Dynadot

sales Test.Center New Extension Domain Sells for $195,000 at Auction (Update: Purchase Not Completed)

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The NameBio database this morning shows the sale of the new extension domain name test.center for $195,000 through a Sedo auction. This is the second highest-value new extension sale so far in 2019, with free.games having sold in May 2019 for $335,000 remaining in first place. This is the highest-value sale ever in the .center extension. Previously TV.center that sold for $15,000 in 2016 held the record for .center extension sales.

The test.center sale is currently the eighth highest new extension domain sale of all time in the NameBio database. The top 10 new extension domain sales have all occurred in the last two and a half years. When all extensions are considered, this sale currently ranks in position twenty for 2019 NameBio listed domain sales. The current top 20 list for 2019 includes one .org, one co.au, two new extensions, and 16 .com domains.

Update on Jul 29, 2019: The transfer of test.center was cancelled; this sale did not complete.

The official creation date for test.center is Sept 16, 2018, although the domain name was first registered on July 1, 2015. The domain name was listed on various sales and parking pages from 2015-2018 under control of a registrant from the Netherlands.

The domain test.center currently redirects to a welcome eAssessment page for Euphony HR, the apparent buyer. Euphony HR, based in India, operates currently on the website EuphonyHR.com and have been in operation since 2004. Euphony HR provide 120 personality, skills and aptitude tests to companies from around the world. Their corporate mission statement is “Our mission is to develop and deliver best Employment Assessment & HR Optimization Solutions to organizations worldwide.” As well as their testing services, Euphony HR offer a suite of HR management tools.

It would appear that Euphony HR have been in control of the domain name for at least a few months according to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. The archive shows a February, 2019 record associated with Euphony HR. In 2018 and earlier the archive records show the domain name for sale and with various parking services.

The domain test.center had been listed for sale at $500,000. The Estibot valuation of the domain name is $200,000 USD, which is similar to the price paid in the recent sale and may have been adjusted due to the recent sale.

The exact term has about 5 million monthly searches with a cost per click of just over $1 according to data provided by NameBio.

The similarly strong domain name testing.center was already in use at the time of the sale and redirects to Zoomorphix Systems, a company that offers expertise in testing item creation, exam banks, etc. The well-known ExamStudio is one of their products. It was registered a few days before test.center in 2015.

I will provide additional information on the sale as it becomes available. If you have additional details on the sale, please share them in the comments.

How significant do you regard this sale for new extension domain investors in general?


Update on Jul 25, 2019: Sedo indicated in the comments that the sale transfer has not completed yet. Therefore, this is a tentative sale at this point, despite it being in the NameBio database.

Update on Jul 26, 2019: The sale has been removed from NameBio's database until the transaction is complete.

Update on Jul 29, 2019: The transfer of test.center was cancelled; this sale did not complete.



Hat tip to domainIQ (Ivan Rasskazov). I used the powerful Whois history tool in domainIQ for researching the history of this domain name. Also thanks to those associated with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine that I used to research website records, and to NameBio (Michael Sumner) that alerted me to this sale and that I used to find comparable sales records.
 

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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
That's a huge one. But only the registries can sell at such price or any good price at all. That's what is totally wrong with the new extensions. Still a "no go area" for me and any wise domain investor
 
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Six figure sales are still rare based on what I see for nTLDs, but it is encouraging to see them. The industry would benefit if there was more supply that could be transacted, because it would lower the cost of entering the industry. Not everyone can focus on premium .com acquisitions. More transactions would also mean more data, and more capital attracted from outside.
 
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Thanks for the report @Bob Hawkes.

I actually hate domains with the word Center .. usually because they actually seem like amazing domains .. but the alternate center/centre spellings is a nightmare. English is my mother tongue .. but I'm still not sure sometimes if it's just the regular British/American difference, or if there are other subtleties (because I see the centre version used in American context at a higher ratio than most other "British" spelling words).

Note .. there currently doesn't appear to be a .centre tld .. so that somewhat helps the value of this domain.
 
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The industry would benefit if there was more supply that could be transacted, because it would lower the cost of entering the industry. Not everyone can focus on premium .com acquisitions. More transactions would also mean more data, and more capital attracted from outside.
This view point doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps it makes a lot of sense to Estibot and that supports your business model, but not to us domain investors.

The advent of the nGTLD is what is killing the domain aftermarket. It is succeeding in lowering the price and demand for .com, and the only people benefiting from the new extensions has been the registry.
 
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Hi Bob, Elliot mentioned that he spoke to Sedo and the sale hasn't closed yet? Could you confirm when you have a moment?
 
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We continue to see the combination of the best keywords that integrate with the extension do well.

In other words, the keyword has to work with the extension and vice versa. It doesn't matter what the extension is, as long as the keyword works with it.

With NewG's it's less about the extension and more about the combination, the complete string.

All too often people focus on only the extension or only the keyword. Thats a big mistake. We see it all the time when people see a sale in an extension and then reg keywords that have no business on the extension.

