news An Exact Match Pair Sold - Should Domain Investors Hold These?

[Bob Hawkes]

A few days ago the NameBio Daily Market Report had a pair of related sales at Sedo. HeyMoney.com sold for $40,000, the highest-value sale that day, while Hey.money sold for $8888. At the time of writing both are parked, and I don't know the buyer, or even if it was one seller or Sedo coordinated the sales across different sellers.

This sale motivated me to look more deeply at the question of what exactly is an exact match domain name, especially in cases where the exact company name is two words, one of which is either a generic country code (such as AI) or a new extension (such as ventures, solutions, services, agency, etc.).

I wrote up my thoughts, both from a domain investor and a business owner, perspective in this post just published on NameTalent.

I would love to hear your opinions on this, including questions such as:

• What exactly is the exact match in multiple word company names?
• Do you hold any pairs of matched domains (the .com or perhaps .net plus the exact match new extension or something like .ai for a name that ends with the acronym AI)?
• Have you ever sold any matched sets?

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

**** oops I by mistake posted something intended for another thread here. My apologies. Mods can remove this...Sorry. ****

 

[BrandPlease]

GREAT MINDS!!!! @Bob Hawkes
Funny, I had been thinking about this for a few & was thinking about asking a similar - but much less well explained version - hahaha.
I have held onto a few:

• FinanceCricket.com + Finance.Cricket
• LevitatePro.com + Levitate.Pro
• TerpeneDesign.com + Terpene.Design

Think there be be 2 more, have to check.

Interesting topic!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Not to extend the discussion @Ategy.com (well a bit) but isn't it possible that the purchaser "overpaid" for HeyMoney because compared to other possibilities both the .com and exact were available in that domain name?

Secondly re your financial estimates of needing a 3x higher sell through, I don't see how that is possible even if you totally applied the pair idea. Probably no more than 5% of your domains are two word ending in a TLD (I suspect much less). Of those probably 3/4 are not available or premium. So you are talking on for less thsn 2% of your portfolio an additional domain. I would not do it if the renewal was more than $20 per year. So for every 100 domains in your portfolio maybe 2 extra at $15 average or $30 extra per year added to the $800 .com renewal bill on the 100.

Is that worth it? Maybe not but for two domains you have something to offer that very few sellers can or are offering. Will it help the sell through rate or price offering the pair? That is the key question. I think if we agree that the company owning Name1Name2.com is wise to also own Name1.Name2, then surely a startup buying a domain name should see enhanced value in a similar pair.

But it also offers a tiny bit of diversification in your portfolio. In the tiny chance that global trade goes much worse and the US use their stewardship of.com as a trade weapon or China bifurcates the Internet as the Google CEO speculated might happen, and suddenly a big chunk of the world turn away from .com, you have a tiny bit in something else. I am not saying this will happen, and I sincerely hope it will not, but as in conventional investment it makes sense to hold stocks, bonds and alternative investments, big and small cap, developed and emerging economies, I think some diversification in domains make sense.

If a new gTLD investor is going to dip their toes in legacy, I would argue a smart way to do it is to get the .com match to a few of their existing domains that could be company names. If a .com investor is going to try new gTLDs, then what better way than for 1% of their portfolio of two word domains suitable for company names be able to offer a potential purchaser both the .com and direct name match?

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I was going to leave this but, a few things you said required me to respond, @Ategy.com

move to get the Word1.Word2 combo only for the sake of complimenting your .com

Yes of course I agree with that. If it is not quality match you should not consider it. But if it was worth paying for Word1Word2.com the combination must, in most cases, also be valuable in Word1.Word2 as a quality match I would argue. Can you suggest an example where one is a high quality and the other is not to help me see? Like you are saying OnlineCasino.com is valuable, for example, but Online.casino would not be? Or FreeGames.com is a great name, but free.games not so much? Maybe there are examples I just am having trouble thinking of how a two word is great but the shorter direct of the same two words in the same order is a weak name. I am not saying that it will sell for the same, necessarily, but just having trouble seeing why they are not quality.

if you let them easily get the Word1.Word2 combination, they could later come back and buy the .com when they get a bit bigger.

