YP.Com Sold to Yellow Pages For ....

great sale

Wow, nice sale.
I thought the Yellow Pages were going the way of the Dodo Bird because its been years since I used them but I guess not. Spoke to a relative last week who now works for them and he says they are doing very well. Even a tiny ad costs hundreds a month (billed x12) and then they upsell you (by comparing your competitors ads) on anything from bold text to internet placement.

excellent sale.. I want to sell one of my domains at 10%

I thought they would have already owned that name,

none the less, nice sale. no way to tell how much "revenue" the company was earning ?

Yp.com great name.

Yellow Pages would probably be able to obtain the name from the owner for 150K or less if they did not tell the owner their true identity.

I feel that in a lot of these huge sells, if the buyer did not reveal whom they were, they would have been able to pay much less $$ to get their domain.

Yeah for sure Allan -- I'm surprised how many large companies haven't figured it out yet that sending an email announcing you're a huge company might not be the best way to acquire a domain...

Congrats to the seller!

allanh said:

Yellow Pages would probably be able to obtain the name from the owner for 150K or less if they did not tell the owner their true identity.

I feel that in a lot of these huge sells, if the buyer did not reveal whom they were, they would have been able to pay much less $$ to get their domain.

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DotUSDomains said:

I thought they would have already owned that name...

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Yup, same here. I thought it was theirs already. =/

It's really a great sale.

nice sale, congrats for the seller!

Same here as well -- not sure why I thought that. It's a great domain for them and sure is a much more "cell phone friendly option" for those without qwerty keyboards on their cells.

dezinerite said:

Yup, same here. I thought it was theirs already. =/

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Great sale!

I see they are doing some good updates to their website.

at this point of time, domains will still sell!!!!
I guess we really are in the BEST industry out there!!!
CHeerss

If Yellow Pages did this anonymously, they could have got it for around the $100k mark.

Its amazing how big companies reveal their identity for a domain. Id have added a coupla million to the price if they came to me in that manner!

Nice sale.

Get real. Or speak for yourself.

Anyone who thinks they could have got it for $100-$150K is dreaming.

What - with an existing ongoing profitable business + the domain !?
Opportunity costs and all that.
I'm thinking it's more than a MFA mini-site like some of you lot...

BTW, the UK Yellow Pages have their site on Yell.com

Aggro said:

Get real. Or speak for yourself.

Anyone who thinks they could have got it for $100-$150K is dreaming.

What - with an existing ongoing profitable business + the domain !?
Opportunity costs and all that.
I'm thinking it's more than a MFA mini-site like some of you lot...

BTW, the UK Yellow Pages have their site on Yell.com

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Didnt realise there was a business with it also.
Undeveloped, the domain is worth $100k, given the recent fall in prices.

Does anyone have info about what the domain was previously making?

With these high enduser sales, it's generally the result of exactly what you mention Aggro -- people/companies for whom the opportunity cost of selling the domain is high. I highly doubt their first offer was $3.85MM and I highly doubt many people here wouldn't have jumped all over the first mid six figure offer (if it was their undeveloped domain), even knowing who the enduser was.

Aggro said:

Get real. Or speak for yourself.

Anyone who thinks they could have got it for $100-$150K is dreaming.

What - with an existing ongoing profitable business + the domain !?
Opportunity costs and all that.
I'm thinking it's more than a MFA mini-site like some of you lot...

BTW, the UK Yellow Pages have their site on Yell.com

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Just curious how much traffic & revenue was YP getting ?

allanh said:

Yellow Pages would probably be able to obtain the name from the owner for 150K or less if they did not tell the owner their true identity.

I feel that in a lot of these huge sells, if the buyer did not reveal whom they were, they would have been able to pay much less $$ to get their domain.

Click to expand...

YP.com had some pretty good revenue a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact I had a featured listing that cost me a $#,### a year.

Yellow Pages is considered a generic term even though it is trademarked. ATT has even gone to using "The real Yellow Pages".

Talk about confusingly similar, check out the Yellowpages.com logo and then look at Yellowbook.com logo.

Nice sale....and then a bargain compared to the nearly 100 Million $ they paid for YellowPages.com a couple of years ago

I also heard rumors that this sale was the result of a court order...anyone got more infos on this?

cheers

John

Per Quantcast, yp.com traffic is 20 thousand a month and yellowpages.com traffic is 20 million per month. So clearly they paid for the domain, not the business.
Yellowpages.com probably bought it because they are starting to take internet more seriously and they did not want potential competition using yp.com.

The previous yp.com owner did give up a lot. It was probably pretty easy to sell premium listings on yp.com for something like $100 a year be emphasizing the yp.com name. Most small businesses would never figure out that yp.com is a small site with small traffic. At $100 a year yp.com was making a hundred thousand for each one thousand listings. 4 million after taxes and with low interest rates is only a hundred thousand a year.

Thats a pretty nice sale - but its a 2 letter domain so no surprises with the price.

nameboi said:

Per Quantcast, yp.com traffic is 20 thousand a month and yellowpages.com traffic is 20 million per month. So clearly they paid for the domain, not the business.

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They can redirect the exisiting traffic to the domains.

Yes, those with a domain "pending sale or development or MFA site" surely would've bitten the buyer's hand off at a mid-6 offer..

But surely the big giveaway was the fact that someone from out of the blue (but see later) wanting the domain must have major moolah to spend knowing full well that:

1/ this was a listed company (didn't check how big)

2/ had a full, proper, long established site on it that was making nice $$$.


Then again, just a thought, contrary to what many here are assuming that this was YP showing their hand 1st time out:

I would think YP at some stage in the distant past very likely nibbled (made offer) at it but were rebuked...
...and only today (maybe after a few times) they came back with a serious offer-you-cannot-refuse taking into a/c the exisitng goodwill/opportunity cost of seller + premium.

Regardless if anon, I think the seller would be able to put 2 + 2 together and make an educated guess as to the buyer's ID in wanting "YP".


(don't know exact details if buyer transacted anon or if 1st time etc)

-REECE- said:

Does anyone have info about what the domain was previously making?

With these high enduser sales, it's generally the result of exactly what you mention Aggro -- people/companies for whom the opportunity cost of selling the domain is high. I highly doubt their first offer was $3.85MM and I highly doubt many people here wouldn't have jumped all over the first mid six figure offer (if it was their undeveloped domain), even knowing who the enduser was.

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Honestly given what the guy was doing with it and its initials, if someone seeing he had an operating business on it is offering to buy it, there's very little conclusion to draw other than it'd be Yellow Pages going after it. Clearly the name alone would cost a lot but given the business on it too, anyone going after it would HAVE to have money and motivation.