The domain name SwineFlu.com has been sold as I expected yesterday due to a change in the whois records. To my surprise, SwineFlu.com was first registered in March of 2000.
The last owner, Jarred Cohen of UltimateDomains.com had owned the SwineFlu.com domain name for about the past 3 years. Jarred confirmed the sale to me and stated:
It’s a cool story but one not ready to be told
I would have to expect the domain sold for at least 4 figures but there is a chance that it sold for 5 figures or more.
Many domain name sales go unreported as well as many being reported without the sale price made public.
Currently SwineFlu.com has an Alexa.com rank of 815,962 which shows the domain does get some traffic and I would think the majority of this is Direct Navigation. Owning the exact match .com domain is the only source that is likely to get direct navigation which adds extreme value to domain names like this.
Will the Swine Flu fade into the sunset like the Bird Flu did? Only time will tell.
Blue String Ventures Inc. is the new owner of SwineFlu.com and they also own SwineFlu.info which forwards to the .com . Currently, not much is on the site at SwineFlu.com but I’m sure they are working on something to put up.
Blue String Ventures Inc. also owns the domain name BirdFlu.com and approx 176 domain names total.
Ty Hancocks
If it’s of interest, the asking price on the Fabulous.com lander that SwineFlu.com was parked at quoted the “Buy it Now” price as $39,450 before the sale took place, which then changed to “Make an Offer” a day or two before the transfer as news of the outbreak spread.
Reece Berg
Thanks for the sales report Jamie. It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out — certainly a high risk, potentially high reward domain. Like some people have said in appraisals threads about more mediocre Swine Flu domains — I hope for everyone’s sake it never becomes extremely valuable. If it does though, I wonder if one of those companies working on making vaccines will have the smarts to buy it… Hmm..
Jamie Zoch
@ Reece,
I would think even with minor development, SwineFlu.com could be making Thousands a day. How? Simply by selling Rubber Gloves and N95 masks… Don’t think people are buying those two things… all the fairly priced items mentioned are Sold Out on Amazon. With targeted traffic that SwineFlu.com brings in, people will buy! IMO. As things change, so should the site.
Jarred
Thanks for the post Jamie. I wish the new owner the best with it.
Obada
I contacted the owner by submitting an offer through Sedo , he asked for $40k , i offered him only $4k , then i canceled the nego. .
Also SwineFlu.net , SwineFlu.org ,SwineFlu.biz , SwineFlu.info , SwineFlu.us , all registered 10 days ago , even when i tried to register SwineFlu.de in 26 of April it was gone few minutes before me .
As a precaution ,I registered SwineFlu.asia and SwineFluTherapy.com ,since I’m a pharmacist beside being a Domainer
J.R. Jackson (Internet's $8-Million Man)
Wow, $40k would be great for the seller of this domain. I wonder what other “flu” related sites are available?
J.R.
Writer
That must have been a good ROI for the seller.