Gathering data from all the domain names sold can reveal a wealth of data that is useful from an investor standpoint. Taking that data and then comparing it to data from just the 100 highest price purchases from these domains can help refine the search for potentially profitable domains even more.
That’s why we take the information from the top 100 brandable domain name sales in 2018 and see what a deep dive analysis will tell us.
Here’s what we will cover in this analysis:
- Raw data of top brandable domains
- Major insights from analysis
- Takeaways for domain investors
Let’s get into it!
Raw Data of Brandable Domain Sales
| Domain Name | Price | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Jobster.com | $200,000 | Sedo |
| CryptoWorld.com | $195,000 | DomainMarket |
| Mappa.com | $127,400 | Sedo |
| DollarCity.com | $90,000 | DomainMarket |
| MyVid.com | $75,000 | Uniregistry |
| BetterFuture.com | $65,000 | DomainMarket |
| Looka.com | $65,000 | Sedo |
| Hubi.com | $63,000 | Uniregistry |
| TotalDesign.com | $60,000 | DomainMarket |
| YCoin.com | $50,000 | Sedo |
| SportLine.com | $50,000 | Sedo |
| Okdo.com | $45,850 | Sedo |
| UniMoney.com | $45,011 | Uniregistry |
| ViaOne.com | $45,000 | Afternic |
| Homi.com | $40,000 | Uniregistry |
| Finx.com | $40,000 | Sedo |
| Zamp.com | $39,997 | Uniregistry |
| DuoLab.com | $38,280 | Sedo |
| StoryKids.com | $37,500 | XYNames.com |
| Hemper.com | $36,150 | DropCatch |
| HappyMath.com | $35,000 | Sedo |
| Ooni.com | $35,000 | Sedo |
| Viomi.com | $30,716 | DropCatch |
| Skinte.com | $30,000 | DomainMarket |
| KnowYourMoney.com | $30,000 | Sedo |
| SecureChain.com | $30,000 | Sedo |
| Aumo.com | $29,990 | Uniregistry |
| DotData.com | $29,888 | Sedo |
| Ulao.com | $29,000 | Uniregistry |
| BlockSize.com | $28,600 | Sedo |
| Payen.com | $28,250 | Sedo |
| eKing.com | $28,000 | Sedo |
| Esenses.com | $27,999 | Sedo |
| eFounders.com | $27,500 | Sedo |
| Kugga.com | $26,888 | DomainMarket |
| CannaClub.com | $26,722 | GoDaddy |
| CamTrack.com | $26,000 | Sedo |
| Mopa.com | $25,000 | Uniregistry |
| Primon.com | $24,700 | Sedo |
| BetterLove.com | $22,500 | Uniregistry |
| Stayable.com | $22,499 | GenericDomainMarket |
| HomeCloud.com | $22,250 | GoDaddy |
| CoinLink.com | $22,000 | Sedo |
| IvyPay.com | $22,000 | Sedo |
| uMedia.com | $21,250 | GoDaddy |
| MoneySmart.com | $21,100 | NameJet |
| WellZone.com | $20,500 | Sedo |
| RedCoral.com | $20,375 | GoDaddy |
| iStyle.com | $20,251 | DropCatch |
| Ayde.com | $20,118 | Sedo |
| TopMall.com | $20,050 | GoDaddy |
| KiwiPlus.com | $20,049 | DropCatch |
| Cloudo.com | $20,000 | Undeveloped |
| MissMary.com | $20,000 | Sedo |
| GrabFood.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| ConnectMedia.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| Eligma.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| FeelTheLove.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| Qare.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| RocketX.com | $20,000 | Uniregistry |
| CandyPay.com | $20,000 | Sedo |
| DirectBooks.com | $20,000 | Sedo |
| Usme.com | $20,000 | Lumis |
| Betiq.com | $19,999 | Sedo |
| Viagio.com | $19,888 | Sedo |
| LawLeader.com | $19,888 | Sedo |
| Hexacom.com | $19,500 | Sedo |
| Styrosoft.com | $19,376 | Sedo |
| ExpertMatch.com | $19,000 | Sedo |
| NinjaSports.com | $19,000 | Sedo |
| WePower.com | $19,000 | GoDaddy |
| Fiera.com | $18,750 | GoDaddy |
| LocalHero.com | $18,720 | Sedo |
| Equila.com | $18,600 | Sedo |
| Otravo.com | $18,500 | Sedo |
| CloudBasket.com | $18,432 | Sedo |
| Wiise.com | $18,000 | Sedo |
| VipMom.com | $17,500 | Sedo |
| Meia.com | $17,338 | GoDaddy |
| Esop.com | $17,000 | GoDaddy |
| Verway.com | $16,950 | Sedo |
| HiChat.com | $16,800 | Sedo |
| LittleBean.com | $16,500 | Uniregistry |
| CannaCorp.com | $16,500 | GoDaddy |
| Nuze.com | $16,037 | Uniregistry |
| MonkeyCasino.com | $15,510 | Sedo |
| Coba.com | $15,500 | Sedo |
| Muhu.com | $15,200 | NameJet |
| RushBet.com | $15,009 | Uniregistry |
| Silubi.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
| DoBox.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
| BlueChew.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
| PayClub.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
| Agila.com | $15,000 | Uniregistry |
| Bisq.com | $15,000 | Uniregistry |
| Carium.com | $15,000 | Uniregistry |
| Chipz.com | $15,000 | Uniregistry |
| MrFrosty.com | $15,000 | Uniregistry |
| Fidens.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
| Dynamind.com | $15,000 | Sedo |
4 Major Insights From Top Domain Sales
These studies of the top 100 domain name sales have brought some surprising data in the past, especially in comparison to the reports and analyses of all the domains sold in a year.
