WV.com sells for $145,000

[WeBuyThe.Com]

Wow - what a week over at buy domains/afternic.
It looks as though they will crack 1,000,000 in weekly sales
http://www.afternic.com/name.php?domain=wv.com

Congrats guys!!

 

[draggar]

Quite a bargain.

 

[tetrapak]

Bargain? You can buy LL.com's for nearly half the price.

 

[vtraffic]

good bargain

 

[Tenkk]

Solid GEO, real bargain

 

[ShangTsung]

Very nice domain looks like Bigfoot Entertainment purchased. They also own bs.com, ui.com.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Very nice domain looks like Bigfoot Entertainment purchased. They also own bs.com, ui.com.

Bs.com, sad story there.

 

[namewaiter]

Bargain? You can buy LL.com's for nearly half the price.

state abbreviations?

 

[ordersomething]

I read this and freaked out because I thought it said VW at first glance, not WV.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

state abbreviations?

I will not say what ones out of respect but I know of 2 off the top, both included Y and Q.

Also having sold a handful of LL .com I can confirm the reseller market which is incredibly small for LL already at $XXXk has seen an approx price drop of 50-60%, reseller.

For example Lucas is selling one now, easily half of what I could have realized on that last year- year and a half ago. So it isnt about examples available now so much as when you do go to sale on to a reseller what you can achieve.

 

[snicksnack]

let's see if Volkswagen trys to get the domain. After recent decisions where ,DKB.com for example, was WIPO'ed and lost it wouldn't surpise me.

 

[mattbodis]

let's see if Volkswagen trys to get the domain. After recent decisions where ,DKB.com for example, was WIPO'ed and lost it wouldn't surpise me.

It's never the domain which is a problem. EVER. You can own clear typos, could be a Microsoft typo, but that will not allow them to take it from you.

It is what you do with the domain name that is the issue. If they keep the current page up, VolksWagen would 99% chance not be able to take it from them unless the WIPO board makes some really really bad decision.

If they put VolksWagen ads on there or ads relating to cars, I can assure they will have an issue sooner or later, and chances are they may lose the domain.

That's the reality. You can register as many typos as you want. If you don't use it in bad faith, you will be just fine.

 

[snicksnack]

if you have the domain registered but don't do anything with it, it can also be considered bad faith already.

 

[mattbodis]

Never heard of anything like that. These three conditions must be met:

1. Confusingly similar name

2. Non-legitimate interests in domain

3. Domain was used in bad faith.

If you don't use it, or not use it simply to show ads, chances are it is not used in bad faith. All 3 points have to be met. But we've had a lot of single-member panel decisions that were bad, companies that have a lot of money to fight for the domain, and a lot of reverse domain hi jacking (that would fall under bad panel decisions).

Most people that own typos actually do something to profit off them (which is bad faith).

Nissan.com was not used in bad faith and doesn't belong to Nissan after so many attempts to get it and millions put into fighting for the domain. Obviously, if you have no money to defend yourself, you'll lose the domain.

 

[snicksnack]

read here about dkb.com

http://domainnamewire.com/2009/10/08/arbitrator-hands-dkb-com-to-deutsche-kreditbank/

 

[mattbodis]

Sounds like a really bad panel decision, reverse hi jacking, along with incorrect WHOIS information, and a domain owner that was not responsive through the WIPO process.

But, if you put up a simple page you'll cover #2 and #3 as long as you don't put ads that compete or resemble the other trademark (such as VW in this case), and the owner will be fine. Or a website that'll compete with them either.

This is a really bad domain to be honest to buy for $145k. I've seen a near-horror experience with a LL.com that a friend got for $300k or so. He almost lost it, but not quite.

The problem is that it's too much of a gray area where anything can happen.

But the case you seen is the first I seen of its kind. The panel probably figured there is absolutely NO WAY to get in touch with owner, and owner is not using it (for all they know the owner might be dead and somehow the domain is on auto-renew). That forces them to transfer out - which to be honest now that I think about it, maybe not the worst decision.

Technically, the registrar could have even deleted it because WHOIS info was incorrect. The more I think about it, the more I actually side with the panel on that one. But from a first look, it would seem like a bad decision. The UDRP process was actually a last resort. The registrar could have just deleted it.

 

[DTalk]

LL's & LLL's are notoriously vulnerable to a reverse hijack, simply because the letters can be the letters of so many established corporates & businesses that can potentially claim rights due to their 'common usage'.


So, bullet proof your LL's & LLL's...


4 easy things to do:


(1) Never Park them

Parking these domains is HIGH risk. Some advert, sometime, will likely infringe on SOME business, somewhere, and leave you vulnerable for use in 'Bad Faith' (however much you 'optimise' it - just ONE infringing parking link, over years of parking, could lose you the domain)....The reality is the vast majority of these names usually have very little natural traffic, anyway - and, the revenue from parking is negligible compared to the value of the name....You won't lose much if you don't park them.


(2) Direct them to a 'Good Faith' Use:

For good faith use, its best to be seen to be using them....So, while you're waiting to sell them, either put up a simple 'Coming Soon' landing page - or, better still, redirect them to a site with info that NO corporate would base its business on...


EG...I redirect all my LLL's to a poetry site, of a few pages, that I own......That saved me once from a reverse hijack attempt, because I could validly demonstrate that I used the domain in good faith - ie to promote (my) poetry....They absolutely could not establish any case that I was using it in bad faith (nor that I was in any way infringing on any business of the Claiment). Case closed.


(3) Make sure your WHOis is always current & accurate


(4) Always respond to any WIPO queries.


Bullet proof.

.

 

[mattbodis]

How about,

Putting a no-index meta tag as well. And blocking the Archive.org ROBOT and putting a no-cache tag for the search engines. If you're going to do anything, block the Archive.org robot and put a no-cache tag, you can still allow indexing.

If you get a complaint, quickly switch to what Chris just said, a coming soon page that is in good faith.

Now, when it gets to WIPO, the company that filed the complaint cannot prove that you've used it in bad faith. If they show a screenshot to the WIPO panel, you can argue that it is fabricated or from a past owner from years ago. You're not under oath.

If the WIPO panel can't figure out that it was used in bad faith, then you'll at least have some advantage there.

Also, use URL forwarding for parking and third-party DNS servers so that they can't look at name server history.

Even more bullet proof. Everything is possible, you just have to WANT to badly defend yourself. If you don't do anything, it'll get taken away.

 

[tetrapak]

Exactly, just put up a coming soon page, make a simple logo and you are 99% safe, I did it on http://www.ryf.com/ and couldn't care less about the cents it would make parked.

 

[PRIYE]

What does wv stands for?