I am well past due to update my case study, but this has caught my interest over the last few days.
The domain name sale for fiscal.com is on Godaddy Domain Auctions. It currently has 128 bids and the price stands at $30,500. There are still over 5 days to go until the auction finishes.
This is one of those auctions where I fail to understand the value and why 8 different bidders have so far bid over $20k for this domain name.
The Positives:
- It is memorable
- There is a clear spelling that can’t be confused
- It is financial
- It is a one-word dictionary word and short
The Negatives:
- There is very little traffic
- The domain name has very little authority
- There are very few links of SEO value
- Not at all valuable
- It seems that it was previously used as a Spanish site
As with many auctions, there may be something that I am totally missing. However, it seems that fiscal is mainly an english word and even in other languages, its translation is also fiscal.
So, what does fiscal mean?
According to Google, it means:
“relating to government revenue, especially taxes.”
The top 3 searches on Google according to ahrefs are:
Fiscal
Fiscal Policy
Fiscal Year
With 40k, 39k, and 32k searches respectively.
It’s not a small number of searches, but nowhere near:
finance – 7.5m
business – 375k after 3 other phrases containing the word
policy – 51k after 5 other phrases containing the word
I also realize that the present bid of $30k is nowhere near the amount which finance.com or business.com would reach.
When I think of the value of a domain, I try and take into account what the business use may be and who may buy it as an end-user. I am generally not buying as an end-user, so also know that when I buy a domain I need to estimate what multiple I would need to sell it at to reach the right profit balance.
I can’t see how any business would be able to use fiscal.com effectively. The closest link could be an accountancy or law company that is closely related to government work. But even that, is a bit of a stretch as the keyword is very closely related to government. Perhaps a think-tank or lobbyists? But in both cases, would it really be realistic to spend $30k on a keyword domain that would not add that much.
I’m very interested to see where the auction goes, but if it is being bought by a domain reseller then I have a feeling that they may be buying a domain name for their portfolio that can never be sold at a decent price.