Test.Center
Vacation.Rentals
Home.Loans

What do these (above) have in common?

Again, you need a good combination of both the keyword and the extension to align for a winner......of course IMO......
 
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This view point doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps it makes a lot of sense to Estibot and that supports your business model, but not to us domain investors.

The advent of the nGTLD is what is killing the domain aftermarket. It is succeeding in lowering the price and demand for .com, and the only people benefiting from the new extensions has been the registry.

I don't see how you can make the claim it's lowering the price of .coms, when premium .com domains have consistently been selling for more money. It may be lowering prices for middle to lower tier domains theoretically, but I would have to see data for that. Certainly it's not the case for Huge Domains, for example, they seem to be selling all types of .com domains just fine. EstiBot can't be supported as a business by a model that hurts domain investors, because lead generation is where we focus a great deal of development time. Domain investors are the ones that use those tools, so if they go out of business, so does EstiBot.

We also have to separate the existence of nTLDs with how some of them were marketed. I have seen plenty of cases where registrants were oversold and were really burned. That part does hurt the industry because those people rarely come back.
 
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I don't see how you can make the claim it's lowering the price of .coms, when premium .com domains have consistently been selling for more money. It may be lowering prices for middle to lower tier domains theoretically, but I would have to see data for that. Certainly it's not the case for Huge Domains, for example, they seem to be selling all types of .com domains just fine. EstiBot can't be supported as a business by a model that hurts domain investors, because lead generation is where we focus a great deal of development time. Domain investors are the ones that use those tools, so if they go out of business, so does EstiBot.

We also have to separate the existence of nTLDs with how some of them were marketed. I have seen plenty of cases where registrants were oversold and were really burned. That part does hurt the industry because those people rarely come back.
Your point is well understood and valid to some extent. But here's my point-

The registries reserves the best keyword combinations for themselves, sell directly to end users, make money for themselves, dilute the aftermarket for domainers, and generate more market data for Estibot.

Who wins - nGTLD Registries who makes the sales at premium, and Esibot whose database has been populated with market data from the sales.
Who Lose - Domain Investors whose market has been diluted with all sorts of keywords combinations with no chances of laying their hands on them.

Test.Center
Vacation.Rentals
Home.Loans

What do these (above) have in common?

Names like the ones listed above is the reason nGTLD is such a bad idea for domainers because there's no level playing field. Good keywords combinations are never released by the registry. They take the best parts, leaving domainers with craps that may never sell. And depriving us the opportunity of selling our normal domains. Instead of coming for my TradeCenterTip.com, an end user may decide to buy Trade.Center from the registry.

No one is accusing Esibot of anything. I am only saying that the odds favors you.
 
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Hi Bob, Elliot mentioned that he spoke to Sedo and the sale hasn't closed yet? Could you confirm when you have a moment?
The sale is listed on NameBio, which normally only happens after sale closes. Also, the page directs to a corporate page. But as you say, Sedo apparently say it has not yet closed. Strange, so I guess we should be hesitant until we know for sure. Thanks - I added the Edit line at end.
Bob
 
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Apparently this sale is not confirmed yet.
Elliot mentioned that he spoke to Sedo and the sale hasn't closed yet?
Sedo reported it as sold, indicating that Sedo received the money for it. Why wouldn't it close? The seller transfers. The buyer, who already paid, is surely going to accept. It's as good as a done deal.

The tweet seems like unnecessary hyperbole by @EJS.
 
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But only the registries can sell at such price or any good price at all.
While no doubt many of the major sales are registries, I don't think it is quite accurate to say only.... Even if we leave this sale out of it, the largest sale of 2019 in the new extensions, the $335,000 sale of free(.)games was not a registry direct sale, but had been held and resold by WebQuest, just like the big .com sales.
https://namebio.com/free.games

If you look at the top 10 new gTLD sales of 2019, while several are registry or registry though marketplace sales, the majority appear to not be. Here is the list.

Bob
 
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To be honest, this sale has absolutely no bearing on the conventional domain investor, and is instead far more relevant to other new gTLD registries. If "test.center" can get $195K, then maybe other registries can adjust prices accordingly, but without knowing the price paid (and it would be $ignificant) by this mystery seller from the Netherlands, you can't make any sweeping statements.

Like other new gTLD resales, Mr Netherlands could easily have lost money, by purchasing it for $200K and then selling it for $190K just to save face. And there have been a lot of those. He (or she) may also have purchased it for $100K and after renewals, could have made a few bucks.

I did some ad hoc searching and found a few that are nowhere near the quality of test.center selling direct from the registry at $50K to $100K (while others required making an offer through their registry partner Sedo), so it's not outlandish to think the original owner paid $200K or more for the domain.
 
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Sedo reported it as sold, indicating that Sedo received the money for it. Why wouldn't it close? The seller transfers. The buyer, who already paid, is surely going to accept. It's as good as a done deal.

The tweet seems like unnecessary hyperbole by @EJS.

