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new gTLD Vacation.Rentals sold for $500,300 (domain name only)

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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I did a Google search to see how common vacation sites using extension rentals was, and I was surprised that there were many thousands of sites that use the extension for some sort of vacation use (clearly some duplicates). I even found one right here from my mid sized Canadian city. TLD rentals has more real world use than I had imagined.

Google: "vacation site:.rentals" (without the quotation signs)

I think the importance of the sale is that it will help spread the word of new extensions, and indirectly help acceptance of them by the general public (and ultimately improve prospects for ngTLD sales, although it is still a tough sell for most of us).
 
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I did a Google search to see how common vacation sites using extension rentals was, and I was surprised that there were many thousands of sites that use the extension for some sort of vacation use (clearly some duplicates). I even found one right here from my mid sized Canadian city. TLD rentals has more real world use than I had imagined.

Google: "vacation site:.rentals" (without the quotation signs)

I think the importance of the sale is that it will help spread the word of new extensions, and indirectly help acceptance of them by the general public (and ultimately improve prospects for ngTLD sales, although it is still a tough sell for most of us).
Yes, I agree, this sale is poster boy for new gTLDs.
 
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Great Sale. Congrats to Buyer and seller
 
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click here to watch the video interview with the owner of Vacation.Rentals
 
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Wish i knew how these companies like Donuts setup their own registrys and create extensions like .rentals etc
 
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After listening to DomainSherpa and DNW I am sure that Mike knows what he doing..
I think it’s fantastic that someone like that is willing to take on such a task & I wish him all the best of success...
 
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After listening to DomainSherpa and DNW I am sure that Mike knows what he doing..
I think it’s fantastic that someone like that is willing to take on such a task & I wish him all the best of success...

I really like the aspect that he intentionally raised the price a little, to be sure to get some initial marketing for free! And he really did.
 
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I wish I can get half of that for Rental.Company
 
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This is an exceptional sale.
 
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Hello to all,

I am Mike Kugler, the owner of the domain for this thread.

I appreciate all points of view here (good and bad) and knew most of them way before I bought the URL.

I am jumping in here to put a hammer down to one point in particular that is ridiculous. The amount of the sale and the need for "proof"

In a completely unrelated website, someone made me aware that there was debate if the sale was even authentic. Honest to God, someone had the temerity to publicly lay doubt to this purchase, which led me here.

While some may see no harm in slamming the integrity of Donuts or VacaRent, LLC - I do. Little innuendos of "titter titter, tsk tsk, disclose the "truth", come clean and all of this nonsense have much bigger implications. What if my business partners were made aware of this post and began to question my integrity?

"Did you actually purchase the domain for the amount you said?"
"Does Mr. Gasbag know something we don't?"
"How do we actually know you spent the money you said you did?"
"Seems to be a lot of gossip going around...."

So to put it to rest once and for all, here is a ACTUAL image of the LAST wire transfer made for the final payment from us to Donuts. (Accts and routing numbers are redacted for obvious reasons.) You will see the amount of $375,300 at the top. The company Alpu, LLC is owned by my wife and myself. It was formed and federally trademarked back in 2015 and still active today. Alpu, LLC then transferred ownership to VacaRent, LLC which was newly formed with my current investor/partners in 2018.

Please do not feed into libelous and slanderous discussions without giving the affected parties an opportunity to "come clean, tell the truth, give full disclosure, account for our sins"

With that, I hope everyone has a great day.

With respect, Mike Kugler
CEO/President
VacaRent, LLC

(Current placeholder for #10 on Google for Vacation Rentals) :D
 
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Hello to all,

I am Mike Kugler, the owner of the domain for this thread.

I appreciate all points of view here (good and bad) and knew most of them way before I bought the URL.

I am jumping in here to put a hammer down to one point in particular that is ridiculous. The amount of the sale and the need for "proof"

In a completely unrelated website, someone made me aware that there was debate if the sale was even authentic. Honest to God, someone had the temerity to publicly lay doubt to this purchase, which led me here.

