Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Blogue.ca now listed on Sedo

DomainReport.ca - I had an email about a month ago from the owner of blogue.ca saying they were interested in selling this domain. It is the French Quebec spelling for 'blog'. The owner had a site for the domain and was hosting many people's blogs through subdomains, but was having trouble with fake signs up and hacking.

Now the domain is parked and listed on Sedo, and already has 1,461 visitors. I don't think the domain has been there for a full month yet.

There are two good features about this domain:

1) It is a nice french generic word, and blogs will probably be around with us for a while

2) The fact it was an existing site with many members means that the domain currently gets traffic from all the backlinks. It could now be used to offer another blog service, or web-related services.

Additional info found on Sedo:

Domain Popularity
PageRank: 4/10
Alexa Rank: 0

Link Popularity
Incoming Google Links: 102
Incoming Yahoo! Links: 23,846
DMOZ Listed: No

If you are interested in the domain, just visit www.blogue.ca and you will land on the Sedo page.

Good luck to the seller!

New .ca TBR site launched - Dropping.ca

DomainReport.ca - The .ca market continues to be fairly quiet through the fall. There is the odd sale you hear about in the forums, and the weekly TBR still has lots of activity, but there haven't been any public sales in a while (at least that I've seen).

There is, however, a new site called Dropping.ca that will help you catch the .ca domains that drop every week in the TBR.

Some of the information I was able to find on their site includes:

Dropping.ca is an Ottawa based dropcatching service for dropping .ca domains. Our goal is to help you participate in the dynamic and growing .ca domain market, by acquiring the TBR domains that you want.

Dropping.ca is brought to you by Behrendt Corporation and Hubbard Media; a partnership bringing together over 21 years of combined domaining experience.

Hubbard Media owns and operates dropsystem.co.uk, the UK's premier public dropcatching service.


The minimum cost is CAD $60 (plus GST). The more that you are willing to pay for a dropping domain, the higher the priority that we will give your domain, and the higher the chances we will be able to acquire it.

If two or more people backorder the same domain that we catch, the domain will go to a brief auction.


I usually scan the results list of each week's TBR, and I know I have often seen domains caught by the Behrendt name in the past.

There are many drop catching services out there for .ca domains, and it definitely doesn't hurt to have one more to increase your chances of getting that name you want!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

My latest domain name appraisal scam email

DomainReport.ca - Over the long weekend I got a domain name appraisal scam email, the first I've received in a long time.

Though I've gotten these before, this one didn't immediately stick out to me at first. Only when I read the part "If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list" did I start to suspect it was a scam. Why? Because usually if you're contacted about a domain, they are interested in one name and don't want you to send a whole list.

I did a Google search on the contact email and name, and I found other blog posts about this scam using similar contact info.

I have to admit, I did fall for one of these appraisal scams back in 2000 or 2001. They sent me a list of companies that could do the appraisals, and I chose GreatDomains.com because I had an account there, even though it was more expensive than the other option they gave me. So I guess it didn't really work for them, because I didn't use their appraiser. On the bright side, Great Domains gave a free t-shirt with their logo if you did an appraisal through them, so at least I got that. And ofcourse, I never did hear back from the 'interested' party.

As a rule, NEVER pay for a domain name appraisal for a domain you are selling. If the buyer is legitimate and really interested, have them get the appraisal themselves. If a domain name is good enough to warrant an appraisal, the cost of the appraisal is minor. Plus, you could also offer to deduct the cost of the appraisal from the price if they go ahead and do it.

Here is the full email for your enjoyment:

From: bridgetechnologies@gmx.com
Subject: XXXXXXXXXXXX.com (sent 10/12/09)
Date: Monday, October 12, 2009

Hello,

Our company is interested in your domain name. What is your price?

We have a solid investing budget and our company is very interested in
Internet names and web sites.

If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,

Pedro Vasquez

CIO (Chief Information Officer)

Bridge Technologies LLC
=======================================
NOTICE - This communication may contain confidential and privileged
information that is for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any
viewing, copying or distribution of, or reliance on this message by
unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message
and deleting it from your computer.
=======================================


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Sunday, October 4, 2009

SurveyMonkey.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - Yesterday on the Sedo homepage there was a .ca domain listed as sold:

SurveyMonkey.ca - $500

I checked to see if there is a site on the domain yet, and like I thought it points to SurveyMonkey.com.

Survey Monkey is a company that lets anyone create "professional online surveys quickly and easily".

I don't know what the domain was being used for before, but Survey Monkey probably had a pretty good case to own this domain. Strangely, the .net and .org versions of this domain go to parked sites.

Also of interest is the fact that the Survey Monkey company found it necessary to own the .ca version of their .com name. It's a good example of a company wanting to show their Canadian presence by owning the .ca


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Thursday, October 1, 2009

WebMoney.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - The latest domain sales report came out this week from DNJournal.com, and the only .ca sale reported was:

WebMoney.ca - $1,752

I checked to see if there is a site on the domain yet, but it is still parked at Sedo.

Also, there was no TBR yesterday (weekly domain drop of expired .ca domains). I assume the domains that were to be dropped yesterday will be moved to next week, October 7.

God.ca is still listed on ebay, the asking price is now $19,999 US.