities is likely mid six figures or above to do correct. It’s interesting that the whole biz model that Mercado was suggesting appears gone.
I don’t know where your numbers come from but it doesn’t take much to start up a Geo. The cost for getting Nashville.com started as a website was less than $1000. If you know how to maintain a website on a platform like WordPress, choose the right apps/plugins and post good content everyday, you can make great money. Nashville.com does about $200k a month in event ticket sales and that amount has grown by over 1000% in the last 9 months. We expect it to continue growing. The task for any independent website is to work it. Owning an exact-match domain name is like owning a Lamborghini, You have to gas it up and know how to control it in order to fly past your competitors. Don’t let it sit in the garage.
Well said Mr Castello.
Not every GEO is Nashville.
If you’re creating content and trying to sell advertising, then I would wager that is more than 2k a month.
If the costs are so low and the margins are so great, why have all of these sat vacant for so long?
It’s a commitment that many of the owners may no longer want to put time into anymore. Sell the asset and a new owner with the time and energy can make a great income. A developed property will bring a higher sale price. I had the same conversation with the owners of Malibu.com. I told them it was worth $600k as a stand-alone but worth up to $2million with a profitable website.