Top 100 Brandable Domain Name Sales In 2018: Data, Trends, and Insights

mushfiq sarker
Mushfiq Sarker Mushfiq has been buying, growing, and selling website assets since 2008. His first exit was in 2010. Since then, he has done 218+ website flips with multiple 6-figure exits. He is the founder of The Website Flip. Check out all Mushfiq's articles, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
mushfiq sarker
doron vermaat
Doron Vermaat Doron Vermaat is the co-founder of domain name investor platform, Efty. He is a prolific domain investor who owns a porfolio of domains and also blogs about it. Prior to Efty, he served 10+ years in senior sales and business development roles. Check out all Doron's articles, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
doron vermaat

Gathering data from all the domain names sold can reveal a wealth of data that is useful from an investor standpoint. Taking that data and then comparing it to data from just the 100 highest price purchases from these domains can help refine the search for potentially profitable domains even more.

That’s why we take the information from the top 100 brandable domain name sales in 2018 and see what a deep dive analysis will tell us.

Here’s what we will cover in this analysis:

  1. Raw data of top brandable domains
  2. Major insights from analysis
  3. Takeaways for domain investors

Let’s get into it!

Data of 2016 to 2021 Brandable Domains



Raw Data of Brandable Domain Sales

Domain NamePrice Where
Jobster.com$200,000Sedo
CryptoWorld.com$195,000DomainMarket
Mappa.com$127,400Sedo
DollarCity.com$90,000DomainMarket
MyVid.com$75,000Uniregistry
BetterFuture.com$65,000DomainMarket
Looka.com$65,000Sedo
Hubi.com$63,000Uniregistry
TotalDesign.com$60,000DomainMarket
YCoin.com$50,000Sedo
SportLine.com$50,000Sedo
Okdo.com$45,850Sedo
UniMoney.com$45,011Uniregistry
ViaOne.com$45,000Afternic
Homi.com$40,000Uniregistry
Finx.com$40,000Sedo
Zamp.com$39,997Uniregistry
DuoLab.com$38,280Sedo
StoryKids.com$37,500XYNames.com
Hemper.com$36,150DropCatch
HappyMath.com$35,000Sedo
Ooni.com$35,000Sedo
Viomi.com$30,716DropCatch
Skinte.com$30,000DomainMarket
KnowYourMoney.com$30,000Sedo
SecureChain.com$30,000Sedo
Aumo.com$29,990Uniregistry
DotData.com$29,888Sedo
Ulao.com$29,000Uniregistry
BlockSize.com$28,600Sedo
Payen.com$28,250Sedo
eKing.com$28,000Sedo
Esenses.com$27,999Sedo
eFounders.com$27,500Sedo
Kugga.com$26,888DomainMarket
CannaClub.com$26,722GoDaddy
CamTrack.com$26,000Sedo
Mopa.com$25,000Uniregistry
Primon.com$24,700Sedo
BetterLove.com$22,500Uniregistry
Stayable.com$22,499GenericDomainMarket
HomeCloud.com$22,250GoDaddy
CoinLink.com$22,000Sedo
IvyPay.com$22,000Sedo
uMedia.com$21,250GoDaddy
MoneySmart.com$21,100NameJet
WellZone.com$20,500Sedo
RedCoral.com$20,375GoDaddy
iStyle.com$20,251DropCatch
Ayde.com$20,118Sedo
TopMall.com$20,050GoDaddy
KiwiPlus.com$20,049DropCatch
Cloudo.com$20,000Undeveloped
MissMary.com$20,000Sedo
GrabFood.com$20,000Uniregistry
ConnectMedia.com$20,000Uniregistry
Eligma.com$20,000Uniregistry
FeelTheLove.com$20,000Uniregistry
Qare.com$20,000Uniregistry
RocketX.com$20,000Uniregistry
CandyPay.com$20,000Sedo
DirectBooks.com$20,000Sedo
Usme.com$20,000Lumis
Betiq.com$19,999Sedo
Viagio.com$19,888Sedo
LawLeader.com$19,888Sedo
Hexacom.com$19,500Sedo
Styrosoft.com$19,376Sedo
ExpertMatch.com$19,000Sedo
NinjaSports.com$19,000Sedo
WePower.com$19,000GoDaddy
Fiera.com$18,750GoDaddy
LocalHero.com$18,720Sedo
Equila.com$18,600Sedo
Otravo.com$18,500Sedo
CloudBasket.com$18,432Sedo
Wiise.com$18,000Sedo
VipMom.com$17,500Sedo
Meia.com$17,338GoDaddy
Esop.com$17,000GoDaddy
Verway.com$16,950Sedo
HiChat.com$16,800Sedo
LittleBean.com$16,500Uniregistry
CannaCorp.com$16,500GoDaddy
Nuze.com$16,037Uniregistry
MonkeyCasino.com$15,510Sedo
Coba.com$15,500Sedo
Muhu.com$15,200NameJet
RushBet.com$15,009Uniregistry
Silubi.com$15,000Sedo
DoBox.com$15,000Sedo
BlueChew.com$15,000Sedo
PayClub.com$15,000Sedo
Agila.com$15,000Uniregistry
Bisq.com$15,000Uniregistry
Carium.com$15,000Uniregistry
Chipz.com$15,000Uniregistry
MrFrosty.com$15,000Uniregistry
Fidens.com$15,000Sedo
Dynamind.com$15,000Sedo

4 Major Insights From Top Domain Sales

These studies of the top 100 domain name sales have brought some surprising data in the past, especially in comparison to the reports and analyses of all the domains sold in a year. 