While some may see no harm in slamming the integrity of Donuts or VacaRent, LLC - I do. Little innuendos of "titter titter, tsk tsk, disclose the "truth", come clean and all of this nonsense have much bigger implications. What if my business partners were made aware of this post and began to question my integrity?

"Did you actually purchase the domain for the amount you said?"
"Does Mr. Gasbag know something we don't?"
"How do we actually know you spent the money you said you did?"
"Seems to be a lot of gossip going around...."

So to put it to rest once and for all, here is a ACTUAL image of the LAST wire transfer made for the final payment from us to Donuts. (Accts and routing numbers are redacted for obvious reasons.) You will see the amount of $375,300 at the top. The company Alpu, LLC is owned by my wife and myself. It was formed and federally trademarked back in 2015 and still active today. Alpu, LLC then transferred ownership to VacaRent, LLC which was newly formed with my current investor/partners in 2018.

Please do not feed into libelous and slanderous discussions without giving the affected parties an opportunity to "come clean, tell the truth, give full disclosure, account for our sins"

With that, I hope everyone has a great day.

With respect, Mike Kugler
CEO/President
VacaRent, LLC

(Current placeholder for #10 on Google for Vacation Rentals) :D
Many congrats @MikeKugler and Vacation.Rentals, I personally own Asset.Club and Rental.Company so I understand the feeling of having assets like these.
 
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I wish you all the best @Michael Kugler . That is a big purchase.

You may want to work on the SEO of your site and improve the quality of your UI and UX. I hope this doesn't sound harsh but some of your competitors do look more appealing and professional. If I were a consumer and I was deciding between yours or a competitor like flipkey, I know which one comes across as more enticing to me.

To provide one example, the description of the site could be improved. It looks spammy to me at the moment.

Screenshot_2018-04-17-19-58-32.png
 
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I really like the aspect that he intentionally raised the price a little, to be sure to get some initial marketing for free! And he really did.
You really get it and I appreciate that.

You literally cannot believe how many people are slamming Donuts for screwing me over for an extra $300 when in fact they had nothing to do with it. The extra $300 was set by me so I could not only leapfrog Blake for home.loans but also move one more spot up on this list for safe margin.

In return, we have had an astonishing amount of press since the press release. Insane exposure for a piddly $300. Best $300 I ever screwed myself over for - ever!

Have a great one, Mike
 
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I wish you all the best @Michael Kugler . That is a big purchase.

You may want to work on the SEO of your site and improve the quality of your UI and UX. I hope this doesn't sound harsh but some of your competitors do look more appealing and professional. If I were a consumer and I was deciding between yours or a competitor like flipkey, I know which one comes across as more enticing to me.

To provide one example, the description of the site could be improved. It looks spammy to me at the moment.

Show attachment 85628
WOW! Thank you for pointing that out.

That is most definitely NOT supposed to be there. Can I ask where this came from? Android? iPhone? etc. It should say something more along the lines of "Rent from homeowners and property managers....."

Somehow or other it has picked up one of our listings for the meta....

Lovely....

Thank you VERY much for catching and notifying me. We will work through all of this.
 
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Can I ask where this came from? Android? iPhone? etc. It should say something more along the lines of "Rent from homeowners and property managers....."

That was for a search for "vacation rentals", on any device.

Strangely enough I have also seen the following when searching for the site itself, vacation.rentals.

upload_2018-4-17_21-15-1.png
 
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The meta description for the home page should be as follows, but I don't see this on any search result.

Find perfect vacation rentals for your next trip from private owners and property managers. Rent direct with no booking fees, no commissions, no hidden charges. We make the introduction and leave the rest up to you.

EDIT

One last freebie from me, otherwise I'll have to start charging you. :xf.grin:

If SEO is important to you (as I am sure it is), then the speed of your site really does play a part these days. For me it is showing 12.23 seconds on average to finish a page load. 2 seconds for base page load, 7 seconds without images or CSS. This is actually pretty slow, most of your competitors are faster.