No, it is not hyperbole. When I saw the NameBio tweet this morning, I reached out to Sedo to ask if this deal closed because I was going to write an article about it and wanted to do my own due diligence before publishing an article. Typically, Sedo will report large sales like this on its own Twitter feed, and it reports sales on its RSS feed. I did not see a tweet from Sedo, nor did I see it on Sedo's sale RSS feed (it is still not there): https://sedo.com/rss/rss_list.php?rss_id=17

A rep from Sedo told me this: "I can't confirm the sale at this time. "

Of course this deal may close, but as of this morning, Sedo did not confirm the sale to me when I asked. Hopefully it does close because it is pretty spectacular.
 
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the $335,000 sale of free(.)games was not a registry direct sale, but had been held and resold by WebQuest, just like the big .com sales.

But that sale was part of expensive set of .games domains purchased from the registry as a set, much like buying a trio of premium .COMs for a million and selling one for $335K, and "free.games" was the best of them.

There is no "ground floor" with these premium new gTLDs and the registries are the ones making the money.
 
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But that sale was part of expensive set of .games domains
It is true it was bought as a set of 3 domain names, but my understanding is this sale was for the single domain name. Certainly NameBio and DNJournal do not report sales of packages. This case was much like buying a portfolio of a few great names and selling them individually later.
Bob
 
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nor did I see it on Sedo's sale RSS feed (it is still not there): https://sedo.com/rss/rss_list.php?rss_id=17
You must've missed it, but NameBio's bots picked it up. That's where NameBio gets the sales data. No sales from the 24th are on the RSS anymore.

Either Sedo is waiting on the domain transfer before tweeting about it, or they weren't supposed to publish it. This wouldn't be the first time that Sedo has reported sales in their RSS that they were supposed to keep private. Whoops!

Kudos to NameBio! :greedy:
 
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It is true it was bought as a set of 3 domain names, but my understanding is this sale was for the single domain name. Certainly NameBio and DNJournal do not report sales of packages. This case was much like buying a portfolio of a few great names and selling them individually later.
Bob

You are correct Bob, Chad sold one name for $335,000 he purchased it as a package.

WebQuest originally purchased the domain from the registry as part of a three-domain package for $100,000. The domains were free.games, shooting.games and racing.games.

https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/05/free-games-domain-sold-at-a-big-profit/
 
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No, it is not hyperbole. When I saw the NameBio tweet this morning, I reached out to Sedo to ask if this deal closed because I was going to write an article about it and wanted to do my own due diligence before publishing an article. Typically, Sedo will report large sales like this on its own Twitter feed, and it reports sales on its RSS feed. I did not see a tweet from Sedo, nor did I see it on Sedo's sale RSS feed (it is still not there): https://sedo.com/rss/rss_list.php?rss_id=17

A rep from Sedo told me this: "I can't confirm the sale at this time. "

Of course this deal may close, but as of this morning, Sedo did not confirm the sale to me when I asked. Hopefully it does close because it is pretty spectacular.

Thanks, Eliot, as you mentioned, we have been in contact earlier today about this.

We were already as we had mentioned to you in our earlier discussions investigating this further as the domain hasn't officially transferred yet. We'll provide an update once we have some more information from our S&C team. Apologies for any confusion on this sale, we're not sure how the information was distributed when the transfer process is still in progress. Still a great name and we hope it's goes through as a sale but if it doesn't then it will be again be made available on our marketplace.
 
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So the question is:

What is the definition of a sale?

Sedo seems to be calling it a sale, but transfer has not completed.

Knowing that:

Can it be called a "sale" prior to any transfer?
 
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Decent sale for good word.word combo :)

Bob, but this article/information costed me some money, I was about to drop testing / company, and after reading this I had to renew it, I simply can't do otherwise, although it is pretty poor combo comparing to sold one, lol.
 
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So the question is:

What is the definition of a sale?

Sedo seems to be calling it a sale, but transfer has not completed.

Knowing that:

Can it be called a "sale" prior to any transfer?

It is a good question! With small value sales, such as on a marketplace....
  1. Is it a sale when someone says they will buy it at an agreed price?
  2. Is it a sale when they pay the marketplace those funds?
  3. Is it a sale when 1,2 have happened plus I transfer it to escrow/marketplace?
  4. Is it a sale when 1,2,3, plus the name has been transferred to end user?
  5. Or is it still not a sale until the money has been transferred to me?
  6. Is it a sale only when DNJournal or NameBio list it?
I think we all from experience agree 1 is not a sale. After that, more murky!

Bob
 
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the domain hasn't officially transferred yet. We'll provide an update once we have some more information from our S&C team. Apologies for any confusion on this sale, we're not sure how the information was distributed when the transfer process is still in progress. Still a great name and we hope it's goes through as a sale
Thank you very much for the clarification of where the situation is now, @Sedo. We look forward to an announcement when you are in a position to do so.
 
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Really testcenter.com esitbot values at 1200.00 and test.center is 200k. That is because it is a reported so called sale was at 200k What is this amateur hour! ????
 
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