Last week bidding reached just $1.7 million, far short of the seller’s expectations. Before the auction there was speculation that America.com would surpass the $12.5 million paid for Sex.com.

The record price paid for a domain was last year’s sale of Business.com to a phone directory publisher for $350 million.

The America.com auction was conducted by domain reseller Sedo for an undisclosed owner. Nora Nanayakkara, the company’s director of business development said," The fact America.com didn’t hit its reserve price belies the fact bidding did reach a huge valuation but the seller understandably has very high expectations for that domain," The Register reported.

"However, sometimes it is just a case that the extent of the paperwork and due diligence required on the part of the most determined buyers is simply at odds with the time left to bid in the auction," said Nanayakkara. "Buying a multi-million dollar domain name is not quite so easy to reconcile on the spur of the moment as buying concert tickets on eBay, even when the business case is rock solid."

Some view America.com’s failure to sell as an indication of a global economic downturn.

Sedo, the leading online market place for buying and selling Internet domain names and websites, has launched its annual report on the growth of the secondary Internet domain name market in 2007.

The report, which has tracked the state of the secondary Internet domain market annually since 2004, unveils the latest figures for 2007.

You can download the report here.

In 2007, Sedo transferred over 27,000 Internet domain names through its marketplace, a 53 per cent increase on 2006. The increase is attributed to a shortage of names in the primary market and an increase in organisations and investors purchasing generic names. Highlights from the report include:

- Total sales of GBP37 million for 2007, up GBP14 million from the previous year

– .com accounted for 76 per cent of total sales

– Average sale prices for .com rose by 54 per cent

– The top three reported Internet domain name sales in 2007 were Chinese.com (GBP560,000), Ii.com (GBP250,000) and Gibraltar.com (GBP180,000)

– Sedo paid out more than GBP25 million to its customers who use its domain parking service. This generates revenue through the placement of online advertisements for unused Internet domains

Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading online marketplace for buying and selling domain names and websites. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 9 million listings.

The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 600,000 domain professionals. Sedo is majority-owned by AdLINK Group (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903). Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com).

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