State of the Website Economy: Focus on Website Domains

by Andrew Knibbe - 28th July 2011

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We’ve sold over $50 million worth of websites and have the largest set of data about buying and selling websites anywhere in the world. We find this data absolutely fascinating and thought it high time that we share it with the broader community (rather than just with our immediate friends and family … who roll their eyes at the mention of page views or monetization methods!).

So we’re going to deliver a regular “State of the Website Economy” report, each focusing on a specific area of our comprehensive website sales data as an infographic. We’re focusing on domains – the foundation of websites – for this inaugural edition:

What is the relationship between website values and their country-specific Top Level Domains (TLDs like .us and .tv)?
Which domains beat the market average?
How does domain length influences website value?

Finally, we answer the question on everyone’s mind: Does anyone really give a hoot that GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons shot an elephant in Africa earlier this year?

Enjoy!

To put this together, we took the data from website and domain listings that ended between November 2010 and July 2011 – representing over $16 million in website sales.

What we learned

.ca websites tend to sell for more than .us websites (or most other county domains for that matter).
.me comes from Montenegro (yes, we do know that a number of formally country-specific top level domains are used more globally such as .co, .tv, .me, .ly and .bz!).
Despite domain registrars pushing .co and the number of recent high profile single-letter .co sales, there is not a great deal of demand for .co websites as buyers still seem to prefer .com.
While .info and .net websites predictably sell below the market average, we were surprised to see .biz perform fairly strongly.
Website values drops rapidly once you go past 10 characters in your domain – as evidenced by the recent sale of iWillUseGoogleBeforeAskingDumbQuestions.com
There was an uproar and threats of GoDaddy boycotts from across the globe when Bob Parsons shot an elephant in Zimbabwe, but the event failed to resonate in the long-term as website creators continue to use GoDaddy. In fact, their share of registrations seems to have increased since the shooting, and their share of website sales hasn’t diminished when looked at relative to the rest of the website market. We doubt the event even factored into GoDaddy’s $2.25 billion sale to private equity firms last month!

Do any of these results surprise you? Is there anything you’d like to see in future editions? Let us know in the comments below.

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http://www.mishraweb.com Shailendra Mishra

I am specifically surprised by the average sale amount of .to domains, maybe there is too little data to generalize their worth higher than all other domain extensions.
.ca, .au, .uk and many others are on an average worth more than .us? Is there a lack of investors in United States?
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Transaction volume will indeed influence value – .COMs remain by far the most prevalent and define the market average. I suspect investors in the United States tend to gravitate to .COMs rather than the official .US ccTLD. Also worth noting that ownership restrictions on country-based domains differs across the globe.
- http://www.webrepresent.com cmartino
  
  US have more domain and website investors than any other country in the world. The terms/policy of .US may have contributed to low intake of .US, many people in the US in the early years after the bobble bought the .com when many countries find it difficult to believe the internet will work.
http://www.flippingplanet.com Thomas

“Dashes in domains reduce website value by 26%” – this is most likely because people buy hyphenated domains and build turnkey micro-niche sites on them.

I don’t think it’s accurate to claim that a website would be worth 26% less than an equivalent website with a non-hyphenated domain if all other variables were equal. All it reflects is the general quality of sites that are built on hyphenated domains.
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Thanks Thomas.
  It holds true as a general statement based on averages. Knowing nothing further about a site, a website with hyphens will on average sell for 26% less than a website without. While I’d agree that an identical site built on a hyphenated vs non-hyphenated domain may not see the same reduction, it will typically still have an impact on value (notes-exchange.com rather than notesexchange.com being one possible exception!).
- http://www.webrepresent.com cmartino
  
  Is clear to understand why hyphenated domains are in 26% range, mostly these days that type in traffic controls the way most people use their browsers.
  
  Not too many people will type – the name at .com
  but many will type the actual name at .com in fact you may need a phone call clarification to explain to a friend looking for your website to add hyphen to locate your website built on hyphenated domain.
  
