.Build Domain Auction Fails Miserably Netting $800

Namejet was running a .Build New gTLD “premium” domain auction for the past 10 days. I say “premium” because this is one of the New gTLDs that don’t make any sense to me. New gTLDs are all about having the correct left/right keyword combination. And of course they should be in the correct order. I did a search for the keyword “build” at the Google Keyword Planner and most of the proposed keyword combinations have .build on the left. And “build” is not that popular as a keyword or as part of a 2 word keyword combination if you compare it to other New gTLDs.

Anyway the Namejet auction failed miserably as only 2 of the 26 .build domains were sold for a grand total of $800. The domain 2.build sold for $500 and character.build sold for $300.

Namejet was (and still is?) notoriously known for not easily accepting domain portfolios from domain investors for auction. I am not sure why their strategy has changed. I think that Namejet lost some money by running this auction because the commission from the $800 can’t possibly cover the cost of setting up, running and doing marketing and promoting for this auction.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Too many failed auctions are not good for the domain names involved (and the New gTLD in this case), the auction house, and domaining in general.

The auction attracted some bids on 16 more domains but the reserves were not met. There were some strange bids especially from a certain bidding alias I have never seen before that had 9 bids that were all just below the reserve. $250-$275 when the reserve was at about $300 and $425-$475 when the reserve was at about $500. This alias didn’t win any domains.

Of course I wouldn’t ever touch a .build domain because first of all it doesn’t make any sense and secondly because a couple of months back I started a Campaign to boycott the .Build New gTLD.

Plan Bee, LLC, the .build registry, is a California company and part of the Minardos Group and one third of the group that consists of “What Box Holdings“, “Plan Bee LLC” andThomas A. Brackey IIthat has managed to register more than 300 premium generic domain names before anyone else. How? Using “fake” trademarks in Sunrise.

Here are the auction results:

Domain Name Price Reserve
character.build $300
habitats.build
homeconstruction.build $250 Reserve Not Met
lists.build
machines.build $295 Reserve Not Met
networking.build $275
programs.build
robots.build
system.build $275 Reserve Not Met
tradeshow.build $275 Reserve Not Met
greentechnology.build
lend.build $375 Reserve Not Met
2.build $500
custommade.build
deals.build $375 Reserve Not Met
confidence.build $425 Reserve Not Met
consultants.build
betterhomes.build $475 Reserve Not Met
courses.build
customize.build
kauai.build $120 Reserve Not Met
repair.build $100 Reserve Not Met
teams.build $100 Reserve Not Met
teamtraining.build
teamworkshops.build
prices.build $250 Reserve Not Met
professional.build
mediterranean.build
selfconfidence.build
selfesteem.build
regulations.build
european.build $100 Reserve Not Met
australian.build $120 Reserve Not Met
brazilian.build
british.build $100 Reserve Not Met
canadian.build
Sold.Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

25 comments

  1. I like those bids just under the reserve, I am sick of this crap, these people need to own up to the bidding patterns of unknowns. Why bid to that level then go to sleep, I guess since they gamed GTLD’s, they can game the platform as well.

  2. Funny how the one that sold…character.build doesn’t make sense.
    shouldn’t it be…character.builder?… i don’t know seem right to me.
    Got a message from go daddy today and they are going to keep the instant pages going and the for sale starter pages.
    I use those a lot, i make my own slash page. plus they are free.

    http://planireland.com

    just an example.

  3. It seems that registries such as .build and .luxury have realized too late that they would have been better off trying to secure those words as SLDs rather than TLDs. Konstaninos, how significant do you think that the superior word order is going to matter in terms of ranking performance? Is luxury.diamonds, for example, going to significantly outperform diamonds.luxury? Intuitively it does make sense, but I have yet to find much written on reverse-match domains as opposed to exact-match domains.

    • Order already matters. Just google “luxury diamonds” and “diamonds luxury”. The first one gets all the relevant results and the 2nd one gets
      all the “diamonds, luxury” references. Google has become pretty smart and searches exactly what people type because in the other order words can have different meaning.

      • @Zournas,

        In the original question, Garrison’s question included the dot between the keywords. But you conveniently googled without them.

        You have NOT answered his question. The dots matter.

      • No, in search they don’t. How do they matter? Do spaces matter as well? Then creditcard.com will only be found by people that don’t know how to type?