So isn't that an argument to hold the pair? If you are saying hold it, but don't offer them as a pair up front, I think that can be legitimately argued as a bargaining tactic.

What makes you think if China does go that far that they will stop at bifurcating just .com's?

Agreed. But the two extensions under US Dept of Commerce stewardship are most likely to be used as a possible weapon in uncertain times when international agreements seem to be failing, or to be the target of retaliation. I admit it is, hopefully, farfetched.

"suitable" simply isn't enough

I did not at all mean suitable in the sense you assumed of just okay. I mean suitable in the sense that a combination could be a legitimate company name. Like an exact match like Simply.fun might be a great phrase, I think it is. But I have trouble seeing it as a company name. Something like Focus Solutions or Sunrise Agency do make sense as suitable company names. That is what I meant by suitable. Not all good marketing phrases are good company names.

any spanning ngTLD acquisitions need to be of "great" to "amazing" spanning domains

Yes, of course. I would hope every new extension domain investor knows that. Certainly many of us have constantly said that in general new extension need a single word to left of dot that is a great match to the extension to have high potential value. But isn't that true in two word .com? Surely the combination must be great of those two words to likely be valuable?

Remember that I acquire my domains super cheap .. so any ngTLD domains would have heavy acquisition $$ weight within my potentially pairable domains.

There I disagree. Throughout I have talked of cases where you could hand-register at standard rates the matched name.
Are you acquiring at less than $4 (when the effective fee you need pay for extension after the expiry is included)? If not then I don't think your statement is true for year one.
I agree that renewals now, in .com, are less than in most desired new extensions, but not by the factor you are assuming.

A large number of new extensions can be renewed for $15 or less. Multi-year discounts sometimes allow renewals for less than $5 per year. Check a source like DomainCostClub to see the wholesale costs on renewals for some of the more useful company name new extensions, Yes, some are indeed $25 or even $35 but many are $15 and less. The wholesale cost is about $14 on these extensions that often serve as ending of company names .agency, .institute, .international, .ltd, .management, .network, .photography, .pro (legacy), .solutions, .supplies, .supply, .systems, .technology, etc. If you shop for multi-year discounts many of the Radix ones can be found for less as well.

Let's say you are going to do a 3 year trial on a few matches (and well Rob M accountant makes him stop the loss deals so you have to pay wholesale prices for .com). 3 years of ownership of .com registration at wholesale price to registrar (before the coming price increases) costs $23.55 + ICANN fees. 3 years of .systems at similar wholesale but no other fees cost $32.00 + ICANN fees. Most of the others in the above list are about the same. So yes, higher, but not by the amount that I think you are assuming. Or if you want to just do a one year trial, then it switches and the new extension addition lowers your average cost.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Just as example would point out that the recent closeouts that @Ategy.com just released has a hand registration exact match possibility (well more than one, but looking at one). Give you the name?

That is too easy but here are clues that make it pretty obvious...

• In exact match (new form) it is a 5 L name
• That name (the short 5L one) is registered in 94 TLDs currently according to Dofo.
• The new extension is relatively sparsely registered, with a bit more than 4000 registrations and only a couple of NameBio listed sales in $$$ range.
• If only considering major registrars and no discount coupons, would cost about $6 to register it in year one.
• It probably is better for a reference or informational site than a business, but could have applications in either.
• Enough hints?

Now this demonstrates in my opinion what should be the thought process on these. Let me lay down the thinking.

Here is my thinking. I do not personally like the name enough to pay even closeout and transfer costs on the .com, but I could readily see that some would see it as worthwhile. It's 4 years old I believe, has wide potential end use, the most important consideration.

But IF I did feel the two word .com is worth a gamble, then to me adding the new extension, at least for one year at about $6, is probably worth it. Having the pair package offers potential purchasers brand protection, it would look very elegant in social media use, two words with the period. The new extension while not highly registered has according to NameStat 1 site in Alexa 1M for every 330 domains registered, impressive numbers that are similar to .com.

I don't personally particularly like the two word .com, but it was strong enough to make @Ategy.com hand-curated list, so it is at least a reasonably strong name. The term has sold (NameBio) 34 times with an average price of abut $1100 (admittedly a mix of retail and wholesale). Quite a few companies use the 5L name as part of a company name. Of course need to do TM research (which I have not done). There are a large number of potential purchasers as it applies to several hot niches.

