I was surprise to read this today on the internet. It is funny as well because I have parked one of my domains today for selling. I have had several emails regarding my ClickBankViews.com domain. Many users want to purchase this domain but have not been able to come close to my domain appraisal. But back to Business.com selling for over 300 million is crazy.
A small understanding of Business.com:
Business.com is a business-related Internet search engine and web directory. Business.com, Inc. is based in Santa Monica, California and was founded in 1999 by Jake Winebaum (previously chairman of the Walt Disney Internet Group) and Sky Dayton (founder of Earthlink).
Business.com is an old domain. It is a very simple domain and is probably worth that much, since I can remember this domain for a very long time. According to Business.com history Domain Tools says:
Business.com the domain has a long history. Marc Ostrofsky purchased the domain for $150,000 in the late 90’s, then shortly after that in 1999, he sold it to eCompanies, Inc. for $7,500,000 in stock. In 2004, they did their refinancing and the $7.5M in stock was valued at $2M which was then paid out to Marc Ostrofsky
Domain Tools even covered the sales in a separate post marked today:
The Dow Jones and the New York Times were both bidding on the company. The sale was expected to close between $300 to $400 million. So the price was right on target. Business.com currently brings in about $15 Million dollars a year in revenue. So the sale was 24 times earnings. This is a rather high price for a company but generally bigger companies sell for a higher multiple. 24X is very healthy. If a company is able to demonstrate $1 Million dollars in revenue that would make it worth about $24 Million according to these numbers. However, smaller companies sell for a smaller multiple. Generally between 8X to 15X. Now you can see why 24X looks so good for this company. One could argue it was the domain name that made it so valuable.
Now this is a good opportunity to talk about my domain I just parked today, ClickBankViews.com. Domain parking is a process where you register a domain and do not enter the domain name servers of your hosting company. Usually the domain registrar will park your domain by default on their server, this means that if you type your domain name into a web browser you will arrive at a default page provided by the registrar.
Domain parking is an advertising practice used primarily by domain name registrars and Internet advertising publishers to monetize type-in traffic visiting an under-developed domain name. The domain name will usually resolve to a page containing relevant advertising listings and links. These links will be targeted to the predicted interests of the visitor and may change dynamically based on the results that visitors click on. Usually the domain owner is paid based on how many links have been visited (e.g. pay per click) and on how beneficial those visits have been. The keywords for any given domain name provide clues as to the intent of the visitor before arriving.
Source Wikipedia
I am currently using Sedo.com to help me with the selling of my domain. For those that sell domains through brokers, it can be very difficult. One of the best domain brokers out there to sell domains with is what I am currently using, Sedo. Loads of 'domainers' go for domain brokers to sell their domains, and there's a reason why: they are reliable, secure, and have high exposure. That is, they have all the ingredients that you need to add to your domain sales mix. If you have registered domain names, but they are not currently being used or worked on then domain parking is a great way to put those domains to work, earning you revenue. You can make money without even lifting a finger! The idle domain is used to display relevant advertisements.
I will be using Sedo to auction my domain and see if I can get a higher bid on this domain rather than from what others have emailed me. I was kinda of hesitant to sell this domain, but I have been busy with this blog, my new blog coming up, my other websites and social networks; its just hectic.
With that said Business.com has a long history of providing search and the name alone is worth bidding a high a mount for. The name is recognizable and easy to remember and its only one word. Congrats!
But soon one of my domains will be worth 360 million!
