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analysis Premium Two-Word .COM Domain Sales in 2019

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It is not surprising that single words and short acronyms attract most of the attention at the high end of the domain name sales news. For example, voice.com sold for $30 million, and California.com, EKO.com, TM.com and RX.com all above one million dollars in 2019. However, if we look at the NameBio daily market reports, two-word domains are well represented, some days even at or near the top. In this post I look at NameBio-reported two-word 2019 .com sales of $30,000 or more. Those 60 sales comprise about 30% of the total number of .com sales above $30,000 this year. I checked the current use for each of the 60 domain names. About 61% are already in active use in websites or for redirection, while about 15% are listed for sale again. Of the 120 words involved in the 60 sales, only 4 words appeared in two different domain names. The sales represented different types of name transitions, from longer or different names, or in a couple of cases from different extensions. No particular niches dominated the list. More than 70% of the sales were at just three venues.


The Top 2019 Two-Word COM Sales List

Here, in order of sales price, are two-word .com domain name sales of $30,000 or more listed on NameBio so far in 2019. I also include the end-use if known. The link in the title is to the NameBio record which gives the date, price, venue and other information, while the link within the description takes you to an operating site for that domain name, if there is one.
  1. MediData.com This US headquartered global cloud-based medical testing services company, medidata, procured the name from a Swiss company previously operating on the name. The $600,000 private sale was revealed by George Kirikos based on SEC filings.
  2. BettingOdds.com This $487,867 Sedo sale currently just goes to a coming soon page. According to DomainNameWire the buyer is a UK based company named GamingUSA. Yes that is a confusing name for a UK based company! BettingOdds should be a significant improvement.
  3. DomainNames.com This $370,000 sale happened during the live auction at NamesCon 2019. It was an exciting time in the room as the name sold. The domain name currently directs to the Uniregistry site.
  4. JoyRide.com This $300,000 sale was made at Uniregistry. The domain name is in use by the innovative vehicle rental company JoyRide. They facilitate rental of unsold inventory from automobile dealerships.
  5. GreenRoads.com This $160,000 sale, also at Uniregistry, is in use by a CBD Oil products company.GreenRoads. The new domain name currently redirects to their previous site, GreenRoadsWorld.com.
  6. AccidentAttorney.com This $150,000 sale was at GoDaddy. The domain name is in use by a law firm with the initials K&P, and it redirects to KPAttorney.com.
  7. MortgageRefinancing.com This $148,000 sale was made by domain investor Warren Mae. MortgageRefinancing.com is in use by a mortgage refinancing company Freedom Mortgage. It currently redirects to their previous website FreedomMortgage.com.
  8. BestDeals.com This $105,000 sale was completed at Uniregistry. The day I checked there was no operational site at the domain name that sold in August.
  9. SeedMagazine.com This sale just missed the $100,000 mark, closing at $99,501 on GoDaddy. SeedMagazine appears to be a monetized reference site with an emphasis on biotechnology related science and development, although covering topics from public policy, publishing, innovation and other areas.
    The remaining sales are all at less than $85,000 and are listed in decreasing price order. You can see the precise price, date and sales venue through the NameBio link in the title.
  10. AceTech.com Many companies operate under this name, but the new owner of AceTech.com is a global company that provides fleet management software and services for emergency vehicles.
  11. CryptoInsurance.com The site was not operational the day I checked.
  12. LifeForce.com When I checked the site I was taken to a password protected portal with no indication of the type of services offered.
  13. MyWebsite.com This is an interesting sale, as it seems the company is moving from one two-word .com to another of similar length. Currently MyWebsite.com redirects to OwnWebsite.com, a web design and development services company.
  14. FinalGoal.com This name could find use in many areas from strategic or career planning to lifestyle coaching. However, the actual use of FinalGoal is for a football/soccer sports site.
  15. CryptoInsurance.com The site was not operational the day I checked.
  16. FusionBank There was no operational website the day I checked.
  17. RedBarn This is a fairly widely used name. The new owner of RedBarn.com operates a dog and cat food business at the site.
  18. ShoppingCenter.com This valuable generic name currently goes to a for-sale page.
  19. CryptoCart.com This domain name currently goes to a for-sale page.
  20. AppleGreen.com The domain name AppleGreen.com is in use by an Irish chain of food stores and gasoline outlets of the same name. The domain redirects to their previous domain name AppleGreenStores.com. This sale represents an example of moving from a three-word to a much stronger two-word domain name.