Read the following for more information: https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-speed
 
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Hello to all,

I am Mike Kugler, the owner of the domain for this thread.

I appreciate all points of view here (good and bad) and knew most of them way before I bought the URL.

I am jumping in here to put a hammer down to one point in particular that is ridiculous. The amount of the sale and the need for "proof"

In a completely unrelated website, someone made me aware that there was debate if the sale was even authentic. Honest to God, someone had the temerity to publicly lay doubt to this purchase, which led me here.

While some may see no harm in slamming the integrity of Donuts or VacaRent, LLC - I do. Little innuendos of "titter titter, tsk tsk, disclose the "truth", come clean and all of this nonsense have much bigger implications. What if my business partners were made aware of this post and began to question my integrity?

"Did you actually purchase the domain for the amount you said?"
"Does Mr. Gasbag know something we don't?"
"How do we actually know you spent the money you said you did?"
"Seems to be a lot of gossip going around...."

So to put it to rest once and for all, here is a ACTUAL image of the LAST wire transfer made for the final payment from us to Donuts. (Accts and routing numbers are redacted for obvious reasons.) You will see the amount of $375,300 at the top. The company Alpu, LLC is owned by my wife and myself. It was formed and federally trademarked back in 2015 and still active today. Alpu, LLC then transferred ownership to VacaRent, LLC which was newly formed with my current investor/partners in 2018.

Please do not feed into libelous and slanderous discussions without giving the affected parties an opportunity to "come clean, tell the truth, give full disclosure, account for our sins"

With that, I hope everyone has a great day.

With respect, Mike Kugler
CEO/President
VacaRent, LLC

(Current placeholder for #10 on Google for Vacation Rentals) :D

I would love to hear a debate between @Rick Schwartz & @Michael Kugler

Subject: The Peigon Shi* Theory and The Purchase Of Vacation.Rentals
Judges: @Michael Cyger @Josh R
Platform: @DomainSherpa
Free Popcorn Provided by: @EZPZYO :woot:
 
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Hello to all,

I am Mike Kugler, the owner of the domain for this thread.

I appreciate all points of view here (good and bad) and knew most of them way before I bought the URL.

I am jumping in here to put a hammer down to one point in particular that is ridiculous. The amount of the sale and the need for "proof"

In a completely unrelated website, someone made me aware that there was debate if the sale was even authentic. Honest to God, someone had the temerity to publicly lay doubt to this purchase, which led me here.

While some may see no harm in slamming the integrity of Donuts or VacaRent, LLC - I do. Little innuendos of "titter titter, tsk tsk, disclose the "truth", come clean and all of this nonsense have much bigger implications. What if my business partners were made aware of this post and began to question my integrity?

"Did you actually purchase the domain for the amount you said?"
"Does Mr. Gasbag know something we don't?"
"How do we actually know you spent the money you said you did?"
"Seems to be a lot of gossip going around...."

So to put it to rest once and for all, here is a ACTUAL image of the LAST wire transfer made for the final payment from us to Donuts. (Accts and routing numbers are redacted for obvious reasons.) You will see the amount of $375,300 at the top. The company Alpu, LLC is owned by my wife and myself. It was formed and federally trademarked back in 2015 and still active today. Alpu, LLC then transferred ownership to VacaRent, LLC which was newly formed with my current investor/partners in 2018.

Please do not feed into libelous and slanderous discussions without giving the affected parties an opportunity to "come clean, tell the truth, give full disclosure, account for our sins"

With that, I hope everyone has a great day.

With respect, Mike Kugler
CEO/President
VacaRent, LLC

(Current placeholder for #10 on Google for Vacation Rentals) :D

Great to have you on namePros Mike!

This is a great community, you already received a very important feedback from @Dave, on day 1 (y)

I love new gTLDs and Vacation.Retals is a killer domain!

I wish you best of luck with your new venture!
 
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