August 4, 2011Godaddy launched a domain name market analysis section on their site today which touts the claim that they are selling more domain names at auction than industry veteran Sedo.com.
According to Godaddy : Go Daddy sold more than 109,000 domain names through auctions in 2nd Quarter 2011.
Sedo sold approximately 10,600 domain names in 2nd Quarter 2011.
This includes a list of top sales by month, including June’s sale of UpCloud.com for a whopping $100,000.
The sheer volume of sales is likely due to the fact that Godaddy is one of the largest domain registrars that auctions off domain names that are expiring from it’s user base and Sedo is not. The comparison is a bit apples to oranges, yet the numbers are stunning. Namejet.com might be a better company to compare Godaddy with. Namejet auctions many registrar deletions at a starting price of $69 compared to Godaddy’s $10 starting price.
The data on the site also shows some interesting numbers about the amount of domains that are sold Buy it Now, Offer/Counter-offer and Auction. Again, the numbers are likely skewed with the Auction numbers receiving more volume because of the deleting names that Godaddy auctions. The Buy Now number is the one that is impressive. It would be great to see these numbers made a little more granular to know how many of those auctions were deleting/expired domains vs actual sellers and how many of the Buy It Now were Premium Listing names sold from home page searches.
The launch of this new section of the Godaddy site and the recent lowering of commissions seems to be a clear indicator that Godaddy is aggressively going after the domain aftermarket business. Kudos to Godaddy for sharing this data.