Indian Domain Sales – A Comprehensive List

We have now published on our blog a comprehensive list of all sales of .in and .co.in domains for $100 or more that we are aware of.  You can find the list here.  For each sale, in addition to the price, we provide the venue and date of the sale.

The list will constantly be updated as new sales unfold, so you can bookmark it and check back any time to keep up to date.

The top sales to date are:

1) Poker.in – $60,000 (Domain Round Table Auction, August 2007)
2) Mails.in – $24,000 (Sedo, 2005)
3) Searching.in – $22,000 (Private Sale, Unknown, 2006)
4) LinkShare.in – 10,000 GBP = $19,755 (Sedo, 10th Jan. 2007)
5) Webcam.in – £9,200 GBP = $18,299 (Sedo, 8th May 2007)
6) Defend.in – $9,473 (Sedo, March 2008)
7) Tea.in – €5,700 = $8,355 (Private Sale, December 2007)
8.) Leds.in – $7,973 (Sedo, April 2008)
9) 123.in – $7,500 (Sedo, August 18th 2007)
10) Hollywood.co.in – $7000 (Sedo, 6th June, 2006)
11) Bingo.co.in – $6,000 (May 2008, DNJ)
12) IIT.in – $5,900 (DNF – March 29, 2008)
13) Blackjack.in – €4,000 = $5,255 (Sedo, 25th January, 2007)

See the rest of the list here.

If there are any sales you know of that we have missed, please let us know.

Report on Indian Domain Sales

It has been fairly quiet on the Indian domain sales front recently.  In today’s DNJournal, Ron confirmed that the sale of Dial.in, which we had previously reported, had gone through.  No other .in sales made it to Ron’s report.

Other recent Indian domain sales include Reality.in which went for $650, ALV.in which sold for 110 EUR or $143, and Wallpaper.co.in which covered 500 EUR or $653.  Wallpaper.co.in had significant traffic – receiving 80 uniques per day.  That amount of type in traffic shows the incredible future potential of Indian domains.

There is only one upcoming Sedo auction for an Indian domain, namely SexClubs.in.

To find out more about investing in Indian domains, join the discussion at INForum.in – home of the Indian domain industry.

Status of LLL.in – 3 Letter Indian Domains

The LLL.in buyout occurred about 9 months ago.  There is an insightful discussion going on about the status of the buyout at INForum.

Since the buyout, premium LLL.in have done really well – which is not surprising, given the increasing adoption of .in by endusers in India and the fact that these domains have premium letters.

However, the non-premium LLL.in have not fared too well.  The for sale sections of the domain forums are full of people selling their LLL.in for bargain prices – often $5 or less.

Given the timing of the buyout, over the next few months there will be a lot of LLL.in coming up for renewal.  Given a market price of $5 or less, a lot of people may decide that it is just not worth renewing their LLL.in.  The buyout is in danger of ending.

What has happened?  As member jag pointed out, the economic conditions at the time of the buyout were quite different.  At that time, the registry had a special on .in registrations – and the retail price was in the $3 to $4 range.  Now, retail pricing is at least $13.49.  As well, the buyout occurred in much better economic times – the current financial crises had not yet occurred and people were generally very bullish.

I think that this situation illustrates well the problem with pattern domaining.  While some LLL.in are good investments, others simply aren’t (at least at this point in time).  As member trevor99 points out, there are lots of LLL.in that aren’t worth registering.  I think that this situation shows the importance of having a plan in investing – a careful choice of letter combinations can pay off well, while a poor choice can cause trouble.

What do you think will happen with LLL.in over the new few months?  Join the discussion at INForum - the home of the Indian domain industry.

DNXpert Domaining Essentials Contest

DNXpert is a blog about the business of domaining – covering everything from buying to selling domains, parking to developing domains, and more.  It also covers news and developments of significance to domainers.

John over at DNXpert is running a Domaining Essentials Contest.  This is the second domaining contest he is running, with the first one having been a big success. 

INForum is proud to be the first announced sponsor of this contest.  The contest launches on November 1, 2008.  Until then, John is announcing all the prizes available.  There will be a whopping total of over $4,000 of prizes given away during the contest.

The Mentis.in Case

The INDRP case of Mentis.in was recently released.

As you are probably aware, Mentos are the makers of various candies, mints and chewing gum. They have held trademarks for the word Mentos since 1966 and a trademark for the word Mentos in India since 1983.

In this case, Mentos claimed that the domain Mentis.in was confusing and almost identical to their trademark Mentos.

I find it really strange that they would choose to go after Mentis.in when they do not even own Mentis.com – actually, Mentis.com is owned by none other than Frank Schilling. I have checked Mentis in a few other ccTLDs and it does not appear that Mentos owns any of those domains.

While there is no website on Mentis.in, the owner was in the software business, and was using the domain for internal purposes. He showed the panel how he had set up a number of systems there, including for stock maintenance, sales, awards, etc. He also had a plan for further development of the domain. As well, the respondent had never tried to sell the domain to Mentos.

The decision was made by a sole arbitrator. He found that Mentos and Mentis were indeed confusingly similar.

However, the arbitrator found that the owner of Mentis.in had a legitimate interest in the domain. He was making a bona fide use of the domain, and that the goods and services offered by him were completely different than those offered by Mentos. He had no intention to mislead, divert Mentos’ customers or tarnish Mentos’ trademark.

As well, the arbitrator found that Mentis.in was not registered or used in bad faith. The registrant had never tried to sell the domain to Mentos, plus the services offered by both companies were so different that there was little possibility of confusing by consumers.

