I’ll give you a few examples of what I’m talking about.  I will use actual domain names I own.  Take for example WorkingCat.com — owned for some time now and it still gets lots of hits at a cash parking site.   I’ve never tried to market this domain name and the longer I keep it the more I fall in love with it.   And God is it popular.  With just a one-page cash parking site it will average about 500 to 550 hits per month.   My asking price for WorkingCat.com is $1,000 if you have an interest in buying it.

Down the traffic curve a ways are my domain names YourHype.com and QuickBillion.com.  These domain names don’t get a lot of traffic as one-page cash parking sites, but they are catchy and people come to each often as a result of typing in the domain name, as opposed to finding them via search engine.  My asking price for each of these domian names is $600.

More to my 2-word domain name liking is a couple of other domain names I own - GoFones.com and TexasSUV.com.  The first would be a great domain name for a cell phone seller, while the latter is an excellent domain name for a custom SUV shop, for example.  My asking price for GoFones.com is $500 and my asking  price for TexasSUV.com is $250.  If you care to bid on any of these 6 domain names please send my your bid and contact info via the online form.

But ask yourself the question, “How many people will ever likely visit my website from a word-of-mouth advertising experience?” Chances are, very few. Instead, most people will either visit your website after finding you from a search engine and a hyperlink in the search engine results page, or from a hyperlink placed on someone elses website or Internet directory. Given that, what is really wrong from having hyphens in a domain name? Well, since this blog is largely about domain name values, its fair to say that you’ll never be able to sell a domain name with a hyphen or dash in the name for the same value you could the same domain name without the hyphens. This is not always true, because obviously if someone was selling a domain name with one or more hyphens that was getting tons of traffic and business, it could be worth more than the same domain name without the hyphens. This would be particularly true for domains with only one hyphen it them, like my domain name Breasts-Implants.com. Breasts-Implants.com is a clear example of a domain name with a hyphen that is obviously worth quite a bit of money for the following reasons:

1. It is highly unlikely that you could ever afford to purchase the domain name BreastsImplants.com without the hyphen.
2. My domain name with the hyphen, Breasts-Implants.com, could become just as valuable as BreastsImplants.com if it was popluated with many pages about breast implants.
3. It is a highly searched keyword phrase.
4. It is a high-cost keyword phrase, meaning Adwords ads are very expensive for this phrase.

If you’ve ever come across sites built with the famous HTML page generator and site builder SiteSell, you’ll also know that most of the Internet entrepreneurs that use SiteSell have domain names with hyphens. Why is this? Because they build domain names based on keyword niches and most keyword niche domain names without hyphens were taken a long time ago and not available. But even more importantly, and don’t forget this, SEO experts will all tell you that when it comes to a domain name with a hyphen versus one without a hyphen, the search engine cannot distinguish one from another. “How can I prove this?” you might ask. Easy! Do a Google search for the keyword “lock” and then do a search for the keyword phrase “l-o-c-k” and you’ll see the search engine results are the same. Do the same using the keyword “burp” and the phrase “b-u-r-p.” You’ll see the top positions on the search engine results page don’t change at all, while the search results a little lower change a little — but still stick with the subjects “lock” and “burp” — even though you searched for “l-o-c-k” and “b-u-r-p.”

This all brings me to my accomplishments today buying domain names off a “dropped” or expired domain names list. For only $7.05 each, my personal cost per domain name at Godaddy, I was able to purchase recently expired domain names l-o-c-k.com, b-u-r-p.com and l-i-f-t.com.  All three will become great moneymakers for me once they are fully populated with contents and ads. One day, they each stand the chance of being at the top of the first search engine page on Google.

Other domains selling at notable prices include Posse.com - a single dictionary word domain which sold for $24,500 on Sedo.com. GotDirt.com sold for $4,600, Hightop.com sold for $2,500 and MyLifeID.com sold for $2,700.

Of note on Afternic.com was the sale off YourChat.com for $35,200. Bravo for the seller of that domain name. I would have never thought it woiuld have gone for that high of a price, but when you consider the value of social networking giant MySpace.com, a name like YourChat.com has tremendous upside potential.

The new rage with jelly bracelets that is highly popular in middle schools, high schools and colleges across America these days is “snapping” the bracelet another person is wearing in hopes of engaging in some sort of sex act that the color of the bracelet represents. It is highly possible that the seller of this domain name was not aware of the revenue potential this domain name is capable of achieving. It sends a clear message to all domain name owners to research the potential of your domain name carefully before selling it.

If you see your child wearing jelly bracelets I highly advise you to check the color of the bracelet and Google “sex bracelets” to see what it might could mean.

Of the social networking domain names I personally own, I consider my eCliques.com to be the most valuable.  It has great potential for the right buyer with social networking and multiple community portal plans.  If anyone is interested in buying eCliques.com, I’ll consider offers provided they’re in the 5-figure range.  My InternetHighSchool.com has the potential to be a great social networking domain name with lots of montetization potential.  I visualize it being able to sell just about anything teenagers would be interested in, plus all the supplies and apparel associated with high school students, plus GED degrees, cheerleader supplies, etc.  I’m the original owner of InternetHighSchool.com and its got a clean history.