1. Look at both halves of pair. Does one of them have a compelling case for purchase? This is where this one failed for me, near to but not quite the level I wanted, but I am not much in that niche, so may be wrong.
2. If so. look at the costs and do a worth-analysis on the other half, of the pair as I did partially above.
3. Then you need to consider whether the incremental cost of that is worth it in terms of the probability that having the pair increases the price or sales ratio of the primary part of the pair.

I am definitely not advocating picking up a portfolio ofonly pairs, or picking up every pair you can lay your hands on. Here, as in many things, I think it is wise to think like an end user, as well as a domain investor. I can't convince myself, despite your well worded arguments, that having a pair will not give some incremental advantage in selling. Each case you need to look at incremental numbers to see if that is enough to justify the numbers.

Just because (almost?) no one is doing this now does not, per se, mean that the idea does not have merit. I suspect that when the first brandable marketplaces were set up there were detractors to that since it had not been done, or in the early days of .io, etc.

Most new ideas are wrong the vast majority of the time. But progress in any field is being open to considering logically and openly new ideas. If we are too locked into a mindset of only one way to do things in the domain world: only .com, no hyphens, only at expired auctions/closeouts, no mixed mode, RT compliant, probably no plurals, probably aged, etc. etc. we miss out on opportunities. I am not saying you, just to be clear, but it seems we maybe as an industry we depend too much on following a set of simple rules. I am not saying the simple rules are wrong or should not be listened to, but they should not keep us from considering new ways to do things in domaining.

So just to be clear, I am unconvinced that at least thinking about the possibility of adding a low cost pair when it is available is not worth at the very least considering.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

For worth to the subject at hand -

HeyMoney.com $40,000 and Hey.money $8,888 – Advanced Planning Solutions filed a trademark in August for Hey Money for financial services, and ostensibly is the buyer of both of these domains.

https://domainnamewire.com/2019/10/10/15-end-user-domain-sales-up-to-40000/

Thank you so much for adding that information, @hawkeye. It will be interesting to see how they use the two domain names, like if one is strictly for redirection purposes, or if they plan one for social media posts and the .com for their main site. Or possibly they are just covering all of their bases. Thanks again.

 

[oldtimer]

So just to be clear, I am unconvinced that at least thinking about the possibility of adding a low cost pair when it is available is not worth at the very least considering.

Bob

Did you mean to say "is worth"

It also depends on ones financial situation and the size of their portfolio, for those who are usually struggling with renewal costs (like most domainers here) they will probably have to drop the matching New gTLD in a year if the only reason that they got it was to complement an average two word .com

I like to have high enough quality New gTLDs at low renewal charges that can stand on their own merit and inherent value and that can prove to be a better choice to keep at renewal time when you put them against the rest of the two word .coms in the portfolio that you might have to trim.

Now if you are an end user who only has a few domains then it's probably best to secure the matching New gTLDs for your main websites before they fall in the hands of your competition.

PS: If as a domainer you have some high quality two word .coms that you can afford to get the matching New gTLDs for then I say go for it, but I doubt that you can find those matching New gTLDs at low renewal charges if your two word .coms are that great.

IMO

 

[URLtrader]

Hi Bob,

I own

DNAsequencing.com
DNA-sequencing.com
DNAsequencing.org
DNAsequencing.us
DNAsequencing.co
DNAsequencing.in
DNAsequencing.co.in
DNAsequencing.info

Regards,

Dave

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Hi Dave,

I own
DNAsequencing.com
DNA-sequencing.com
DNAsequencing.org

Thanks for your impressive list of DNA related names, but those are not what I was getting at in the linked article.

I was getting at cases where one has a name like Word1Word2.com but it turns out that Word2 is also a new or generic country-code extension. Should the business owner as well as controlling Word1Word2.com also acquire the shorter exact match Word1.Word2, and should domain investors carry some pairs of domains, like the money pair that recently sold.

For example if your artificial intelligence company name is WordAI. I think it makes a lot of brand protection and effective social media use sense, and future proof against possible changes in domain trends, to own both WordAI.com AND Word.ai, even if immediately you will just redirect one to the other.

