As you read on this and many other blogs, there were a ton of LLL.co domains dropping on Godaddy today. I’ll start off by saying many were renewed last night. I received several emails letting me know that the auction had ended because the registrant had renewed the domain. This may be the case for many of the names that sold today but my guess at the prices they sold for most people won’t even make the effort. I actually liked 10 or so of the names and figured it was worth a gamble at $50 or less. Only problem is my plan was to put in $50 bids for all the names I wanted and see what happened. I got through half my list and the family got me off track and I forgot to come back. Then I was real busy at work training new employees and never came back. The result? All the names I put bids in for went for more and all the bids I forgot went for less. In hindsight, I would have liked to have a few of the names at those prices, but the prices are very telling.
They certainly tell me that domain investors don’t put a very high value on dot co. The names below would be considered super premium in the dot com market but in dot co they went for peanuts. While I do think the buyers are going to be able to flip them for a profit at these prices. It most likely will be to other domain investors that didn’t watch these sales and assume that they are worth more than they are. Take a look at the prices on a few of the domains that sold today
abd.co $15 (2 bids)
bbo.co $40 (7 bids)
ano.co $55 (11 bids)
cbe.co $116 (11 bids)
ovo.co $85 (11 bids)
I invested in roughly 20 “premium” LLL .co domains 2 years ago. I’ve sold 5-6 since. Unlike LLL .com domains, they don’t seem to have been registered en masse for the same reasons that their .com counterparts were. In other words: there is no rhyme or reason why a LLL .co should be renewable or worth $100 or less. Just because the same letters would have made a killing as a .com there is no matching market for .co’s.
I agree with both the article, and Acro. I registered over 200 .CO as well, but I renewed a few dozens, some of them being LLL, such as Kri.co, Vdf.co and so on…
I will keep those for 5 years and see what happens then.
I only registered LLL.co’s when the extension was released. I did a large amount of research into which LLL’s are used in various forms in domains of other extensions and then I offered them to end users. I made quite a bit in 2011-2012. I don’t think there is a blanket value that can be applied to an LLL or any other domaining format. It’s optimistic at best that we assign value to something in this way based on the number of letters. There is no substitute for good marketing of domains and that act leaves this article’s thesis in serious doubt.
Paul,
My “thesis” added yet more concrete data. The term “most” means it is not true for all lll.co. Marketing is used to make something appear more desirable than it would otherwise ,so I agree it will take marketing to make your sales happen. But remember I am a buyer at these prices on some of these names so take that for what its worth
well I guess I overpaid for my .co today. I paid $205 for my first name as a .co
donald.co I could not resist the opportunity.
.co is still in its internet infancy. LLL.co’s are mostly used for seo purposes. So logically speaking why spend my money on lll.co’s while great single dictionary words are still available?
Worthless domains, because there is no end users who buy those domains. Only domainers from each other.
I am not surprised as you can buy everywhere good LLL.co for pennies.