PALM BEACH, FL – Those who know me know I keep a keen eye on the geographic name space and I noticed today that the exact match domain name for the U.S. State of Vermont is for sale on Flippa.com.
The sale represents a great opportunity for a business in the State of Vermont to catapult themselves to a position of strength with relative ease by owning this exact match domain name, Vermont.com, but does the opportunity warrant its asking price with a reserve of: $1,500,000?
Well that depends greatly on what it is earning now.
Seller notes include:
- This is a high traffic fully developed website.
- First page on google for search term “Vermont.”
- High revenue six-figure generating site.
- Direct advertiser relationships.
All qualities which make it a stand-out from the majority of GEO Domains sitting parked.
Surprisingly, the auction provides extremely limited data in the form of Google Analytics, screenshots, or information regarding verification of that information, and with an Alexa ranking of 1,607,151 In global internet traffic and engagement over the past 90 days, a buyer should tread carefully here. Anything over a million is likely not that active, however, direct customer relationships are valuable and the domain name itself is significant.
The site appears to be custom or designed in Cold Fusion, loading many of its pages in “.cfm” (ColdFusion Markup Language).
Last year I sold NorthDakota.com for what I would consider peanuts as it wound up having little to no direct type-in traffic, considering what I had expected it to have. It meant more to me to get back my investors capital than any long term profits the site could have made.
It will be interesting to see how the auction plays out. Connecticut.com has been for sale for some time now with no takers, and there are many other geographic domain names, even those in major markets, being peddled as the next best sky-rocket to stardom with few stepping up to the plate to acquire them. It seems that GEO domain names might have diminished in significance and are getting lost in the diversity of the name space.
In the opinion of one of my clients, partners, and friends who always says…. nobody cares. That might just be the case these days. Let us see what happens with the auction.
On a positive note, GEO domain name, California.com did sell within the last year for a record three million dollars, but I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall of that enterprise to know whether it is was worth it based on the numbers it is producing, which honestly, I would imagine, are less than desirable for ownership.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®
DomainBoss says
I hope it sells for that much…a great domain/site imo.
Domain Guy says
Do we really call this geo-domain?
I read on namePros that geo names are usually a geography+niche/product names attached to it.
Wouldn’t we rather classify this as a premium name?
Sorry, I am not a pro at this concept