Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Did Microsoft buy 160.ca?

DomainReport.ca

Did Microsoft buy 160.ca in the past week?

Sedo's country code domain sales show that 160.ca sold for $3,500.

The domain now points to Microsoft's iis.net website.  Cira Whois shows that the last update to the domain was July 14, and it's at Godaddy.  No owner listed.  The hostnames are with Softlayer.com

Looking at the iis.net site, I don't see any significance in the number 160.  The price paid for 160.ca is a very good one for a regular three number .ca that doesn't seem to be anything special (like 247 or 360 would be).  Perhaps Microsoft is rolling out a product to do with 160, but they don't own the .com or .net.  Or, whoever bought the name is just pointing it to an MSN site for some reason.

The other interesting thing is that this week there are close to 100 NNN.ca dropping in tomorrow's TBR.  Domains such as 131.ca, 140.ca, 260.ca, 650.ca, 825.ca, and so on will become available.  These would all normally get snapped up anyway, the sale of 160.ca might encourage a few more bids.

I don't think the sale of 160.ca is a sign that all NNN.ca are that valuable, but it's always nice to see a good .ca sale like this.

Friday, July 8, 2011

More .CA domain name sales

DomainReport.ca

Ron Jackson at DNJournal.com came out with his latest sales report yesterday.  It included two weeks worth of sales since he was away the previous week.

As usual, Sedo sold a ton of country code domain names.  Included in the country codes were three .ca domain sales.  XV.ca was also the 12th highest country code domain sale in value for the last two weeks.

XV.ca - $12,000 sold at Sedo

scania.ca - $1,280 sold at Sedo

beautybar.ca - $1,000 sold at Sedo

There have been more .ca sales to report lately.  Along with the above, there were some recent .ca sales at ShowcaseManager.com , and the $18,100 auction of vets.ca at Sibername.

Despite the coming avalanche of new gtlds, sales of almost all current domain extensions seem to be as strong as ever.

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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

ShowcaseManager.com Reports .CA sales

DomainReport.ca

The new domain aftermarket sales platform from DNForum, ShowcaseManager.com, has started to report some domain name sales on their homepage.

Among the reported sales are a few .ca domains worth mentioning, and they are:

kl.ca - $4,000.00

ow.ca - $4,000.00

nailclippers.ca - $2,000.00

gardeners.ca - $4,000.00

noregrets.ca - $2,000.00



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Friday, July 1, 2011

Dropped .CA domain sells for $18,100 Cdn

DomainReport.ca

.ca domains drop once a week, every Wednesday, and a number of .ca registrars compete for these names on behalf of their clients.  The process is called TBR (to be released domains).  If a registrar gets a domain that many people requested, they sometimes auction it.  Final auction prices usually range from $60 to hundreds, or even a few thousand dollars.  It is unusual for a TBR auction to go beyond $10,000 from my experience.

This past week, it was reported at DNForum.com that one of these dropped domains fetched a price of $18,100 Cdn in a post-TBR auction at Sibername.  I cannot actually confirm that the sale will go through, but that was the winning bid after two bidders competed for the domain.  At this point there is no reason to believe that the sale won't go through, but I will update if it doesn't.

Oh, and the domain?

Vets.ca

You have to wonder what were the circumstances of someone dropping this domain, and if they see what it sold for they'd have to be kicking themselves!

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