      • Let me tell ya how it matters:

        If you use the search results from the simple keywords, [luxury diamonds], you get results for the .COM

        Followed by many other TLDs, depending on the content I suppose.

        But, I swear to God, the results have nothing to do with the new gTLDs as intended by the questioner.

        The questioner, (Garrison), was inquiring as to what order of importance the search engines place the new gTLDs, for example:

        Luxury.Diamonds

        Vs

        Diamonds.Luxury

        You proceeded to give the questioner the sequence of search results for the dot COM! That has nothing to do with the pending question. Until you go all the way down to where diamonds.luxury and luxury.diamonds appear on the search result, which may be nowhere, you have not answered the question. The dots matter.

        It is fallacy of equivocation, false attribution, to do what you did.

      • If you use simple keywords like a human “luxury diamonds” you get results for what you get results: .com .net .gr .anything.

        The importance the search engines give to the order of words applies to all domains. Not just new gtlds or old tlds.
        I didn’t proceed to give any sequence of search results. Your mind did that because .com was ranked 1st.
        You keep creating stuff in your mind that don’t exist and replying to imaginary and irrelevant questions.

        Please search without dots and search engines deliver the dots. If keywords are placed the other way around they could have a different meaning and google detects that and returns different results.

      • BTW

        I just hand registered a domain name that I will use to deal issues such as these, in the 7th degree. Watch for it.

        The name is:

        Heptakis.com

      • @Zournas,

        “If you use simple keywords like a human “luxury diamonds” you get results for what you get results: .com .net .gr .anything”.

        That’s exactly the point. You get results for legacy TLDs when you use simple keywords.

        NOW FOLLOW ME, AND STICK WITH IT! How does that answer Garrison’s question about the importance of order placed by search engines on new gTLDs, using his example diamonds.luxury versus Luxury.Diamonds? Answer the GODDAMN question, succinctly, instead of useless insults!

        I will give you one more chance to understand, got me? No more insults.

      • Domenclature you keep twisting everybody’s words to fit your ideas.
        “If you use simple keywords like a human “luxury diamonds” you get results for what you get results: .com .net .gr .anything”.
        .anything are the new gtlds.

        Google doesn’t have 2 search engines. All domains are in one. If you can’t find a result if the first 5, 10 or 100 pages it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

        I already replied to Garrison. Learn to read what’s there and not what’s in your mind:
        “If keywords are placed the other way around they could have a different meaning and google detects that and returns different results.”
        Got me? If not please leave this blog.

      • @Zournas,

        To make it simpler for you, focus on Garrison’s emphasis of “reverse-match domains as opposed to exact-match domains”, that is the gist of his question. Deal with that.

      • I dealt. Move on.
        I said that this is a domain name problem and not a new gtld domain name only.
        CardCredit.com will not have the weight as CreditCard.com when people search for “credit card”.
        If they search for “card credit” then things change.
        Now, what this weight is I don’t know. Ask google.

      • I caution you, Zournas, when you are dealing with exact-match domains, you don’t have room to play, the dot matters, and so does the extension. You can’t use dot com results to answer dot luxury questions. NO!

      • I don’t understand you. You mix 3 different things all together and you make it impossible for anyone to find a way to reply.
        Good luck with this attitude.

        The dot matters as a dot? Dot.dot? What is a dot? What is life. To be or not to be… (you make people mad. move on!)

        .com results? lol Maybe you want to make 1000 google engines to fit your needs?
        No, google will not do that for you. NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

      • @Zournas,

        “CardCredit.com will not have the weight as CreditCard.com”

        For the third time, the dots matter. The example you gave above is NOT the same thing or comparable to Luxury.Diamonds and Diamonds.Luxury because the the switch of the keyword word you are using (Credit card) is before the dot, PLUS the the reasoning behind your example indicates that even if your example was proper, it would have come before the dot of extension; WHEREAS Garrison’s keywords (luxury.diamonds, diamonds.luxury) are tantamount to hacks, where the keywords read together BUT with an imposed dot between’em.

        Therefore, I was trying to guard you to answer his question particularly, only limited to which one Google would prefer, diamonds.luxury Vs luxury.diamonds.

        You are the one that is running off to tangents, and on top of that, you are trying to say that keywords are keywords; in essence, to you, sex.com is NOT more important, or more valuable than sex.luxury; and I say that you are wrong, THE EXTENSION DOES MATTER, THE DOT’s PLACEMENT DOES MATTER.

