.com Expired domain name Gradient.com just sold for $125,001 at GoDaddy auctions

[Bros]

Was just following the auction for Gradient.com on Godaddy auctions and as a result of quite intense bidding war the final sale price ended up being $125,001!
This has to be one of the biggest sales of expired domains? There are obviously lot of bigger sales when you count the "regular" domain sales.

 

[creataweb]

Wonder what happened to the owner? He or she pass away and have no plan for the domain?

 

[campout]

I don’t know what the bidders are thinking unless they just have no intention of paying for the name.

 

[saj110]

Wow! That is a great sale. thank you for sharing @Bros

 

[Hireinternet]

Who is the winner ? Chinese ?

 

[Elad n]

Might be that the owner wanted a free valuation

 

[stewmath]

So I posted an article on 11-15 that Gradient.com was expiring on GoDaddy auctions. The 27 year old domain name was at $31,000. The auction closed Sunday at $125,001. So now the rush for those looking to contact the old owner and tell them how to renew or transfer begins. That's a great price and it's great to be GoDaddy who potentially profits huge for doing nothing. Bid Date Bid … [Read more...]

Amazing, i was watching this on godaddy when it was at $47k but then i went to bed.

 

[Mahouni]

Nice sale. I wonder if there were end users participating or if this was domainers only.

 

[pablohc86]

Let see if the name will be moved

 

[Kingslayer]

Single word domains are having a great year.

 

[rhakim]

Great price. Seems this word is trademark of several companies though.

 

[HotKey]

It's a real beauty.

Great price. Seems this word is trademark of several companies though.

Practically everything is trademarked, even single letters. What matters is whether the new owner will infringe by way of intent/usage. Simply owning a generic English word domain does not infringe on TM rights.

 

[SirDrago]

Great sale, let's all remember the "Fair to use act."

 

[Bros]

Will be interesting to see if this get renewed. The current / previous owner doesn't seem to be a domainer so probably wasn't an intentional test to see what the market price would be, but he probably now gets million emails from people who want to buy this domain for below the Godaddy auction price.

 

[Jason.tv]

125k? what was the buyer thinking; I feel bad for the buyer. You can get names like this for cheaper just buy inquiring. Drop names are supposed to be bargains.

 

[xynames]

Good sale, hope the winner actually pays.

It's a solid name and no you cannot compare a name like this to the stuff that is dropped or available for hand reg., if that is what you mean.

The TM is a non-issue unless the user wants to use it for one of the existing TM's prodyected (such as bicycle parts) - this domain may be used for most anything.

 

[disaac81]

That is a lot of money just to make a site teaching css gradients...

Just kidding!

 

[nbuzz]

Great price. Seems this word is trademark of several companies though.

I don't think that would be possible to TM a one word dictionary, surely it would be rejected.

 

[Brandworthy]

From Dec 4 owners may no longer be able to renew once name goes to auction, GD are changing how they handle expiry on that date, and 42 days changes to 30 for renewals or transfers out.

 

[wwwweb]

Starting Dec 4, the following changes will happen to expired domain names:
• After Day 5 of expiration, DNS, email, hosting, redirecting and any other DNS-dependent services will be interrupted and stop working.
• After Day 30 of expiration, domain names are no longer able to be renewed or transferred away.

 

[tsa]

Gradient Resources was a geothermal outfit that couldn't pay their bills to creditors for their construction of a geothermal site outside of Reno NV. The investment firm that owned Gradient sold off the geothermal site to another company to help pay its creditors, and it is likely that any proceeds from the sale of the Gradient.com domain name would have just gone to pay off those same creditors, so they just let it expire for legal/financial reasons.

 

[wwwweb]

Gradient Resources was a geothermal outfit that couldn't pay their bills to creditors for their construction of a geothermal site outside of Reno NV. The investment firm that owned Gradient sold off the geothermal site to another company to help pay its creditors, and it is likely that any proceeds from the sale of the Gradient.com domain name would have just gone to pay off those same creditors, so they just let it expire for legal/financial reasons.

Wow very insightful first post on namepros.

 

[Crysis]

Update: I think Google.com bought this domain

If you search the current Whois for Gradient.com, the registrant contact is Anna Paterson who is the Founder and Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures. Gradient Ventures is a new venture fund from Google with technical mentorship for early-stage startups focused on artificial intelligence.

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=Gradient.com

https://gradient.google/team/

https://www.blog.google/topics/machine-learning/introducing-gradient-ventures/

 

[wwwweb]

Update: I think Google.com bought this domain

If you search the current Whois for Gradient.com, the registrant contact is Anna Paterson who is the Founder and Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures. Gradient Ventures is a new venture fund from Google with technical mentorship for early-stage startups focused on artificial intelligence.

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=Gradient.com

https://gradient.google/team/

https://www.blog.google/topics/machine-learning/introducing-gradient-ventures/

Good call, she made an exit from Quettera which sold for about $10M, looks like she wasn't going to lose the auction. I guess Google still values a .com, her expertise seems to be in AI, some really smart people behind this, the real deal, bidder 2 didn't stand a chance.

 

[EJS]

The new registrant of Gradient.com is the founder of Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused venture fund.

More details: https://domaininvesting.com/gradient-com-bought-by-googles-gradient-ventures/