Buying your domain name at auction

The beginning of this section started out by explaining how a Venezuelan online casino spent more than one million dollars to buy the Wallstreet.com domain name. This transaction was actually facilitated through GreatDomains.com, a domain name broker. GreatDomains.com describes it's business as "a market for companies and individuals to buy and sell domain names, developed Web sites, and Internet-based businesses under the accepted industry practices that govern business opportunity and trademark sales."

GreatDomains.com is very similar to an online auction where domain names can be bought and sold. GreatDomains.com acts as the broker and receives a percentage of the sale. To give you an idea of how important this market is, GreatDomains.com posts many key statistics on its site, like the average selling price per domain name is $10,170.

In addition to GreatDomains.com, there are many other places where domain names are being bought and sold online. Some of these include traditional online auctions like eBay and Amazon.com, and other specialty Web sites like those shown below:

Since prices for domain names purchased though these brokers can be easily reach thousands of dollars, many businesses decide to forgo this expense and just go with a "lesser" name. A "lesser" name would be one that is purchased through Network Solutions/InterNIC for about $100, but isn't exactly what you want. Obviously, if you can get the domain name you want from InterNIC, then there is no need to use a broker. However, many companies are now facing the reality that part of doing business on the Web includes the cost of buying the right domain name.