by Chris Woodward
Looking through GoDaddy expired auctions today a certain domain grabbed my attention. BeingAGrownUpBlows.com. I laughed. Don’t we all know it?
But then I looked at the price. $1955 with 3 days remaining. I laughed again, but this time because that is a joke. I figured there must be a reason why it would be so high so I did a little research. The domain, as I stated, is expired but it currently points to a Blogger site. The blog is your basic personal blog that was probably started with such ambition and later all-but abandoned as there hasn’t been a post since September. There appear to be no monetization attempts on the site so I assume it makes no money.
Next I did a Google search…maybe ‘Being A Grown Up Blows’ this is the name of a movie, or a new TV show? Nope, nothin. Checked out the traffic, minimal. Next I went back to the auction and discovered that although there have been 45 bids, there have only been 3 total bidders with 2 doing all of the bidding over $21. ‘Bidder2’ has apparently placed a manual bid every single time while ‘Bidder3’ has a proxy bid entered.
If you ask me, this whole auction doesn’t pass the sniff test. In other words, something smells funny. I guess it’s possible that 2 different people have giant plans for the same crappy, albeit humorous, domain…but $2k is an outrageous price. When Rick said you should go out and buy a $2,000 domain and sell it for $20,000…this isn’t the type of domain he was talking about.
Does anyone else find this extremely suspicious? Does anyone have an idea of what’s going on? Can anyone provide at least a reasonable explanation that would stop this nose bleed I’m about to get looking at this? I’d appreciate it…I hate nose bleeds.
It’s a PR5 domain with 1,000 unique visitors from US.
It might not apply to this particular domain on this auction, but I view: Verisign, ICANN, the major Registrars as crime syndicate. My brother says the mafia is long gone, but I don’t think it’s gone, just less visible. Don’t bother deleting this comment, feeling you’re looking for my best interest in case I get sued for slander, because I already snailmailed my thoughts to the President, the NTIA, and the justice department, with copies to the concerned parties. Because Timmons don’t go behind anybody’s back.
The major Registrars likely have agreements to buy and sell domains from eachothers’ listing services, to keep the prices artificially high. I know for sure, the registrations are made by proxy people and companies throughout the world, often several extensions at a time, to make a domain appear valuable, AND, I believe Verisign offers a service whereby Registrants can backdate the registrations. It’s not obvious unless you’re looking out for it, but I have been collecting proof.
Gnanes, Thank you for pointing out the PR. I never even think to look for PR because I don’t honestly care about PR when looking for my own domains.
Just out of curiosity, where are you getting 1,000 uniques a month from? Just Compete? Compete was the only site that would report anything and I’ve never really been able to get an accurate reading from them just from comparing some of my own sites.
I got the SearchStatus plugin installed on Firefox. It shows the PR, Alexa, Compete, And MozRank rank. The buyer is wasting their money. The PR will disappear in the next Google update.
Then I think you have to examine my reason above:
The major Registrars likely have agreements to buy and sell domains from eachothers’ listing services, to keep the prices artificially high.
Let me add a little tidbit:
From here in is a whole debate of whether these domains
HologramStore.com
HologramShop.com
HologramFilm.com
are deleting: http://www.thedomains.com/2010/07/11/the-next-big-thing-3d-who-owns-best-domains-hint-its-not-me-frank-rick-or-kevin/#comment-99075
You have to kind of stick with it.
HologramShop.com and HologramStore.com deleting with six bids at auction, yet they were registered since 1999? The Registrars are playing games. It’s a pretense some domains are deleting, just a method to sample auction bids and test the market, see how much they might sell for, determine a price.
It’s like Color.tv. It went to auction, received a highest bid, and stayed with the owner.