With the introduction of all the new local TLD’s are the location based .com still worth what they were?

Over 10 years ago in 2005 lasvegas.com sold for $12 million up front with monthly payments that could have taken the price as high as $90 million.

But are those prices still valid now that there are so many local tlds available?

Some popular Local GEO TLDs include

• .city
• .nyc
• .paris
• .tokyo
• .dubai
• .roma
• .sydney
• .moscow

 

And many more are either live or being purposed including

.quebec (Quebec region)
.αθήνα (Athens)
.berlin for the city of Berlin, Germany
.wien for the city of Vienna, Austria
.bcn (city of Barcelona)
.bzh (Breton community)
.cym (Wales (Cymru); awarded to the Cayman Islands)
.cymru (Wales (Cymru))
.wales (Wales)
.eus (Basque Language))
.gal (Galician language)
.lat (Latin America)
.saarland (the German Saarland state)
.africa (African and Pan African communities)
.scot (Scots community)
.vlaanderen (Flanders, Belgium)
.上海 (Shanghai)
.africa
.alsace
.amsterdam .amsterdam
.barcelona
.bayern
.bcn (for Barcelona)
.berlin .berlin
.brussels .brussels
.budapest
.bzh (for Brittany)
.catalonia
.corsica
.cymru (for Wales, in Welsh)
.doha
.durban
.hamburg .hamburg
.helsinki
.istanbul
.kiwi (for New Zealand)
.koeln
.kyoto
.lat (for Latin America)
.london
.madrid
.melbourne .melbourne
.miami
.nagoya
.osaka
.persiangulf
.quebec (for quebec)
.rio (for Rio de Janeiro)
.saarland
.scot
.stockholm
.taipei
.thai
.tirol
.wales (for Wales, in English)
.wien (for Vienna, Austria)
.vlaanderen (.vlaanderen for Flanders)
.yokohama
.zuerich
.zulu
.москва (for Moscow)
.рус (for Russia)
.ابوظبي (for Abu Dhabi)
.佛山 (for Foshan)
.广州 (for Guangzhou)
.深圳 (for Shenzhen)

However the .com Geos still generate a substantial amount of traffic and interest.  Recently Josh Metnick, who buys and sells internet domain names  has put Illinois.com on the market.  These type of large cities do not get offered very often so we will be sure to watch how this progresses.

At one point or another you may ask yourself if using a domain broker will help sell more domain names. Here are some things you should expect when hiring a domain broker.

Negotiate the Fee and Sales Price Before you List –
Brokers typically charge anywhere from 10% to 30% and the time to negotiate this rate is before you sign anything with the broker.  If they ask for 30% ask for 15% if you don’t ask the answer is always no.

Try Not to Be Exclusive – Brokers will try and say they want exclusive rights to the name while under contract meaning even if a sale came from the name directly they would still get a partial commission.  A good broker will allow you to list without being exclusive to their firm.

Don’t focus on low hanging fruit -Most brokers that contact me about my port want to cherry pick the one word .com or 4 letter names. Mainly the domains that get the most interest in offers each month. It would be nice to get some attention to the names that are still good but not obvious easy sales. Show me that you care about all my children not just the gifted ones.
A good broker should be able to sell any name even if its part of a bulk sale. I understand its not worth making commission on a $500 name but if you can sell 50 of them at $250 each that $12,500

Visible promotion -Expect to see emails, tweets and posts going out about your names after an agreement is reached.

Follow up- Even if you haven’t sold anything or received an offer check in every 3 months or so.
Even if its to say- Hey I have sent out your list of names to my network but have not received any interest yet.
Hoping to see some interest after the next push I do.

Results – Look for broker results don’t just believe the hype. Have your broker send you  an email when they sell a name (from any of their clients) and if they have not sold one of your names or at least received a few offers within 6 months to a year consider not repeating business with them again.
Correct Valuation – If I want to sell a name like smartdrones.com for $250k make sure you are focusing on the correct domain keyword. A broker may say there has not been any comparable drone sales over $20k.  However lets take smartphones.com for example and look for comparable phone sales may not go over $100k yet smartphones.com sold for much more than $100k. The correct valuation focus is on “smart” not “phones” or “drones”.