  21. InvestingMoney.com The end-use category seems obvious for this great name, but it is not currently operational.
  22. OrbitDownloader.com This is an interesting name, but was not in use the day I checked.
  23. LiveWell.com This could mean many things, but LiveWell.com is used for a personal finance site.
  24. NaviBank.com is currently listed for sale again.
  25. FactoryDirect.com is a versatile name useful for any sort of direct to consumer business. The new owner of FactoryDirect.com, uses it for a craft supplies online store. Previously the business used the domain name FactoryDirectCraft, upgrading to the two-word domain name. Web traffic to the new name currently redirects to the old site.
  26. ComScope.com was not operational on the day I checked.
  27. BusinessFirst.com is currently listed for sale again.
  28. ForSchool.com The new owner of the domain name ForSchool.com is the popular Book Creator business, an app that allows children, and others, to easily create books. Currently the domain name redirects to their previous site BookCreator.com.
  29. PlaceMaker.comThe domain name PlaceMaker.com is active for Website Builder.
  30. HeyMoney.comThe domain name was purchased concurrently with the paired exact new extension name Hey.Money through two separate sales on same day, although the domain names do not currently resolve. DomainNameWire reported that the likely buyer was Advanced Planning Solutions, a US financial services business.
  31. NineMonths.com Interestingly this domain name redirects to a site offering the domain name 9months.com for sale.
  32. FirstDate.com Not surprisingly this is going to be a singles site, but at moment it just says coming soon.
  33. HappyLook.com Currently the new owner uses HappyLook.com to redirect to the AGCapitalFund investment site.
  34. CasinoEngine.com The new owner of the domain name CasinoEngine.com redirects it to a subdomain at their previous site EveryMatrix. The business handles casino integration technology, and the rename gives them a more descriptive name, even though they moved from one two-word domain name to another.
  35. WindEnergy.com is listed for sale again.
  36. MalpracticeCenter.com The new owner of MalpracticeCenter has the site operational as a medical malpractice information site.
  37. DuoBank.com The new owner of DuoBank is a Canadian financial services company. The name duo draws on their idea of partnering with clients.
  38. ProFix.com is listed for sale again.
  39. GoldenState.com This great name could fit various California uses, but it is listed for sale again.
  40. GreenCarpet.com It would appear that an Austrian carpet company plans to rename, but currently GreenCarpet.com redirects to messeteppich.at.
  41. FiveNines.com This interesting name actually sold twice for five-figures during the reporting period, and it is now listed for sale again.
  42. VelvetRope.com The new owners of VelvetRope.com have a subscription based service for influencers to engage with fans.
  43. LoveLetter.com The domain name LoveLetter.com is in use as an online store for gifts. It redirects to a subdomain on iherb.
  44. SEOservice.com The great name SEOservice.com is in use as a blog about SEO. Arguably this perhaps should not be considered a two-word domain name, but I did include it.
  45. ReviewMe.com In what looks like early stages of development, ReviewMe.com is being used for a trusted reviews site.
  46. LinuxGazette.com I bet you think that LinuxGazette.com is a reference site or blog on the Linux operating system. But you would be wrong! It actually redirects to a payday loan site called SwiftMoney!
  47. CoSpaces.com This domain name would suit a co-working space business, but the domain name is listed for sale again.
  48. PharmEasy.com The new owners of PharmEasy.com are redirecting it to their existing online health products site at PharmEasy.in. This is one of two examples in our list where a company migrates from a different extension to the same name in .com
  49. BlueDot.com The new owner of BlueDot.com is the modern furniture and accents store BluDot. They actually redirect it to their site (blu vs blue) BluDot.com. I believe this is the only example in this list of obtaining a second similar name to cover all likely spellings of your name.
  50. TravelAdvantage.com The domain name TravelAdvantage.com is now being used for a private membership travel service.
  51. NorthDakota.com The domain name NorthDakota.com is listed on Efty for lease as a “future home of the US 2020 presidential candidate”. Clearly the name is also well suited to travel and other types of regional reference sites, however.
  52. MaximOnline.com goes to an adult site.
  53. SpreadGroup.com The domain name SpreadGroup.com redirects to an existing site, SpreadShirt.net, that provides team jersey sales.
  54. BuddyTV.com did not go to an operational site the day I checked.
  55. blog-city.com. The new owner of blog-city.com uses it for a foreign language blog about online gaming and casinos. This is the only hyphenated domain in our list.
  56. NovaPay.com This site could not be reached the day I checked.
  57. CommercialSearch.com. The site CommercialSearch.com is a reference site for commercial real estate. The website is currently for sale.
  58. MortgageAdvisors.com This domain name is now listed for sale again.
  59. WealthCare.com This site gave a 404 error the day I checked.
  60. CBDclub.com This domain name is currently parked.