In the circumstances, the arbitrator dismissed Mentos’ case. This was a good decision under the INDRP. Mentis is a generic term. It is Latin for “mind” and also a surname. It is a common word – there are many, many websites out there using the term mentis in their domain. As well, the chances of people getting confused between software and candy are, I’d say, pretty slim. I’ve never gotten a sugar high from a piece of software. I’m glad to see that the panellist saw through the Mentos’ blatant overreaching in this case.

INRegistry Allows Longer Domain Registration

Until now, INRegistry has only allowed Indian domains to be registered for a maximum of 5 years at a time.  This has just been changed – now, Indian domains can be registered for up to 10 years in advance.

This change makes a lot of sense and I applaud INRegistry for doing this, as it standardises its practices with most of the gTLDs.

Google is thought to look at for how long a domain is registered in ranking a website, so if you’ve got an important website, it may be worth adding a few years of registration on.  Also, for any company larger than a mum and pop company, it normally makes sense to register your domain for as long as possible, to minimize chances of accidentally losing your domain by forgetting to renew.

First Canadian Domain Conference – Auction Results

Today the auction, run by Fusu, for Canada’s first domain name conference – Domain Convergence – finished.

A total of 11 domains sold for $17,501.  What was interesting were a couple of good .ca sales – Quality.ca for USD$4,800 and Climb.ca for USD$2,500 - solid prices for these domains.

The results in full (unofficial) are (in US Dollars):

CanadaTrademarks.net – $220
CanadianPub.com – $420
Quality.ca – $4800
DownloadPDFs.com – $120
ChargerKits.com – $310
CelebrityNews.ca  – $230
Climb.ca - $2500
BuyLand.ca – $100
uDonate.net – $2500
ParkingDemo.com – $101
dqf.com – $6200 – a very solid result given that qav.com closed at $4,700 today at auction on Sedo.

I hope that this conference becomes a regular event and thanks to the organizers for putting this together.

Indian Domain Sales Report

One big Indian domain sale reported this week in the DNJournal weekly roundup:  Tune.in for $4,000 sold on the AfternicDLS - a solid domain that is an interesting hack and a good sale price.

The week was a good one for sales of Indian domain names, and included two other four-figure sales.  This week’s sales of Indian names include:  degrees.co.in which graduated for $110, awards.co.in which won $180, fze.in which closed at $80, directv.in which broadcasted $2,500, and dial.in which turned out $1,150.

There are a few .in auction closing at Sedo soon, including reality.in, alv.in, and wallpaper.co.in.

To find out more about investing in Indian domains, join the discussion at INForum.in – home of the Indian domain industry.

.In vs. .Co.In – Which Is Better?

Unlike most countries, there is not one definitive ccTLD in India.  Canada has .ca, the United Kingdom has .co.uk, Australia has .com.au, but India has both .in and .co.in in widespread use.  One of the most common questions people ask when starting to invest in Indian domain names is whether they should invest in .in domains or .co.in domains.

Here are a number of factors to take into account in making that decision:

1.  .Co.in is India’s original ccTLD.  It is the extension that endusers in India are more familiar with and has a strong presence in consumers’ minds.

2.  There are many domains for which the .in version is registered, but not the .co.in – it is rare to find the reverse situation.  From what I’ve seen though, this is mainly the result of purchases by domainers.

3.  Both .in and .co.in domains receive type in traffic, which is a good sign of their viability.  Generally, I’ve seen that a .co.in domain gets more type in traffic than the same .in domain, but others have reported the opposite.

4.  .In is shorter – companies generally prefer to use shorter domain names.

5.  If you look at reported sales, .in domains generally command higher prices.  From what I’ve seen, they are also more liquid.

6.  .Co.in is more likely to be used by a domestic Indian business – and there are still millions of them that do not have their own websites.  On the other hand, international companies tend to use .in.

Right now, .in tends to be more popular with domainers, primarily because they believe that even though .co.in is better established, .in will become more popular and overtake .co.in.

I personally believe that India is large enough that both extensions will do well and be used extensively.  In my opinion, both extensions are worth investing in, keeping in mind the slightly different uses and audiences of each one.

For futher discussion of this, see:
.Co.In or Just .In
.In vs .Co.In – The Big Debate!

Indian Domain Sales Strong

Every Wednesday, DNJournal publishes a country code top 20 chart, covering the highest reported ccTLD sales from the previous week.

In today’s post, it shows that two of the top 20 ccTLD sales were .in domains.  Coming in at #3, iVillage.in sold for $4,750.  Placing #14, KKR.in sold for $1,958 – an excellent price and ROI for a “non-premium” LLL.in that was just registered 1 1/2 years ago.

In fact, LLL.in domain sales continue to be strong.  On forums, the premium ones tend to trade for more than their .biz and .us counterparts.  RBE.in recently sold on Sedo for $700.  CNX.in sold for $502.  There have also been a few unreported sales of LLL.in to endusers for high $x,xxx and low $xx,xxx.

NNN.in seem to be coming into their own lately.  300.in recently sold for $1,650, which I believe is the second highest reported price for an NNN.in sale (123.in previously sold for $7,500).

Other recent Indian domain sales include Seafood.in for $900, which was a steal in my opinion.

Sales of Indian domains continue to be brisk, with a good number of Indian domains currently on auction at Sedo, including degrees.co.in, awards.co.in, fze.in, directv.in, and dial.in.

To find out more about investing in Indian domains, joint the discussion at INForum.in – home of the Indian domain industry.