(Sahar With Div, Traffic LV)
I had my doubt about the value of the domain prior to the auction. I heard there was a pending 400K bid prior to auction and even that sounded too much to me. I was next to Div when he made that bid. Afterwards, Div told me this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If he missed it this day there won’t be another. When I got home, my girlfriend picked me up at the airport. As we drove home we spoke few minutes about the auction and I said “The Moniker auction did a total of 2.1M, two thirds of it was due to Ad.com domain sale”. And her response? It confirmed my initial thoughts. She said “So much for three letters?” And I said, “Please spell it for me?” and she said ” A D D DOT COM”. See, this domain, while short and relevant to the advertising industry, stands no chance in the radio test.
So how do the two sound, “Ad” Vs. “Add”?
See this link for “Ad” as well as this one for “Add”. On top of the page, look for this image (and similar on the other keyword).
It’s sounds to me like the exact same sound file on both of these listings, due to pronunciation.
What do you think? Good or bad purchase? If you had 1.4M to spend and if you were in the advertising business, would you have done the same?
On a side note, the other bidder on the domain, the one that pushed the price to its final price point, from what I’ve heard (highly reliable sources), is a major advertising company, end user. That at least validates the value of the domain in the advertising space (end users), and not just domain related companies, such as the buyer, Skenzo.
Cheers,
Sahar
Hi Sahar,
Ad.com is and will be extremely powerful for online advertising and in print. I really think that “Radio” will play little factor in this purchase and matched with the proper marketing message it will be clear it’s one D, not two.
I think skenzo paid real top dollar for this domain in its current market.
Maybe they have bigger plans for it I dont know but if they do then need to speak the owners of ADD.com Xedoc Holding SA and get this domain from them.
I know that ADS.com is also available for sale.
It is good hearing that an Enduser actually bid upto this figure in the current market maybe the advertising industry is seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel or finally getting the power of domains?
Good To Luck To Skenzon on the Domain!
I think its a great sale - and that Div got a bargain.
Ad.com will pass the radio test for the types of traffic that he wants to reach with the domain. The targeted traffic that will be typing in his domain name after hearing it on the radio — that person knows how to spell ad. It’s their business, it’s their industry. I think that if someone doesn’t know how to spell ad, perhaps that’s not the targeted lead that they’re looking for.
I think the radio test is becoming less important these days, and is less important for such marquee names as this one. This is an authority and prestige domain that creates instant recognition and credibility.
With that said, it might be valuable to own Add.com - because of typos/sticky keys, but it would definitely be an important strategic move to own Ads.com, as well.
In the end this is a massive deal for the buyer, especially considering the end-user interest that you mentioned.
—-answer—-
I remember times I set next to people and they mentioned a brand, and the other person wrote the brand in a different manner, way it sounded, not way it is. So Radio test isn’t only about radio but about overall sound.
Cheers
Sahar
For someone in the radio biz a bit, I would say that it certainly Does pass the radio test. That’s because it would never be mentioned in a vacuum but in relation to/ while talking about advertising. So if you were already curious or interested in adsyou would not think it was add instead.
But it may fail this test in another way, isn’t Ads.com better and what people would really think? Usually you need more than one ad placed or served.
Yes.
If I were still in the meat industry as I was for some time, I would have wanted meat.com - it wouldn’t bother me that it could be confused with meet.com
Part of the reason for an industry leader to want their ultimate name, is to say to others in that industry ‘who’s the daddy?’
This domain has been for sale for a long time. I think if they approached the owner a year ago or so and offer 500K the domain would have been sold at that amount. By waiting until the auction they greatly overpaid because of having to compete with another bidder. Seems like a spur of the moment purchase by someone with lots of cash without thinking through the whole thing and thus got burned on the price. I don’t think the domain is worth anywhere near what it sold at, even 500K might be pushing the limit.
—-answer—-
Right. Actually the first bid was a sale already. Reserve was 400K or less on the domain at time of auction. Someone could have easily snapped it prior to auction.
Sahar
The guys at advertising.com refer to themselves internally as “ad.com”, so they had to be the ones doing the bidding.
—answer—-
I know that as well, but it wasn’t them bidding..
Sahar
In my auction preview I suggested the domain might sell but that I’d prefer Advertise.com, which was also sold recently.
You know, I could actually hear this being done on the radio pronounced as “A-D dot com” — which isn’t that bad.
