As Monte Cahn, Founder and President of Moniker mentioned in a recent interview with WebProNews, it’s a good idea to make sure the domain name is available when coming up with a name for your brand, or at least make sure that you are able to acquire it. Products have their own brands, and this way of thinking can also be applied to them in many cases. Cahn notes that even the big companies make mistakes in this area. For example, you would expect Apple to own iPad.com, considering the huge announcement about the device the company made this year, but someone else has that domain.

Cahn also stresses the importance of covering your brand in terms of domain names. This means getting all variations possible. Get typos, different extensions and country codes, etc. Use 301 redirects on misspells of key brands (including singular/plural versions). However, when it comes to domain names for different products, he says it’s best to build sub-sites around those with their own content, which can help drive link juice, SEO value, and traffic.

Getting the .com that reflects your company name is not always possible, unfortunately. In these cases, it may serve you well to find a different aspect of your brand to center your domain around, but this will require a greater level of promotion of that URL than a simple companyname.com. For example, if there are unique key phrases within your company’s slogan, you may find such an opportunity there.

Domains should be easy to remember, not too long, easy to spell, relevant to your brand, and avoid complicating characters such as hyphens. I think one key to a successful domain name is simplicity, although there are always exceptions to the rule.

This was by far the most money spent on a domain at the event, which saw 91 domains sold for a total of $2,133,350. The average selling price per domain was $23,443. Here is a list of the top sellers and how much they sold for:

Ad.com – $1,400,000
BottledWater.com – $45,000
Athletic.com – $40,000
Vixen.com – $32,500
Shutter.com – $25,000
Diets.net – $21,000
OnlineTelevision.com – $20,000
NonProfits.com – $20,000
Jonesboro.com – $19,000
SteakKnives.com – $18,000
HomeMortgage.net – $17,000
Debug.com – $17,000
CampingSupplies.com – $16,000
Ycg.com – $14,000
Punks.com – $13,000
Antihistamine.com – $13,000
MedicalProblems.com – $12,000
SiameseCats.com – $12,000
Bionic.com – $12,000
Filet.com – $11,000
GardenOfEden.com – $11,000
Sham.com – $11,000
KingCrab.com – $10,000
HeadShot.com – $10,000

Moniker, the organization holding the auction has extended it to on online auction, which is taking place until May 7th. There are still some interesting domains on the auction block, and it will be interesting to see what they go for. These include:

FindJobs.com
ComedyClub.com
CreditCardDebt.com
BailOutMortgage.com
ColdandFlu.com
DiscountClubs.com
Encinitas.com
Migraine.com
PhishingFilters.com
Plans.com
Relatives.com
RepairMyCredit.com
Viajes.com (Spanish for “travel”)

I would think ColdandFlu.com would be a particularly interesting one to keep an eye on given the timing with the whole swine flu thing and all.

According to a post in this thread by Monte Cahn, the head of Moniker, when contacted, the Dallas Cowboys said that they want to return it:

when I spoke to their attorney…he was dead serious, had no idea that it was $275K and was shocked when he received the purchase agreement ( he thought he bought it for $275.00 – thats right two hundred and seventy five dollars!). I almost asked him what he was smoking.

after falling out of my chair….not ever experiencing anything like this one, we are going to let this dog stay sleeping for a while. someone should pick this name up and it will ultimately cost the cowboys millions when they finish that $800M stadium they are building. I told the attorney that my guess was that they probably sell $275K in popcorn and beer in one game and that they were foolish not to look at their brand in a different way.

We find a way to turn dirt into diamonds anyway and this will be well past us.

In my opinion, it’s just not possible or feasible that the representative from the Dallas Cowboys’ organization thought that they had paid $275 dollars for the domain name.

When asked recently, Monte Cahn of Moniker said:

yes – they paid more in admission than sale price….

remember they say that they were going to bid up to $10K when I spoke to him.