Patterns

I was looking for trends that might lead to actionable insights for domain investors. Here are some reflections, although with such a varied list definitive conclusions are impossible.
  • There were 8 two-word .com sales of $100,000 or more in just under a year, with the highest being $600,000. By comparison, overall there were 51 .com sales over $100,000 during the same period. Therefore two-word sales represented about 16% of the six-figure (or more) .com sales.
  • If we look at sales of $30,000 or more there are 60 two-word .com sales of $30,000 or more up to the time of writing in 2019, compared to 199 overall .com sales during the same period. Therefore two-word sales represented about 30% of the sales of $30,000 or more.
  • Considering that some of the sales were fairly recent, the percentage of domain names in active use is reasonably high at 60% (36 of the 60 sites are active). I counted as active if the site was developed or used for redirection, but not if it had a coming soon message or was listed for sale.
  • It seemed that 9 of the 60 names, about 15%, were listed for sale or lease again.
  • I had hoped to see clear trends in the type of transition. However the list represents different kinds of domain name migration. In several cases a company moves from a three-word domain name to the shorter two-word domain name. One transition was between similar length two-word domain names.
  • In only a few cases was the move from another extension, one from .in and one from .net.
  • Some of these sales represent a rebranding to a new name, while others appear to be relatively new businesses.
  • In a few cases the domain names are being used for monetized reference sites, showing that five-figure sales for that use are possible.
  • The niches represented in the list are varied with finance and investment, followed by direct marketing, among the most common. There were also multiple sales involving health products, cryptocurrencies, and gambling. I had expected more of a concentration in consumer-facing global businesses where the benefits of a descriptive two-word premium name are most obvious.
  • Most of the words appeared in only one sale on the list. A few that appeared multiple times are bank (3), center (2), mortgage (2) and green (2). Far more often a word appeared only once in any of the 60 names, this happening for 111 different words.
  • Colours come into several of the names, with green part of the name twice. and red and blue once each. Some might regard golden as a colour as well.
  • More than 70% of the sales occurred at just three venues: Sedo (22), GoDaddy (13) and Uniregistry (9). However, keep in mind that only a few of the places where those outside the domain industry typically buy domain names report the sales to NameBio.
  • Just one of the sales on the list had a hyphen. Note that I did not count three word names like Gambling-Law-US that did sell during the period.
Keep in mind that only certain venues report to NameBio, so the total number of sales is probably considerably higher. I would roughly estimate that perhaps the total number of two-word .com sales above $30,000 is about four times the number reported here.


Please Share Your Insights

I am sure that more experienced domain investors have many insights on premium two-word .com domain names that we could all learn from. Why not share your thoughts in the replies?
  • Do you see interest in premium two-word .com domain names increasing or decreasing over the years?
  • Are there certain niches or words that you think have particular value for this type of domain name?
  • What is the best way to promote and sell two-word domain names?
  • What fraction of your personal profile is in premium two-word domain names?
  • Which of the names on the list do you think are particularly strong?
  • Are you holding steady, or changing the percentage of your portfolio in premium two-word domain names?
Of course feel free to share anything related to the topic, including personal experiences with two-word .com domain names that sold.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Another awesome article.

I skimmed this quickly but of course any article you write Bob is awesome and now I'll go through it in detail to discover all the nuggets of gold.

Okay I did my detailed read and sure enough the nicest nugget for me is to refocus my awareness of what terms sell which helps me to adjust some of what I'm looking for.

Again thanks for all your excellent help with my re-edgeucation :)
 
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thx

will share on Linkedin

it seems to me Bank Names are running good :xf.wink:

  1. FusionBank There was no operational website the day I checked.
  1. NaviBank.com is currently listed for sale again.
  1. DuoBank.com The new owner of DuoBank is a Canadian financial services company. The name duo draws on their idea of partnering with clients.
 
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Hi,

Thanks for sharing. Its great list.

Thanks
 
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This took longer than I anticipated it would (I think a new record for me re the number of active links in any NamePros post - hopefully all operational). I had hoped to see some real dominance in a few keywords, but the list is pretty varied. I also was trying to see if, say, most two words are transitions from other extensions, but that does not seem often the case.

I was surprised so many appear to be for sale again, but that seems to hold in other looks at domain sales. Quite a good percentage are already in active use, almost all with https, considering some of the sales are only a few months old.