  If you own a hyphenated domain if care is not taking many people that ended up in your webpage as a result of your advertising will later use the non hyphenated domain of the same domain name later, you will invariably loss advert revenue and clients in the long run.
http://www.businesssavvystartups.com Art

Great article – you guys might want to check that link to iWillUseGoogleBeforeAskingDumbQuestions.com, my browser is opening it as a mailto: link.
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Thanks Art. Should work now.
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http://jamesnorquay.com/ James

Hi,

Great info graphic, and report really liked it saw some one link up this post form another forum =) so it is working.

With regards to the .au market been on top wouldn’t this be because we never see alot of sales with .au domain.

Also buyers have to have an ABN number to be in the space to begin with.

So most of the time when we see a .au sale come into the market it is a really good site/domain and people push the sale. Well this is the case the times I have seen it.

Kind Regards,

James.
Mike Smith

Great Article !!!
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http://isavo.com Savio

Lot of efforts put in and the insight will be quite helpful to me in the near future.

The .biz domain doing strongly was an eye opener since the rates have been slashed and I can easily pick up a good dozen names for $60.

Thanks Again!
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http://www.zahidrouf.info Zahid Rouf

Very useful post. Thanks for sharing.
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thanks for sharing this very useful post.i highly recommend your work.
http://www.edelegate.com Joseph Lancaster

Indeed interesting that certain domains sell or perform better than others versus my own judgement. Some domains I never touch but still curious how the world buys such as .biz over .net. (.infos were free for a while so I’m not too blown away that they are low).

I’m interested too in the background information as to why certain sell well. One could assume that .in sells well based on their national interest as well as the usefulness for domain hacks for terms that end in IN.

I bought my fair share of domains and sold most and could only base my own knowledge on that limited amount. So, thanks for sharing your data.
Tina

Is Hecheatedonme.com a good domain and what could be done with a website with this name?
http://www.webrepresent.com cmartino

I do not like the comparison between .com and .co.

.com has been here over a decade .co is just barely a year, with the speed of a million registrations in one year is doing quite well compared to any domain launched in the past or presently.

visit a .co site once.
A .co in a browser shows up before a .com same thing on search for related name.
http://www.webrepresent.com cmartino

Goddady shooting an elephant was nothing but a smart advertising that created attention in the west not in Africa.
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http://www.convert-youtube-to-mp3.com matt

Wow, I’m shocked at the extremely higher value of. To domains. I own http://bow.to does that mean I have a huge payday coming?
http://www.homedecorplan.com taki

great revenue sales.
http://buy-vcc.com paypal vcc

very surprising results,
thanks for the informative post.
http://paypal-vcc.com buy vcc

such a great difference between .co and .com domains.
i did not know that domain extensions make such differences.
thank you for the post.
http://www.facebookpage.in Travis

Great ccTLD Stats Andrew. As the Internet users are expanding in the developing countries, they are realizing the importance of Internet Space [Domains/Websites]. I am an investor of ccTLDs, .in being my forte. I am surprised to see the average value of the Indian TLD [.in]
Cheers!
http://appleipad216gb.info Amand_4

is there to help me? I just joined, but did not know the steps to sell my site
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Welcome about – check out https://flippa.com/help/sell
http://appleipad216gb.info Amand_4

in my profile, I have facebook can include the address in the add

appleipad216gb. info
http://psdservice.com PSD to Wordpress

I am not sure about the outcome of this research. This might be something that you cannot research, If you have done this with a couple of sites, or runned the whole database from flippa, it is still no sure if its right…

You can build high quality sites on domains with .org and a dash in it, might earn a lot more than a straight .com…

It is all about the persons behind it and how they work with it.. domains mean nothing..

Only in very generic cases where they get direct type in traffic.
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  It does need to be remembered that this is drawing conclusions from general trends in transaction results. There are indeed outliers however it still suggests that, all else being equal, the site is more likely to sell for more as a .COM rather than a .ORG with dashes through it …
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http://www.sharetounlock.com kyle

the only reason .co has any value is for the misspelling typos of popular domains. which is the only reason it was created it was pushed into existent by a major typo investor (millionaire).
http://www.sellwithjulia.ca Julia

Canada vs. US 1:0, way to go .ca!
http://howtodesignawebsite.org.uk How to Design a Website

Its a great site..Up to now i don’t know about selling sites..Its really rocking..Its very useful…

—————–
Stephen
http://www.googletrafficguru.com Naveen Kapur

Excellent review and study of the tlds. For most of the times I had been telling my clients about the tlds and how they can effect the growth of any business.