The 2018 study of the 100 biggest sales brought even more interesting data that should heavily influence the strategy of domain investors.

Our approach was as follows. We obtained the top sales data from the Namebio database. We then analyzed the data in Microsoft Excel to extract insights. 

So what changes and surprises did 2018 bring? Let’s find out!

1. Marketplace with Highest Sales Numbers ($)

There were some major changes with the marketplace numbers from 2017 to 2018. The obvious one is Sedo surpassing Uniregistry as the top marketplace by revenue. They have completely switched places from 2017 and the difference between the two is surprising.

Sedo did roughly $1.5 million in sales among the top 100 brandable domain names while Uniregistry fell to second at a distant $600k. That is a stunning one-year switch between the two top marketplaces by revenue.

highest sales 2018

DomainMarket comes in at third place, building off of last year’s success with $450K in sales among the top domains. GoDaddy, DropCatch, and NameJet come in behind.

This is worth noting that this means in the past three years the number of marketplaces involved in the top 100 domain names sold went from 13 to 9 to 6. The number of different marketplaces involved in the sale of top brandable domains continues to consolidate.

Takeaways:

  • Sedo has strongly supplanted Uniregistry as the top marketplace for selling brandable domains
  • DomainMarket has continued its growth from 2017 and may challenge Uniregistry for second place
  • The number of places where big deals take place for the top brandable domains is shrinking

2. Marketplace with Most Volume of Sales

The marketplace numbers based on volume of sales confirm one trend and throw one very interesting surprise from the highest sales numbers.

Sedo sold the most sites at 50, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering they had the highest revenue numbers by far. Uniregistry came in second at 23 which also matches the revenue numbers above.

The third spot shows something very interesting. GoDaddy is third with 10 sales, while DomainMarket is fourth with 6 sales. 

DomainMarket had twice as much revenue as GoDaddy, indicating that more volume moved to GoDaddy but the sites that did sell on DomainMarket sold for much higher amounts than those on GoDaddy.

Keeping an eye on this is a good idea to see if this is a trend or if this is a one-year anomaly and GoDaddy has gone past DomainMaket in reality.

marketplace 2018

Takeaways:

  • Sedo is solidly in first as the marketplace for top branded domains
  • Uniregistry is in second but showed a massive drop indicating a possible downtrend
  • GoDaddy has gained a lot of ground when it comes to volume of sales

3. Number of Words in Top Branded Domains

The data for 2018 about the top branded domains seems to support a consistent trend: that two-word domains hold their own against one-word domains when it comes to the top 100 brandable list.

Two-word domains accounted for a full half (50) of all the top domains sold to startups. One-word domains came in a close second at 48, with the final two domains in the top 100 consisting of three words.

words 2018

This confirms the trend that although far more one-word domain names tend to be purchased than two-word domains when it comes to the top 100, two-word domains continue to beat out one-word domains.

Takeaways:

  • Two-word domains have the highest percentage chance of being a top 100 domain sale in a year
  • One-word domains will make up the rest of the difference
  • Domains of more than three words should be ignored when searching for the potential big sales

4. How Many Characters in Top Domains?

Shorter domain names continue to dominate over longer ones. The most popular lengths for domain names in 2018 were 6 characters (19 domain names) and 4 characters (18 domain names).

The sweet spot in the top 100 was 4-6 characters, though both 8 characters and 9 characters had double-digit domain name purchases.

domains 2018

This confirms that the hard-to-find four-character domains are among the most popular when a good one is found. This is two years in a row 4 characters were the most popular, and three years ago it was the second most popular option.

In general shorter is much more popular than longer with 84% of the top 100 domains at less than 10 characters. 

Takeaways:

  • Good four-character brandable domains will be in very high demand
  • 4-6 characters was the sweet spot for domains in the top one hundred
  • Very few domains of 10+ characters made the top one hundred brandable domains list

Final Takeaways for Domain Investors

There was a lot of interesting data here, and while a couple of trends were confirmed, 2018 is a year that has shown some clear changes happening in the domain investing world. What should domain investors take away from this?

  1. Sedo has strongly overtaken Uniregistry as the top marketplace in both revenues and the number of top domain names sold.
  2. Good two-word domains are just as likely to hit the top 100 sales in a year as good one-word domains…possibly even slightly more so.
  3. Finding good 4-character domain names strongly increases the chances of a top revenue sale.
  4. Shorter domains are more highly valued than longer names

Keep this information in mind, pay attention to the strong shifts in the marketplace data to see how that plays out in subsequent years, and your domain investing strategy will be further honed in towards success



mushfiq sarker

Analyzed by Mushfiq Sarker

Mushfiq has been buying, growing, and selling website assets since 2008. His first exit was in 2010. Since then, he has done 218+ website flips with multiple 6-figure exits. He is the founder of The Website Flip. Check out all Mushfiq's articles, LinkedIn, or Twitter.


doron vermaat

Analyzed by Doron Vermaat

Doron Vermaat is the co-founder of domain name investor platform, Efty. He is a prolific domain investor who owns a porfolio of domains and also blogs about it. Prior to Efty, he served 10+ years in senior sales and business development roles. Check out all Doron's articles, LinkedIn, or Twitter.


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