If you spot anything wrong please let me know within the edit window. It was easy to miss things as I manually went through all the sites and data. My senior brain is much older than my domains and it sometimes misses things :xf.frown:

Thanks as always to @Michael for the amazing resource that NameBio is (y) to try to obtain domain sales intelligence.

Thanks everyone for reading and responding!

Bob
 
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Bob I don't know what the edit window is but, i think you typo'd a few of the prices - I think a zero is missing on a few of the prices.
 
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Bob I don't know what the edit window is but, i think you typo'd a few of the prices - I think a zero is missing on a few of the prices.
Yikes I did :-$ :xf.eek:.

I have I think now caught them and edited them all. I think the edit window is 60 minutes, but I don't actually know. I wish it was longer though :xf.wink:. I mean if ever a serious glitch gets through the mods can edit it outside that window I presume, but I know they prefer not to do that.

Thanks for your careful reading and catching them @Paul T (y)

Bob
 
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Another great article! Thanks, Bob!
 
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Bob, thanks for spending the time to do this; it's really helpful. I think two-word premium names will only increase in the future. A substantial portion of my two-word domain names (almost all dotcoms) is medically or geographically oriented. It was also very useful to see which registrars sold the most premium names. Thanks again. WF
 
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Thank you for this awesome and detailed two-word domain sales report Bob!
 
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Troubling is the amount of domains that are parked, for sale or not operating. That fact begs the infamous question "what's up with that?"
 
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The value contained in your posts can't be overstated. Thank you Bob for devoting all this time to your research and for sharing the results with us all.
 
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Troubling is the amount of domains that are parked, for sale or not operating. That fact begs the infamous question "what's up with that?"
That some are instantly for sale again possibly means they were domain investing acquisitions from the outset (I am sure that is true in at least a couple of the cases where they are now for sale at much higher prices). Would be interesting whether any of them were end-user change of circumstances. I don't know.

Regarding the number not operational, I actually was surprised that so many were operational. Remember that some of these sales happened within just past few months. Also, in some cases the acquisition is well in advance of implementation of a new web presence. Now I did count redirects as active use, and many of the active ones were in fact redirects. When I started this I half expected so few would be in use that it would be impossible to do that part of the study.

But I agree that it is troubling when good domain assets are not used (and not for some other obvious purpose like a future plan initiative or a defensive purchase). It will take a while to do, but expect in the new year a post on a statistically significant number of "ordinary" sales in low $$$$ range to see how many are in use within a year of sale.

Bob
 
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Great
 
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Two-Word .COM is fit for any company. and easy for domain investors too.
 
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Good piece, Bob.
VelvetRope.com and LoveLetter.com were both mine. Last month I sold Stairwell.com for $60k - which reminds me I need to email Ron Jackson :)
 
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Good piece, Bob.
VelvetRope.com and LoveLetter.com were both mine. Last month I sold Stairwell.com for $60k - which reminds me I need to email Ron Jackson :)
Congratulations on those sales! You clearly know how to value your domains!
And thank you for reporting your sales! We need these valuable reports to learn how to appraise correctly our domains.
We all need more sellers like you :)
 
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Thanks Bob for sharing another fantastic article and taking out your quality time for writing it. Love to read it and there's always a lot to learn from your articles.
 
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Good piece, Bob.
VelvetRope.com and LoveLetter.com were both mine. Last month I sold Stairwell.com for $60k - which reminds me I need to email Ron Jackson :)
Really nice names and congratulations on the great prices you were able to negotiate. When I saw LoveLetter on list I wondered what sort of business would be using it - nice to see it being put to good use.

Stairwell is another name with great possibilities and glad to hear that your got a great price for it.

Congratulations on your long record of success in domains, and, as @Sutruk said above, we really appreciate that you report many of your sales so they enter the public database.

Thank you for giving back to domaining in many different ways @Braden Pollock. We are glad that you frequent NamesPro now and then. Thanks for the kind comments on the article.

Best wishes for continued success.

Bob
 
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Thanks for the information. I already have some good two-word domain names.
 
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Sharing is caring , thanks Bob
 
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Good piece, Bob.
VelvetRope.com and LoveLetter.com were both mine. Last month I sold Stairwell.com for $60k - which reminds me I need to email Ron Jackson :)


Congrats, nice name and got a very handsome figure there mate, happy with that :xf.smile:? By the way did you sell it privately, through a broker or an auction? Cheers
 
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