It is still short and, as mentioned above, with relevant marketing copy there is no reason people won’t think of advertising or just “ad” instead of “add”. The other solution is to contact the owner of Add.com and offer him/her a six-figure sum.
Michael
http://halfhourworkweek.com
I like “ads.com” much better for running an advertising related business, so $1.4 million seems too high a price for ad.com in my opinion, unless the buyer has very specific plans for the domain. If they turn it into a multi-million business, then it will have been worth it for them to have a premium domain for it. You can’t always put a dollar value on the value of having a killer domain for you business. But, from strictly a domain investor point of view, I would think it would have sold for less, unless it gets a lot of type in traffic.
Well considering the buyer was a parking company, the domain won’t be used for anything of substance anyways.
—-answer—-
Skenzo is a lot more than parking. No doubt this will be an advertising company utilization, a brand.
Cheers
Sahar
No reason to think AD.com isn’t worth that amount. The advertise or advertising.com domain name holder or business owner probably bought it and now I wonder what ad4tise.com or ad4tize.com would be worth????
Nice sale price also jump starts the domain name market place. Any company with deep pockets that use A.D. as initials or use the advertising or advertise.com owners could be buyers. Applied Dynamics?? And if it used as an advertising site, then brandable names like Ad4tise.com and Ad4tize.com certainly come to mind as domains that are currently available for sale and should command a decent price in the auction market place.
The price seemed far too high, would have guessed 300-400k. From what I have heard the domain didn’t get a single bid at the last auction and some time ago went to about 600k.
Ad.com is a good enough domain. The radio test is a good test but I often mistype even my own domains. Heck, I even get too many or not enough of them W’s quite often. And with my old eyes and the dyslexia I have a grand time just visiting sites. It’s all good though.
So anyway, let’s say I hear an ad on the radio or someone tells me I can get an ad campaign for x dollars at ad.com. I type in add.com and what I see doesn’t look relevant to what I’m looking for (an affordable ad). I might look around the site for a minute just nosing around but I’ll get back on task and wind up finding ad.com. And probably become a customer of some sort. Just what the ad.com people intended.
What throws me the most is one announcer in our area habitually says “3w” as in “3w” dot ad dot com. So I try “3w”,”w3″, “threew”, and every variation I can think of except the right one (it’s the way my mind works) until I finally try just “ad dot com” and it works. It’s all good.
Ad.com is memorable. Type in will probably result in a hit on the first or second try and the domain is almost incidental to the bigger message. “A good ad campaign for X dollars”. A good domain deserves a good tag line.
Nice post.
I think that it’s a bit pointless to ask whether the domain is worth that or not. Domains, like anything, are worth what someone is willing to pay for them - so if Div wants to pay $1.4m, then that’s what it’s worth to him.
If domains really are going to become the Virtual Real Estate of the next age, then the industry needs sales like this to mature and move forwards - $1.4m wouldn’t even buy you a beach hut in Malibu, so given that it is an absolute top line domain, it could easily be argued that this price will look cheap in a few years.
There’s only one Ad.com, and let’s be honest, we’re living in an age where an anonymous banking exec might pick up $1.4m as a monthly bonus. It’s also true that companies spend this sort of money without blinking on refitting their offices or on a modest ad campaign.
If and when the majority of domain sales have business people as buyers (as opposed to domainers) then this sort of sale will become commonplace. A domainer buys a domain to either resell it or to develop a fairly modest site, so the upside is limited. If someone is committed to spending what it takes to really build a business around a domain name then $1.4m is cheap for such a great brand, and the upside is in the $100s of millions.
Just my opinion.
We cannot fathom why this domain could be worth 1.4M.
It seems that ads.com is many times better but what do we know? We could not seeing spending anywhere near this amount unless we owned Ads.com
It would be interesting in a year to look back and see what if anything was done with this domain.
The auctions had poor results and as usual very few bigger sales. The better domains had far too high reserves and the only type selling are ones from 10K-100K. We only purchased two domains, one being Shows.com. Not sure why we bought this one but for the price seemed reasonable.
—-answer—-
It’s a great deal you got on Shows.com. I was out of the room and didn’t pay attention thinking it will sure go for 200K range. Good pickup.
Cheers
Sahar
Scott, nobody wants your stupid Ad4tise domain. It’s not even worth reg fee. Sorry.
Ad.com may not pass the radio test, but may could get industry traction.