Since companies like Radix and Donuts used popularity of legacy domain prefixes and suffixes in predicting which extensions, there are a surprisingly large number of companies that one of the new extensions is part of their company name.

There is a separate case for owning the same name across both country code or multiple legacy extensions, but that is not what I was addressing in this article. I am sorry for any confusion.

Bob

 

[Rajuajoshi]

@Bob Hawkes you have a great point. IMO it is good to register a matching pair. For all my development projects and futuristic ideas I registered matching extensions (if available).

For example (there are many)

Training.audio (+ TrainingAudio.com)
Salary.in (+ Salaryin.com)
Profile.best (+ profileBest.com)
Sites.cool (+ SitesCool.com)
SelfDriving.courses (+ SelfdrivingCourses.com)
FoldableMobile.com (+ foldable.mobi)
me .rocks (+ merocks.com)

Advantages of having matching pairs:

1. Secure your brand with a dot com and left dot right combinations.
2. The younger generation people (10+ years from now) may like the new domain extensions. So keep the options open.
3. Good customer experience by having dot com as the primary and new extension as secondary with redirections.
4. Keep an option open to chose which one to be primary and which one secondary.

Thank you for the examples.
Let's take 1st example Training.audio (+ TrainingAudio.com).
So do you consider Training.audio only or you look for .net, .co , .org first and try to acquire,/register those first and then further drill down to new domains likeTraining. Audio. Or directly jump over new extensions.
Point I am trying to ask here is relevance of TLDs over new GTLDs .
Thank you

 

[NameJi]

Matching pair in other extensions is similar or closely related to owning matching hyphenated domains in olden days.

For example:
MailMarket.com + Mail-market.com (old style)
MailMarket.com + Mail.market (new style)

 

[Bob Hawkes]

GREAT MINDS!!!! @Bob Hawkes

Someone will probably complete the term

Yes, it is so obvious, I did not think of it until overnight, even though I have been interested in pairs for many months and browse @Ategy.com lists from time to time.

Think there be be 2 more, have to check.

On this morning's list ProfessorWorld attracted my attention, but the .world is gone. I also noticed the .pro you mention. I suspect one would not have to wait many days to find some nice available combinations, though.

Of course, because one can find them this way does not mean you should invest in them. Each person will have to decide that for themselves, as in any domain investing decision.

It is cool that we thought of the same thing at almost the same time!

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I perhaps should have come up with a different term, but just to clarify what I mean in this thread is company name exact match. That is offer a startup company a package of two paired domains so that if they like say Exacting Solutions as a company name they get together both ExactingSolutions.com plus Exacting.Solutions.

A product category exact match is something different.

A domain phrase exact match is something else again.

I agree we don't really know if there is market because to my knowledge very few pairs have been offered. If we say as a business owner it makes sense to have both, then how can it not be sensible to offer them to startup business owners?

This also offers an additional alternative to made up brandable as something the company can TM the two word combination and hold both the .com and exact name from the outset.

By the way I wrote up the idea with links to both NameCult and to am alphabetical list of all extensions on NameTalent. It also includes links to my original post on this topic and this thread. As I have said repeatedly, people need to decide if it makes investing sense for them. If you are getting or have a .com that has a match, and if that exact name match is available at a discounted first year registration of $3 to $5, it seems hard for me to imagine it's not worth trying for at least that one year. Many of the most obvious extensions are reduced to that in first year if you shop around.

Bob

https://nametalent.com/2019/10/tip-one-way-to-assemble-a-paired-exact-match-domain-portfolio/

 

[Ategy]

then how can it not be sensible to offer them to startup business owners.

In almost every case it's not sensible to acquire the 2nd domain because just simply isn't worth the investment based on the risk:reward ratio.

There are millions of decent usable (to end-user) domains out there that are still bad investments for domainers. Remember that a domainer's goal should NOT be sales .. a domainer's goal should be portfolio PROFIT .. two VERY different things.

Remember most good domains sell at a 2% rate = 50 years .. most will not sell in that first year.