The pre-published initial minimum bidding range was $250,000 to $500,000, and I personally do not remember if there was a reserve price. But, if the minimum bidding range was $250,000, then the Dallas Cowboys are doing everything they can to “get out of” paying for the domain name Cowboys.com.

Apparently there may be more to this story than what’s being reported. By looking at this link, there appears to be a trademark on the name Cowboys.com, and there may be other issues involved with the acquisition of this domain name. Currently, trademark owners are allowed to essentially “take over” any domain names that include their trademark.

By the way, I should point out that I’m from Dallas, Texas.

Apparently I’m not the only one talking about this goof by the Dallas Cowboys’ organization. Here’s more people talking about it:

Dallas Cowboys Back Off On Deal To Buy Cowboys.com Domain
Dallas Cowboys Fumble Cowboys.com Deal
Dallas Cowboys try to buy Cowboys.com for $275
Dallas Cowboys.. Too Cheap For their Own Good
Dallas Cowboys buys ‘Cowboys.com’ for $275?
And more domain foolishness – Cowboys.com
What’s in a Domain Name? About $275000, Discover Your Dallas Cowboys.
Did the Cowboys fumble online?
Dallas Cowboys fumble Cowboys.com
Dallas Cowboys fumble Cowboys.com
Proposal: Moron of The Year Award To The Dallas Cowboys
Cowboys.com sold at auction for $275000 – oops they meant to bid $275

Added:

Dallas Cowboys Lose Option On Cowboys.com In OT: Domain Finds New Buyers at $370,000

UPDATE:

I personally just logged into the silent auction going on over at Moniker.com (only live auction attendees have access to the silent auction), and as of 3:17pm CST the domain name Cowboys.com is currently at 3 bids…for $332,750.

An audio archive of the actual bidding that went on for the Cowboys.com domain name is currently available here on WebmasterRadio.fm.

A group of investors has secured the cowboys.com domain. Rick was also there when the Dallas Cowboys won the bidding and also has an update about the team of investors that bought the name. Congratulations to Eric for being so insightful and pulling the team together. And congratulations to the investors who all made it possible.

After I talked with Calvin Watkins, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News, this article makes it official. The Dallas Cowboys backed out of the deal.

Comments

Porn.com, which currently has no porn on it – it links to lots of it – was bought by MXN Ltd. via a domain auction put on by Moniker.com. Don’t bother to search for MXN, as the results bring back little useful. If you keep up with the online porn world (of course, you don’t), MXN is company behind DownloadPass.com.

"The sale of Porn.com further reinforces the growing trend of businesses that place a high strategic value on generic domains related to their industry," said Monte Cahn co-founder and chief executive officer of Moniker.com.

After an earlier target of $7.5 million was not met, Jay Westerdal, of the DomainTools Blog, still thinks Moniker got ripped off:

Domain auctions need to do a better job at getting the different industries bidding. If only professional domainers attend domain auctions, then sellers will only get the a multiple of PPC revenue for their domains. Great brand names will fail to sell at the level where they should be trading at.

Why so valuable? Westerdal notes that while searchers type "sex" into the search bar, the more intent and savvy voyeurs just go straight to the URL bar and type porn.com, making it the leading adult portal.

Porn.com pulls in up to $4,000 daily from 26,000 clickthroughs and an average of 50,000 unique visitors. And in case you missed it that the Web, as a whole, operates at about 28,000 pervs-per-second, adult content continues to be very much in demand.

Moniker has made a habit of brokering some prime domain real estate that people in the industry should have been quicker about snatching up. Other million-dollar exchanges have included Wallstreet.com and Autos.com.

On the auction block for the June meeting of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. in New York are some other properties that could bring a pretty penny, like naked.com and locals.com.

Kentucky businesses really missed the boat, apparently, on bourbon.com and horseracing.com, but at least we weren’t completely asleep at the wheel like the namesakes of Scotland.com and Amsterdam.com. Most likely there are some tourism boards mighty upset about these examples.