Canadian Domain Auction Landscape Changes

April 22, 2008 · Print This Article

There have been some notable changes over the last few days in the Canadian domain auction landscape.

Sibername has introduced changes in their TBR system. First, they have raised the minimum bid from $15 to $25. While I’m sure domainers will complain about the increase in price (after all, who wants to pay more?), I believe that this is a good step. My guess is that Sibername was wasting a lot of resources trying to catch dropping domains that would only sell for $15, when these resources could have been reallocated to catching higher value domains. For $15, they are better off selling new registrations than TBR domains.

Sibername has also introduced a “minimum opening bid” for their TBR auctions. According to Sibername, “[t]his is the minimum price you would like to pay for the domain name if you are the only bidder for the domain name.” If the domain is caught, the auction will start at this amount. This seems to me a step back towards their old bidding system (that I preferred) in which the auction actually started before the name was caught. I like this move, as it allows Sibername a better idea about how to prioritize their attempts to catch dropping domains, again allowing them to aim for the best ones.

Sibername has quietly cancelled their monthly .ca domain auction. There is currently one running that finishes at the end of this month, and this will be the final one. When asked why they were cancelling the auction, the only thing Sibername would tell me was that the auctions were “inexpedient.”

With Sibername dropping out of the .ca domain auction world, other companies are stepping in to fill their place. Pool has announced their first premium .ca auction. It only contains one domain – cafe.ca – obviously a very good domain. The auction starts tomorrow – to join it, you simply add this domain to your backorder list. The one name at a time concept is interesting and I will be interested to see how it works out. Bido is planning one premium auction per day; with the smaller Canadian market, offering one premium auction per week may make sense.

Finally, the MyID auction has been rescheduled. I’m not sure why, but I’d prefer that they do a good job, rather than a quick job! The auction will now take place from May 22 to May 29. They will start accepting submissions of domains on Friday and will continue to accept them until May 1. If it doesn’t sell before then, I’ll be submitting my 0b.ca domain and will report on how that goes.

Related Posts

    None Found

Comments

13 Responses to “Canadian Domain Auction Landscape Changes”

  1. Dennis H on April 22nd, 2008 5:41 pm

    I’m thinking of buying a .com domain name for a site that wound target the Canada/Canadian market. Althought this isn’t the name what would be better CanadaRealEstate.com or CanadianRealEstate.com?
    Thanks,
    Dennis H.

  2. admin on April 22nd, 2008 8:02 pm

    @Dennis – Put two domainers in a room and you’ll likely get 3 opinions on that :-D. I personally like CanadaRealEstate.com better. It sounds better to my ears and is shorter. I tried a few other words, and the Canada prefix normally sounded better to me than the Canadian one. Both are quite good. Of course, generally RealEstate.ca would be best, but that might be a lot pricier.

  3. Dennis H on April 22nd, 2008 8:31 pm

    Thanks for the reply. I live and was born in the United States (Rhode Island) but have some relatives in Toronto. How would you compare .com to .ca in Canada? In the States .com is so dominate, nobody even knows about .US . I have some .US domains that I hope will rise in value some day if it ever catches on.
    Dennis

  4. admin on April 22nd, 2008 8:52 pm

    I think the .us really has failed to live up to its potential, which is too bad. All it would take is a good marketing push – “get .us – it’s patriotic!” and it could do so much better. Businesses that couldn’t afford the .com would then choose the .us over another extension. Hopefully, one day this will happen.

    In Canada, it’s about 50-50. There is widespread use of .ca and people are familiar with it, but I wouldn’t say it’s dominant. I think that over time it is gaining more prominence though.

  5. damir on April 22nd, 2008 9:05 pm

    Thanks for the info – GREAT post

  6. Dennis H on April 22nd, 2008 9:17 pm

    Godaddy tried to get the contract for the .US registry but NeuStar was able to win it back. I think Godaddy would have put more money into marketing it and raised it’s visibility. Hopefully they’ll try again when it comes up for renewal.

    Dennis

  7. Bulent on June 11th, 2008 10:05 am

    Hi;

    we do still offer ca auctions
    FYI

    Bulent Turkoglu
    Sibername.com

  8. admin on June 11th, 2008 11:04 am

    Thanks Bulent. I’ll shoot you an email for some more details.