The 2018 study of the 100 biggest sales brought even more interesting data that should heavily influence the strategy of domain investors.
Our approach was as follows. We obtained the top sales data from the Namebio database. We then analyzed the data in Microsoft Excel to extract insights.
So what changes and surprises did 2018 bring? Let’s find out!
1. Marketplace with Highest Sales Numbers ($)
There were some major changes with the marketplace numbers from 2017 to 2018. The obvious one is Sedo surpassing Uniregistry as the top marketplace by revenue. They have completely switched places from 2017 and the difference between the two is surprising.
Sedo did roughly $1.5 million in sales among the top 100 brandable domain names while Uniregistry fell to second at a distant $600k. That is a stunning one-year switch between the two top marketplaces by revenue.
DomainMarket comes in at third place, building off of last year’s success with $450K in sales among the top domains. GoDaddy, DropCatch, and NameJet come in behind.
This is worth noting that this means in the past three years the number of marketplaces involved in the top 100 domain names sold went from 13 to 9 to 6. The number of different marketplaces involved in the sale of top brandable domains continues to consolidate.
2. Marketplace with Most Volume of Sales
The marketplace numbers based on volume of sales confirm one trend and throw one very interesting surprise from the highest sales numbers.
Sedo sold the most sites at 50, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering they had the highest revenue numbers by far. Uniregistry came in second at 23 which also matches the revenue numbers above.
The third spot shows something very interesting. GoDaddy is third with 10 sales, while DomainMarket is fourth with 6 sales.
DomainMarket had twice as much revenue as GoDaddy, indicating that more volume moved to GoDaddy but the sites that did sell on DomainMarket sold for much higher amounts than those on GoDaddy.
Keeping an eye on this is a good idea to see if this is a trend or if this is a one-year anomaly and GoDaddy has gone past DomainMaket in reality.
3. Number of Words in Top Branded Domains
The data for 2018 about the top branded domains seems to support a consistent trend: that two-word domains hold their own against one-word domains when it comes to the top 100 brandable list.
Two-word domains accounted for a full half (50) of all the top domains sold to startups. One-word domains came in a close second at 48, with the final two domains in the top 100 consisting of three words.
This confirms the trend that although far more one-word domain names tend to be purchased than two-word domains when it comes to the top 100, two-word domains continue to beat out one-word domains.
4. How Many Characters in Top Domains?
Shorter domain names continue to dominate over longer ones. The most popular lengths for domain names in 2018 were 6 characters (19 domain names) and 4 characters (18 domain names).
The sweet spot in the top 100 was 4-6 characters, though both 8 characters and 9 characters had double-digit domain name purchases.
This confirms that the hard-to-find four-character domains are among the most popular when a good one is found. This is two years in a row 4 characters were the most popular, and three years ago it was the second most popular option.
In general shorter is much more popular than longer with 84% of the top 100 domains at less than 10 characters.
Final Takeaways for Domain Investors
There was a lot of interesting data here, and while a couple of trends were confirmed, 2018 is a year that has shown some clear changes happening in the domain investing world. What should domain investors take away from this?
- Sedo has strongly overtaken Uniregistry as the top marketplace in both revenues and the number of top domain names sold.
- Good two-word domains are just as likely to hit the top 100 sales in a year as good one-word domains…possibly even slightly more so.
- Finding good 4-character domain names strongly increases the chances of a top revenue sale.
- Shorter domains are more highly valued than longer names
Keep this information in mind, pay attention to the strong shifts in the marketplace data to see how that plays out in subsequent years, and your domain investing strategy will be further honed in towards success