Coming from the Search Optimization background, what I understand and have had good success with is the country that you target needs a domain of the related tld.

For the reasons, .co I am passionately in love with is because its gaining its quick success in the US search engines in Top searches compared to any other secondary tlds like .net, .biz or even .us.

What you see in the .in domains is a excellent growth, but again limited to the Indian markets only. Many businesses here (in India) are now realizing the growth factor form the internet. So .in’s are going to be very very hot for next 5 years at least.

As for the re-sale or domain sales for .in tld, waters are still to be tested.
http://www.vampirehire.com VampireHire

Of course .coms will sell easier than .co’s , some interesting stats thanks!
http://www.computer-games.biz Michael

Hi, this is very helpful and interesting information. I did not realise .biz domains are that valuable and in demand.

Look forward to more publications

Cheers
http://dreamsandcash.com/ Rose

Couldn’t really use all your data. For instance why are Tonga domains – .to – so valuable? What do the values on your map mean? And can you explain your green and red emoticon chart a little?
I have bought some .ws sites if they are single word, with an idea of holding them for a while and seeing if I could flip them. I have also had my share of .info, and wonder if they are ever going to be worth anything. Comments? PS – Shame on Bob Parsons
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Hi Rose – no idea on the Tongan domains. May be some clever use of .to but is also likely influenced by lower popularity of the TLD. The numbers on the map are the average sales values. The “Which Websites Beat Average Price?” graph plots the number of websites for that TLD that sold above or below the marketplace average. .COMs account for the vast bulk of transaction volume which means they end up effectively defining the average – hence they’re split 50/50.
http://www.webaholic.org.uk Webaholic

Can you do a report about .co.uk domains please

Thanks
Gary
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  We could look into it – what sort of information would you be looking for?
http://www.howto-buildcredit.com/ Karen

I love the quality of my dash website names!

http://www.howto-buildcredit.com/
http://www.howto-buildcredit.com/
http://www.howto-tradestocks.com/

Not perturbed at all…!! Still can soar with eagles!!
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http://www.kikabink.com/news Anna Johnson

You know I love you guys, but this report could be soooo much more. Come on, if you have $16 million sales worth of data, give us some real meat (i.e. statistically relevant information). I’ve written a critique of the report here: http://www.kikabink.com/news/flippa-releases-state-of-website-economy-july-2011/ Expecting much more of you in August
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Thanks Anna.
  “real-meat” and elephant puns aside, we did trawl through a massive stack of transaction data to pick out the items which we thought were remarkable. We had an entire set relating to domain registrars but in the end, decided there was not a lot to be learned from it as registrars don’t really drive website value. We’d also looked at metrics like how long it took from domain registration to website launch and the relationship between these two and website value. It too was not especially conclusive given the outliers and that a domain can be home to a range of different websites during its lifetime. As for the variance in TLD values, do bear in mind that the Flippa marketplace volumes pretty well reflect the domains in existence – as such there are far fewer ccTLDs than genericTLDs. Fair point on sales rates (though we did include it for the .COM v .CO call-out). Will look at this further for the next one. Note that subsequent State of the Website Economy reports will be looking at components other than domains. We’ll either way ramp up our efforts to bring more real meat to these, even though it likely won’t include another elephant shooting (couldn’t resist that pun after all! ).
http://netmarketingniche.com/ Art

It it really interesting to see how .CA is beating out .US. I often wondered about that. I noticed a few top online marketers setting up .CA domains. Now I know why.
http://www.olfastore.com Rick

Excellent article. This is very useful information. Thanks very much. Rick
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Gary Chiro

Great infographic, looking forward to some more data mining graphics like this in the future.
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Thanks Gary.
http://paypal-vcc.com buy vcc

hi andrew. may i contact you? give me your contact num.
- http://flippa.com/ Andrew Knibbe
  
  Drop a line to our support guys – they’ll be able to sort you out.
http://www.amantalwar.com Aman Talwar

This is nice Andrew. Good job Flippa.Interesting to see figures on this Infographic.
http://paypal-vcc.com buy vcc

thanx flippa for information.
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