BathSafety.com sold for $33,725 on Moniker during the week of April 21, 2008, along with Go.org for $25,350 and OnlineFinancing.com for $17,500.  In a blindfold test no one would have ever guess that BathSafety would have sold for more than either Go.org or OnlineFinancing.com.  Of the three, I feel OnlineFinancing.com has the bigger and more profitable audience, but its up against stiff competition in the online financing arena, whereas BathSafety.com is a great domain name that accurately describes a very narrow but lucrative market niche.

The top domain name sold on Moniker/TRAFFIC during the week of April 21 was actually SearchEngines.com, which sold for $92,500.  I would have thought it would have gone for higher.  A great one-word d0main name that sold was Winnings.com — which sold for $27,000 on Moniker/CAC.  Okay, I give up — why didn’t Winnings.com sell for a higher price?  I think that domain was worth so much more than $27,000.  This is living proof that you need to develop your domain names if you want to get maximum value.  You can’t always hold out for name alone.

On the 3-letter domain name front, MNO.com (a super 3-letter domain) sold on Sedo.com for $18,250, while HD2.com sold for $15,000 on Afternic.  Would someone please give me an education via comment.  I must be getting old or else I’m asleep at the wheel.  For the life of me I’m not sure I know what and HD2 is — do you? 

Currently, the highest bid on Sedo’s 7-day auction is at $29,000 for the domain name, Derek.com. If you’re wealthy and your name is Derek, I guess you can say its worth paying $29K for Derek.com. But if you just bidding on this domain name because its a one-word dot come, maybe you better develop a good business plan for a domain name before you place a firm bid on it.

I own several Pizza domains, including AAAPizza.com, AAAPizzas.com, PizzaStars.com, SubsnPizza.com, PizzaGeneral.com, HurryPizza.com, PizzaServe.com, PizzaDispatcher.com, OrderPizza247.com, TonysPizzaAndWings.com, PizzaCraftsman.com, NYCPizzaDelivery.com (New York Pizza Delivery), PizzasNYC.com, HoustonPizzas.com, JoeMommasPizza.com, HomeDeliveryForPizza.com, 24HrPizzaCafe.com, CraigsPizza.com (that’s me!), MesquitePizza.com and last, but not least, NewYorkPizzaCompany.com.

Of the 20 names I have received and turned down offers for HurryPizza.com, NewYorkPizzaCompany.com, SubsnPizza.com and NYCPizzaDelivery.com. Only yesterday I received an initial offer of $500 for NewYorkPizzaCompany.com. I turned it down and the bidder was still willing to bid higher. For now, I’m not in a hurry unless someone steps up to the plate and offers something closer in line to what this domain is worth, which brings me to the questions I would like to ask you to comment on. Just click the blue “Click to Comment” button below and give me your 2 cents on the following questions:

1. How much do you think NewYorkPizzaCompany.com is worth?
2. How much do you think the entire 20-name collection is worth?
3. Rank 1, 2 and 3 — which of the 3 domain names do you think are the most valuable.

I look forward to seeing and reading your comments.

One surprising domain name sale I happened to stumble upon was the sale of MyTulsa.com.  Rather than keep you guessing, I’ll just blurt it out — it sold for a surprising $10,000.  At least it was surprising in my book.  No doubt it will be used to build one of the popular community forums that focus on cities.  We’re seeing this a lot these days.  Knowning that city domain names can be valuable if the right people are running the website, I picked up BaltimoreFYI.com off an expired list today.  For those of you still living under a rock, FYI stands for “for your information.”  I also picked up FYIEurope.com and FYIIndia.com off a dropped list today.  I feel as if all 3 can becomee very valuable community websites.

So what’s the word and domain name. Quite simply, Wikifying.com — an Internet buzzword that is repeated on 25,800 web pages indexed by Google. The word itself may be less than 5 years old, but certainly less than 10 years old. Still, it is growing in popularity and will only be used more and more in the future. For example, a recent article at Popsci.com announced that Google was in the process of “wikifying” its Google Maps program. An August 2007 article at Columbuser.com about Ohio elections ran under the headline “Wikifying Ohio’s Elections.”

For anyone familiar with the widespread popularity of Wikipedia.org and Wiki’s in general, you’ll know that my discovery and registration of Wikifying.com is worth many thousands of dollars. Given how I just stumbled across the domain doing one of my manual screens of a 90-day dropped domains list, the lucky find reminds me of those diamond discoveries we read about once every few years when a tourist visits the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas and just happens to discovers a valuable diamond, in the same spot where thousands of other tourist have trampled beforehand.

If your answer was XP.com, then you answered right. The other two currently sit at $185,000 and 6 bids for XU.com, and $90,000 and 6 bids for ZR.com. In each of those cases the reserve price has also not been hit yet. I doubt seriously that any of these bidders have a business in mind to match these 2-letter domains. My best guess is that all bidders are strictly playing on the hunch that a 2-letter domain name can never go down in value. But its always possible that a company name could match these simple letters. For example, a company operating as Xcel Petroleum, Zenith Resources or Xtreme Unlimited could be adapted to fit any one of these domain names. Xcel Energy is a real company operating in the wind power business. Although its hard to conceive of them moving into the petroleum-based energy business, anything’s possible.

Lastly, think of the brand exposure that the letters XP have already been able to claim in the Windows XP world. XP has become part of our vernacular, yet the letters could be used for other purposes. Anyone wishing to comment on this article with their guess at what these domain names might go for is welcome to do so. Just click on the comment button below.