However, domains of a quality like HeyMoney selling for $40,000 are just about literally 1/1,000,000 (0.0001%) .. no real skill involved unless there was inside or underlying information that the seller had that isn't obvious on the surface. Sometimes domaining is just dumb luck. Let's be clear that HeyMoney is actually not a bad domain .. but definitely not a $40k domain ... although it might very well be that the buyer has a far more that $40k concept for the domain .. which is why they paid extra for it .. but unless the seller knew about that concept, then he overpriced it by a lot and simply got lucky. And good for him/her .. it definitely happens from time to time with domains .. but I'm curious if that domainer is actually running a long-term profit or not.

Contrary to what some might say .. luck is by FAR the biggest factor in domaining .. the fact is most domains don't sell .. the key is to have a portfolio acquired and maintained at low enough costs of high enough quality so that the small portion of domaining that isn't luck, is strong enough to compensate in the long term.


In my case, because of my solid acquisitions at low prices, it allows me to be profitable at even under 1%. I'm profitable without most of my domains being priced or even listed (don't be a bad domainer when it comes to portfolio management like me .. lol). If I skewed my portfolio with matching spanning ngTLDs, then I'd probably need to be at 3% sell-through to be profitable .. and given we're talking watering down my portfolio with ngTLDs, my sales-through would likely be worse than it is now, not better.

 

[brandpainvestment]

I think

1. Word and word works when both words complements each other greatly.

2. Those are not good EMD.

3. I will buy something great in that price (selling price of heymoney.com) rather than word.word domain.

4. I like clear .com names no sub domains.

Feel free to like and comment.

 

[brandpainvestment]

Not to extend the discussion @Ategy.com (well a bit) but isn't it possible that the purchaser "overpaid" for HeyMoney because compared to other possibilities both the .com and exact were available in that domain name?

Secondly re your financial estimates of needing a 3x higher sell through, I don't see how that is possible even if you totally applied the pair idea. Probably no more than 5% of your domains are two word ending in a TLD (I suspect much less). Of those probably 3/4 are not available or premium. So you are talking on for less thsn 2% of your portfolio an additional domain. I would not do it if the renewal was more than $20 per year. So for every 100 domains in your portfolio maybe 2 extra at $15 average or $30 extra per year added to the $800 .com renewal bill on the 100.

Is that worth it? Maybe not but for two domains you have something to offer that very few sellers can or are offering. Will it help the sell through rate or price offering the pair? That is the key question. I think if we agree that the company owning Name1Name2.com is wise to also own Name1.Name2, then surely a startup buying a domain name should see enhanced value in a similar pair.

But it also offers a tiny bit of diversification in your portfolio. In the tiny chance that global trade goes much worse and the US use their stewardship of.com as a trade weapon or China bifurcates the Internet as the Google CEO speculated might happen, and suddenly a big chunk of the world turn away from .com, you have a tiny bit in something else. I am not saying this will happen, and I sincerely hope it will not, but as in conventional investment it makes sense to hold stocks, bonds and alternative investments, big and small cap, developed and emerging economies, I think some diversification in domains make sense.

If a new gTLD investor is going to dip their toes in legacy, I would argue a smart way to do it is to get the .com match to a few of their existing domains that could be company names. If a .com investor is going to try new gTLDs, then what better way than for 1% of their portfolio of two word domains suitable for company names be able to offer a potential purchaser both the .com and direct name match?

Bob

As i said before, it is not a good purchase on my opinion. Many great alternatives were present.

Also I don't love this word.word unless it connects two keywords greatly.

Share your thoughts.

Like, comments are always welcome.

 

[Ategy]

Secondly re your financial estimates of needing a 3x higher sell through, I don't see how that is possible even if you totally applied the pair idea

We're comparing the merits of getting the pair vs not getting the pair .. so the percentages I'm giving is for domains where getting the pair is possible. The actual overall number in someone's portfolio will vary, but that in no way changes the mathematical judgement of if you should get the pair or not.

Is that worth it?

Nope

Will it help the sell through rate or price offering the pair?

A touch .. but nowhere near enough on average to justify the extra expenses involved in using such a strategy. Again .. if the ngTLD is a great domain on it's own merits, then definitely go for it .. but I think it's a very bad move to get the Word1.Word2 combo only for the sake of complimenting your .com

There's also the fact that if you let them easily get the Word1.Word2 combination, they could later come back and buy the .com when they get a bit bigger. Whereas if the W1.W2 domain wasn't originally available at handreg, then they'd likely just get a different handreg (.com or ngTLD).

