Wednesday, December 30, 2009

More .ca sales to report in last week

DomainReport.ca - Thanks to Ron Jackson at DNJournal.com, there are some .ca sales to report from the last week.

The top .ca sale was:

Interaction.ca - $30,000 Cdn

This domain now points to www.interaction.qc.ca, so this may have been a case where one owner had the .ca, and the other had the .qc.ca of the same name (and wanted the .ca). I'd like to hear the story behind that sale.

Other .ca sales that showed up in the report were:

SGS.ca - $7,140

Doyle.ca - $4,608

Halle.ca - $3,360

TRC.ca - $2,880

4story.ca - $1,430

metin2.ca - $1,430

greets.ca - $1,000


These are definitely some decent sales, though it's a little surprising to see two domains with numbers in them sell how they did.

And further to my earlier post today, Sibername was able to pick up the lone name I put in for in today's TBR - WhistlerRealty.ca. Thank you Sibername!


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Today's .CA TBR domain name drop

DomainReport.ca - I haven't done this in a while, but since there's a little more free time during the holidays, I was able to take a good look at today's .ca TBR domain drop and come up with a list of (what I think) are the better domains.

Ok, let's cut to the chase, here is the list I came up with in no particular order:

absent.ca
acaifruit.ca
anymore.ca
memorable.ca
beloved.ca

repairing.ca (applicable to home renos?)
wft.ca
hfd.ca
qpx.ca
jeuxinternet.ca (internet games in french)
jeuxdepoker.ca (poker games in french)

lignedecredit.ca (credit line in french)
marge.ca (first name)
birthdaygames.ca (decent keyword search)
camsite.ca
cuire.ca (to cook in french)

polymer.ca (lots of applications to plastic and clay)
vacationfun.ca
vanille.ca (vanilla in french)
divegear.ca
sexforum.ca

fantome.ca (ghost in french)
skiworld.ca
smartgear.ca
t-d.ca
thermalpower.ca

u-k.ca
heritagebuilding.ca
horsetail.ca (type of plant)
imagic.ca

The ones in bold I was able to get about 2 hours after the drop. If names don't get picked up in the drop, they eventually just become available to register.

Some of the names in the above list are still available, but maybe not for long.

I only put in one name this week to a drop catcher, and don't know if I got it yet. Sibername has been great at catching domains for me this past year.

If anyone saw any good names I missed, feel free to comment. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and having a chance to wind down a little before it's back to work in the New Year!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

.CA domainer in Godaddy News

DomainReport.ca - If you get Godaddy's Aftermarket email newsletter, you would have noticed Canadian domainer Adam Dicker in the December edition. I couldn't find a link to the newsletter itself, but here is a summary below.

For those who missed it or don't get the newsletter, Adam (who is also the vice president of the Domain Aftermarket at Godaddy, and owner of DNForum.com) was the lead story with his photo and a quote "I'm not a couch potato - I'm Domaining".

Adam goes on to talk about how he came to register a .ca domain recently, and the story also provides some good advice on how to get ideas for domains to register:

"I'm not advocating that you spend more time in front of the television, but if you maintain a Domainer's perspective while watching, it's another opportunity to turn a profit. Every piece of media you see has the potential to generate new domain ideas.

I was watching TV and a commercial came on for a skin tag remover by Dr. Scholl's. I had never heard of a skin tag, but went to the Web and found 49.7 million pages indexed in Google for the phrase "skin tags." That convinced me that skin tags had some value, so I registered "skintags .ca."


He then goes on to provide some information on trademark checks:

"Of course, it's always best practice to avoid trademarks or risky names. Use a service like www.uspto.gov to check the terms before you purchase, and be sure you're not going to enter into a trademark infringement situation. If all is clear, safely register any or all extensions available to you."

As for judging the profitability of a domain and what to look for, Adam ends with this:

"Remember: A domain only needs to make 2 cents a day to be profitable. Don't let days where you only see a 5 or 10 cent return get you down, it's still making a profit at rates you won't ever see from a bank."

I recently saw that skin tag commercial on tv myself, and have to admit it did cross my mind to look up the term. However I must have been busy, and also remember thinking that skin tags must be a small market because I'd never heard of it before, and was it really worth checking into.

For fun, here are some stats on "skin tags":

Google search returns (no quotes): 51,100,000 (lots of relevant ads in sidebar)

Google search returns (with quotes): 284,000

Google Keyword Tool searches (November): 135,000 to 165,000 (with lots of 'long tail' results)

So I think this is obviously a better market than I originally thought. I have to remind myself from time to time that there is a whole world out there, and even if there's a subject you never heard of, or aren't interested in, it could still be a good market.

This domain could quickly be developped into an information site about skin tags, it would rank well for Canadian searches (at least, and possibly US searches too), and it would pull in a variety of relevant ads. I haven't even checked CJ or other places to see if there are related affiliate programs. I would even bet this domain has a 'heart beat' like Frank Schilling likes to say, meaning it has at least some low level of traffic per month to build on.


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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Three Five Figure .ca Sales - Dry Spell Over

DomainReport.ca - As I've been posting lately, there hasn't been much public action in .ca sales in recent months. Hardly any .ca domains have shown up in the DN Journal weekly sales reports.

But the dry spell is now over!

Yesterday there were two .ca sales that ranked #14 and #15 out of all domain sales reported in the last week. For country codes only, they ranked #2 and #3.

The domains were:

Boots.ca - $19,950 US

Suits.ca - $18,900 US


Ron Jackson of DN Journal noted that these two private sales were actually completed a few months ago but the seller finally made the prices public for the first time this week.

There were also two other .ca sales in the report:

PropertyManagement.ca - $14,200 US and #7 on country code list

The domain above was sold by Pro Forma, a domain name sales company that Canadian Frank Schilling is involved in. I don't think I have seen them sell any .ca domains in the past, so I wonder how many other .ca domains they own?

PinnacleSports.ca - $1,500 US sold at Sedo

With the holidays coming up, overall domain sales may start slowing down. However my prediction is that 2010 will be the best year ever for the .ca extension. Let's hope I'm right!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Waala.ca sells at Sedo

DomainReport.ca - It has taken a long while, but finally a .ca domain has shown up on the DNJournal weekly sales report. And it is a bit of a surprising sale.

Waala.ca - €3,750 = $5,513 US

I did a search for 'waala' on Google and nothing really sticks out as to why this word might have value. There were 526,000 results. There are a few businesses with waala in the name, and it's also a family last name. The site Waala.com is an art site in beta.

The domain is still parked on a Sedo page, so no help there.

Waala.ca was the 16th highest country code sale last week in a chart dominated by European cctlds like .de, .co.uk and .fr.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Interview with Rick Silver of n49 Interactive

DomainReport.ca - There is a good interview posted on Elliot Silver's domain blog with Rick Silver of n49 Interactive.

Rick Silver owns a good portfolio of .ca domains that includes names like dining.ca, maids.ca, and resorts.ca. Rick is the President of the Domain Owners Association of Canada, and he was also named as the new panel moderator for upcoming TRAFFIC domain shows.

I looked at some of the sites mentioned in the interview, and it looks like they are business directories and also allow people to post reviews of related businesses. If it catches on, it looks like a good way to provide useful, unique content and attract surfers looking for information on services and products.

The interview is located here:

http://www.elliotsblog.com/5-with-rick-silver-n49-interactive-45729/comment-page-1#comment-16387

Thanks to the DomainAssets.ca newsletter for the heads up on this interview.


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