Now that's what I call a good day of selling domains

$164,000,000 & bye-bye UltimateSearch

[Webwork]

A portfolio in the 100,000 domain range, sold by my one time name grabbing nemesis, whom I eventually came to respect (getting over jealousy) and with whom I eventually managed to do a little business.

Nice. Very nice.

[marchex.com...]

[bill]

It sounds like they'll be counting on all the revenue from those domains, so UltimateSearch will just be swapping owners, right? They've got a great collection of names, I've got to hand them that much.

[nativenewyorker]

At 100,000 domains, that would come out to an average of $1640 each. Granted they had lots of quality domains, but they also had quite a few mediocre ones. The price sounds awfully steep. It appears that domain name bubble #2 may be near.

[Webwork]

There are models/metrics for valuing domains that were less well fleshed out in 1999 that likely came into play here.

One thing I'd like to know is whether any industry grade domains - that might not have high type-in stats - were withheld from the deal. This large chunk of data adds something to valuation models, but without the particulars it's hard to extract knowledge.

For people in the business there are some promising numbers reflected in the deal - such as the purchase price was 8Xs annual revenue - but that 8Xs number is likely skewed as a result of the inclusion of a number of behemoth domains, one's that could individually value in the $25,000 - 100,000+ range, without regard to a given domain's raw traffic. 1000 tanks (primo domains) make for a pretty good battle when supported by 10,000 foot soldiers and 80,000 peasants with pitchforks.

Increasingly, people were competing for domains that fit Ult's system, likely making it a good time to bow out.

[Macro]

This was posted yesterday:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[JeremyL]

Wow, Ultrasearch basically invented the biz of buying expired domains to capitalize on thier type in traffic. This guy was raking in the dough already, I guess it was to much money not to cash out.

[Itagnc]

Webwork -

Do you think this acquisition comes with a load of trademark issues for the buyer? UltSearch has more than a few trademarked names.

[chessdragon]

I think John Keister (Pres and COO) isnt doing a great job. This is a guy who cashed out big with Infospace and is trying to buy his way back into the internet. Well you need to have a good understanding of trends.
He purchased Traffic Leader who I have used were unable to deliver any kind of traffic to our site. He also purchased a few other med and small sites, but they dont seem to have any common thread. Just another rich internet guy making the wrong decisions.
I personally spoke to Mr. Keister and he all sales and no knowledge, he understands very little of the search industry other than he knows it can somehow make him money.

I think you can see this in what he buys which are sites that seem to have lots of traffic and may make some revenue. Sites like UltimateSearch has a bunch of untargeted traffic that got there by accident. I think as the internet matures, accidental untargeted traffic like this will be of less and less value. I know they also purchased goclick.com who is just some guy in CT who made alot of money by pissing off alot of webmasters. These domains just dont seem to have a credible base, which should suggest something about the person making the buys!