AOL executives often refer to Advertising.com as Ad.com.
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2009/04/27/daily30.html
Hey John,
Ad4tize.com is kinda clever in its own way. And the “typo” ad4tise.com covers the people who might remember the “ad” and “4″ of a visual campaign and then mess up with “tise”. The right use and the right “ad” campaign? It could work well. Four wall that name in the visual and print media then hit radio a few months later.
I remember thinking “Yahoo”? “Google”? And I knew what Yahoo stood for and figured Google meant “Go Ogle” maybe. I didn’t think either name was that good. And neither would have amounted to squat in my portfolio since I didn’t have the vision to build what they built.
Then there’s “Bido”. I’d of never thought that was a great name but it’s the application and the people behind it that makes it work.
And there’s another point I’d like to make.
There’s too many nay-sayers and joy-stealers in this world. I try not to do either. Sometimes it’s hard though.
The folks at ABCSearch must be just a little concerned that they spent a lot of money to acquire Advertise.com and now some MAJOR competition will be coming from the folks at Ad.com. count on a real blow out.
I too think the purchase was a little high.
If it were me I would buy add.com so there would be no way someone couldn’t find me after hearing a radio ad.
J.R.
Does not make a difference if they create a 100MM company around the domains or a group of companies under one umbrella at ad.com
In some cases it is about what you do with it, not what you pay.
Well for an advertising business I would prefer ads.com
- maybe another url shortening service with ads on it
@ Jeff
“So anyway, let’s say I hear an ad on the radio or someone tells me I can get an ad campaign for x dollars at ad.com. I type in add.com and what I see doesn’t look relevant to what I’m looking for (an affordable ad). I might look around the site for a minute just nosing around but I’ll get back on task and wind up finding ad.com.”
This is my opinion but why would any company want to fork over seven figures so the can have an ambiguous domain name? Case and point: Domainer’s main argument is that .nets should be avoided as customers most likely will go to the .com instead. Using Jeff’s logic, if I were to advertise dates.net as my online dating site ( as .nets are about 90% cheaper than their .com counterparts) users will most definitely stumble upon dates.net if dates.com were a calendar or fruit website.
It seems as if ad.com was bought mainly for the vanity domain collector purposes of owning a LL.com rather than a strong marketing tool for a business.
All you guys have no clue…let me clear it up for you clueless guys.
Directi is a company located in India and Divyank Turakhia is an indian guy. Don’t take this the wrong way…not being racist here…People in india always type the singular version of the domain name, not the plural version. If you ask anyone in india, which is better…cars.com or car.com …over 90% will say car.com
And in the u.s., cars.com is definately better than car.com
Another example: job.com or jobs.com — people in india will type job.com much much more than jobs.com — people in the u.s. will type jobs.com rather than job.com
Same thing with ad.com and ads.com, people in india will type ad.com rather than ads.com
Therefore, a company from india, such as directi will definatly use ad.com
I don’t understand this discussion. The domain was on the market. Another entity was willing to pay $1.3 million. Ergo, the domain was worth at least that that day.
When the economy returns, the domain will be worth far more than $1.4 million. I don’t think the question is the inherent value of the domain. The question for me is macro: how long we remain in recession.
I disagree regarding ads v. ad.com. I think ad.com is far superior for branding. The other entity,reputably an advertising entity, appears to think likewise.
Although the domain may have been had for less earlier, I think Div was absolutely right on the sale date: opportunity would have been forever lost.
One has to be real stupid to type ADD.com when AD.com is mentioned in reference to a discussion around advertisements. I am sure if it’s going to be mentioned on radio, it would be in reference to advertisements!
Ad.com is a great buy. Very memorable, meaningful and the least chance of typos. And tell me, how many meaningful 2 letter domains can you have?
But the stupidest thing that Divyank is doing is to have it parked at Sedo. He should put up a contact form there with a notice of what we can look forward to. No one’s going to click a Sedo ad link when they arrive at ad.com.
I, too, think the price was right on target and the market evidently agreed. Yes, personally, I would rather own ads than ad, but that in no way takes away from this domain name, it just realistically adds value to ads, lol. Just my opinion of course. I also think that, as domainers, when we denigrate the purchase of any domain, at any price, it just makes it more difficult for the industry as a whole; those all important end users start to question paying a premium price for the domains they are interested in, because even the professionals are questioning the value. Let the market decide the price and, most of the time, we all win. Best Wishes to all.