In the tiny chance that global trade goes much worse and the US use their stewardship of.com as a trade weapon or China bifurcates the Internet as the Google CEO speculated might happen, and suddenly a big chunk of the world turn away from .com, you have a tiny bit in something else.

What makes you think if China does go that far that they will stop at bifurcating just .com's? If they ever go that far the rest of the world will likely side with the USA .. and more importantly, most of those English language ngTLDs are owned/operated by American companies .. they'll all either be dropped from China, or bifurcated if there's enough usage/traffic to justify the effort.

Also, China bifurcating alone really won't affect English language 2-word domains with any significance (although it's something to fear if you're holding liquid 3L- and 5N- domains).

That being said .. ICANN really have done a horrible job on a very wide scale .. the entire world should seriously be looking at alternatives at this point. But that's a very different conversation! lol

If a .com investor is going to try new gTLDs, then what better way than for 1% of their portfolio of two word domains suitable for company names be able to offer a potential purchaser both the .com and direct name match?

Unfortunately, for me, "suitable" simply isn't enough to justify the investment .. any spanning ngTLD acquisitions need to be of "great" to "amazing" spanning domains. So it comes back to the question of if the domain is strong enough on it's own merits .. in most cases where you have a "decent" 2-word .com, the answer is no ... although it obviously also depends on the types and average quality of someone's .2-word .com's .. so most definitely do not blindly dismiss this idea if you're only holding extremely strong 2word .com's .. because depending on someone's style and acquisition prices, they could have a portfolio where it might be worth while.

Again .. I have to stress that in many cases, if you have a portfolio of good Word1Word2.com domains, the Word1.Word2 version can and will often be good domains as well .. to an end user. But the sales multiples/markups and sales probabilities simply make them bad investments as a domainer looking to profit in the long term. For most cases of average domainers with lower (~$xx/domain) acquisition costs, the math just isn't there yet.

Remember that I acquire my domains super cheap .. so any ngTLD domains would have heavy acquisition $$ weight within my potentially pairable domains. For someone who buys domains at an average price of $250-$500, the math is VERY different and it might justify looking at holding pairs.

 

[Ategy]

I am not personally a fan of HeyMoney as a name, although I would say the same about many other names that sell.

But I do see lots of value in Word1.Word2 domain names. Elegant design is functional and efficient including only what has function. If you could have a domain name that is exactly your descriptive company name, doesn't that make sense? But even if you don't like it, would you want someone else to potentially have it?

Bob

Everything you said there is accurate ... but you're forgetting that just because of a domain is good for an end user DOES NOT at all mean it's a good investment for a domain investor.

The number of decent end user domains to good investment domains probably have a more than a 10:1 ratio .. although that in itself doesn't really say anything about getting the pairs ...

What it really comes down to is that it's already hard enough to squeak out a profit with decent 2-word .com's .. and it's an undeniable fact of the domain industry that Word1.Word2 domains sell at less frequency and at lower multiples than their Word1.Word2 equivalents ... add to that the fact they are generally more expensive to acquire and specifically to renew/maintain, that what was difficult math with Word1Word2.com domains, becomes foolish math with Word1.Word2 domains.

There will always be exceptions .. but if you look at averages .. the math just doesn't make them a worthy investment .. even if most definitely many could be great domains for end users that even I would suggest they acquire.

But I do see lots of value in Word1.Word2 domain names

Another important point, is that just because you see lots of value in Word1.Word2 domains, does not counter the fact that RELATIVELY they actually do not when it comes to value and demand in the world world marketplace of domains when compared to their Word1Word2.com equivalents. I'm not saying they are worthless or bad .. but when it's super hard to make a profit with regular Word1Word2.com domains, these domains just aren't investment worthy in 2019.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

As an update to this thread, the pair of domain names now are in use for redirection purposes. HeyMoney.com (sold for $40,000) and Hey.Money (sold same day for $8888) direct to HeyMoney.de, a German based personal finance app.
Bob