Defunct news site Examiner.com now heating up at GoDaddy expired auctions

[equity78]

The expired auction for Examiner.com is already flying, closing in on $70,000 with over a week to go. From wikipedia: Examiner.com was an American news website based in Denver, Colorado, that operated using a network of "pro–am contributors"' for content. It had various local editions with contributors posting city-based items tailored to 238 markets throughout the United States and parts of … [Read more...]

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Wow that is a huge bidding level! Thanks for report. That is a very impressive set of backlink numbers from authoritative sites. I see it was created in 1994.

Interestingly it appears that it was for sale not long ago for a price only about 1/6 the current level in the auction.

The business model was interesting, but more generally name could be used in many ways. Still I presume most are bidding for links.

One interesting thing, just for fun I looked at what GoValue would list its value as, but it refuses to appraise it (although it is working fine for other names). Does that happen regularly to domains in high bidding in their auctions?

Bob

 

[hookbox]

Wow that is a huge bidding level! Thanks for report. That is a very impressive set of backlink numbers from authoritative sites. I see it was created in 1994.

Interestingly it appears that it was for sale not long ago for a price only about 1/6 the current level in the auction.

The business model was interesting, but more generally name could be used in many ways. Still I presume most are bidding for links.

One interesting thing, just for fun I looked at what GoValue would list its value as, but it refuses to appraise it (although it is working fine for other names). Does that happen regularly to domains in high bidding in their auctions?

Bob

So someone could have bought the name Examiner.com for around $10,000. I find that hard to believe but anything is possible.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

So someone could have bought the name Examiner.com for around $10,000. I find that hard to believe but anything is possible.

It was actually $11,250. I suspect many reasonably priced domains with great authority and links are somehow getting lost in the volume of names at the marketplaces.

 

[pier0]

Show attachment 133193

The "partner site" is GoDaddy Auctions and that's actually an earlier auction price. If you check in a day or two, you'll see the same listed for sale at the updated auction price.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

The "partner site" is GoDaddy Auctions and that's actually an earlier auction price. If you check in a day or two, you'll see the same listed for sale at the updated auction price.

No the link to partner site takes one to Afternic (not to GoDaddy auctions) where the domain has now been removed. You can for example use DTs to check for yourself if you don't believe me

If you go to Dofo it shows that it is In Auction, not that it is for sale.

 

[domain hacks]

I posted this news yesterday (with a link to another site)...in this part of the forum and admin removed it saying how it does not belong here.

 

[BaileyUK]

So someone could have bought the name Examiner.com for around $10,000. I find that hard to believe but anything is possible.

Indeed it's a great .com.
Even us in the UK have an awareness of 'National Examiner' as a publication. And the single word is a very versatile. Maybe it just flagged as a 'Examine' type word. That extra R puts it a class well above

 

[Soofi]

Price correction in sight as we move towards the end of the auction?

 

[hookbox]

That $11,000 buy now price is a mistake. There is no way anyone would only ask 11 grand for this name and if they did it would have been snatched up instantly. Names like this at this price don't just sit around. Employees at these companies watch for deals like this and snatch them up right away.

 

[pier0]

No the link to partner site takes one to Afternic (not to GoDaddy auctions) where the domain has now been removed. You can for example use DTs to check for yourself if you don't believe me

If you go to Dofo it shows that it is In Auction, not that it is for sale.

Regardless of where the link takes you, that price is from the ongoing GoDaddy auction, not from an earlier Afternic listing.

If you check now, you'll see it has been updated to $69666, which just like $11250, happens to match a bid amount placed during the auction.

 

[cipcip]

It worths a lot of money because of the traffic.
Examiner.com is not a news site since 2016.
In mid to late 2016 it was redirecting to axs.com

Afterwards in 2017 - 2018 it had a stupid pyramid called Blackeye App on it. Maybe it changed hands in that period ?!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Regardless of where the link takes you, that price is from the ongoing GoDaddy auction, not from an earlier Afternic listing.

You are right. Thank you for the information.

Examiner.com is not a news site since 2016.
In mid to late 2016 it was redirecting to axs.com

Thanks for the information @cipcip. Seems surprising that whichever company held it most recently did not see that it had huge value. With so many organizations around the world using examiner in their name this would have seemed to me the ideal name to take to a broker to make a deal for the name.

As you point out, it stopped being used as a citizen journalist site several years ago. I am not surprised that there are huge numbers of links still, surely dated links must not be quite as valuable as a similar number of recent ones. Nevertheless as, at one time, a Quantcast web use topp 100 site this is a prime name which will go for a huge price if it does really auction.

Bob

 

[cipcip]

It has an Alexa rank of 14k, so that means it gets at least 1000 - 5000 visits a day.
Just as a comparison, at 15 visits a day, one of my websites has 2.7million Alexa.

Even if it was abandoned, it appears that people still tend to visit it.

Thanks,
Cristian

 

[Bob Hawkes]

There is another thread about this domain name I see.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/examiner-com-about-to-get-stolen.1160743/

 

[Bob Hawkes]

This archived page of the press release at time AXS acquired Examiner provides some interesting information on the site. It was at the time the 37th largest website in US (presume they mean by popularity, but not specified) with more than 40 million unique visitors per month.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141005191613/http://www.aegworldwide.com/about/newsdetail/12142

Bob