        You say they don’t matter, that search is search, and keyword is keyword.It’s keyword PLUS extension buddy.

        Now, I expect you to feign confusion. Go ahead.

      • This is exactly the same:
        “CardCredit.com will not have the weight as CreditCard.com”
        “Diamonds.Luxury will not have the weight as Luxury.Diamonds”

        And that is only because keywords are in the reverse order and when they are they are going to be inside the content too.
        When the website is going to say “visit Diamonds.Luxury for diamonds” google is going to detect that.

        You are just being an ass. I am not comparing Diamonds.Luxury and LuxuryDiamonds.com. Get that?
        Google is not giving more weight to .luxury and less to .diamonds or vice versa.

        New gTLDs are not hacks by definition! This is a hack: ire.land. This is NOT A HACK: Luxury.Diamonds.

        Now again you are comparing sex.com with sex.luxury. Nobody asked for that comparison.

        People don’t search for extensions. They search for keywords. Google returns keyword PLUS extension.

  4. Most normal humans will simply type the word or words to search for something. Google will try to provide the best results based on the search query. The order as Zournas said does matter when searching. But as for gTLDs, new TLDs, evil TLDs, naughty TLDs, ccTLDs, uber TLDs, blabla TLDs, , it doesn’t matter. If the .com has the best content and best match for what the user is looking for it’ll probably show up in the top. But if it is a .luxury which has the best content it might show up also in the top.

    No conspiracy here 😉

    • What?.You.Don’t.type.dots.in.search.engines.?.
      Domenclature.com.will.be.very.unhappy.if.he.hears.this.
      Now.start.typing.dots.and.luxury.and.diamonds.Lot’s.of.diamonds………….

    • @Pax,

      Pay attention to what the debate is about, of course you’d have to ignore Zournas to accomplish this feat. He basically changed the discourse.

      I recommend that you start from Garrison’s comment. The chap just wanted o inquire from New gTLD Guru Zournas which of the two strings would get more love from search engines, which he brilliantly put as “exact-match domains” vs “reverse-match” ones. That’s it. This has nothing to do with the profound tirade you got into, viz Google search result patterns.

      • As someone who builds websites and keeps track of how Google ranks its results I’m not sure why it is considered that Exact Match Domains still have any importance. Google are even trialling a Chrome update without an address bar (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181657-google-moves-to-kill-off-the-url-entirely-in-new-version-of-chrome) because that’s how irrelevant they think it is. I also think this is their solution to the new gtlds so people don’t have to remember an address they just type what they are looking for and google will show you the best results for that search.

        Over the last couple of years Google have specifically downgraded sites with exact match domains in their algorithm updates and moved the focus to high quality content. They are making the domain less and less relevant to search results and have moved towards what they call semantic search, which is where their algorithm places weight on the order and combination of words. Matt Cutts at Google has even said they are not going to be weighting domains and instead tells people to focus on their content.

        Therefore if someone were to search for ‘where can I buy luxury diamonds’ it wouldn’t matter whether the domain was diamonds.luxury or luxury.diamonds it would matter who had the highest quality content. The domain name doesn’t need to have anything to do the exact words in the search results. Otherwise why would Amazon appear when you search for ‘buy books’. Going forward your domain could be sparkly.horse or humanrights.fail and you could still rank higher than the two diamonds related domains if your content was better.

        Please shake hands and make up.

      • Chris, I believe that Google still give some small weight to Exact Match Domains. It is just their company strategy to say they give no value to domains so that more people will use their search.
        If they thought domains were irrelevant they would be buying any of their .com and wouldn’t be starting all their new gtlds.

        “have moved towards what they call semantic search, which is where their algorithm places weight on the order and combination of words.”
        Domen doesn’t understand this. This is why I say that exact match domains will have a little more weight that reverse domains.
        And that is because keywords that are in the reverse order, will also be inside the content in the reverse order.
        When the website is going to say “Welcome to Diamonds.Luxury” google is going to detect that and returns results for “Diamonds Luxury” and not “Luxury Diamonds”.

        It is possible that “sparkly.horse” will be better than Diamonds.Luxury because it will not be relevant to a luxury diamonds search.

      • No Domen. You pay attention. You are debating some imaginary .com vs .diamonds debate.
        The question has everything to do do with google search results patterns.

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