2008-09-30 00:08:00 -
The stock market is in the tank, but sales of Internet domains (web addresses) are soaring.
An online domain auction that runs through Oct 2 has seen plenty of bids over $1 million dollars, for names as varied as charity auction.com, planeticket.com and the more risqué panties.com.
One fellow who's particularly excited to see the valuation of CharityAuction going so high is
Bill Geiger, owner of the domain CharityPoker.com. 'I created the domain years ago because we were setting up charity events to support good causes and publicize Mint Snuff,' he says. Given that poker is probably an order of magnitude more popular than auctions, Geiger's domain (which is not in the current auction) could fetch in excess of $10 million. 'I'd have to consider a reasonable offer,' he says with a straight face.
The current auction is called T.R.A.F.F.I.C New York (the current bid list is at
marketplacepro.moniker.com/auction/detail.html?auction_id=196). Roughly 2,000 domains are up for bid, with low bids around $360 for names like TheMiracleDrug.com, and hot names like FirstSignsOfAging.com waiting to be discovered.
Businesses and entrepreneurs are always looking for memorable domains, which they can use to draw consumers to new or existing websites.
It's not uncommon for companies that have already established their web presence to buy up product-related domains that consumers are likely to type into search engines. The businesses set those consumer-friendly domains to automatically take visitors directly to the company's regular home page.
For example, a company marketing anti-aging creams or vitamins might buy FirstSignsOfAging.com and bring anyone who types those words, or who clicks on a FirstSignsOfAging.com link, directly to their existing product page.
Plenty of domaineers, as they're known, will buy up names in the hope they'll appreciate and do well in resale in the months ahead. These domains are often 'parked', meaning that a standard template page is created for the domain - one that may include lots of ads with embedded links to a variety of merchant websites. When visitors click on those ads, the owner of the parked domain earns payments that can range from pennies to several dollars. 'Per-click' payments can add up to tidy sums.
If the prospect of easy money has you panting (healthy bidding for HomeFinancing.com has driven that price over $700,000), drop in on the current online auction, or register your own creative domains. For as little as $9 a shot, what have you got to lose?
