The domain welcome2018.com has dropped and DropCatch caught it.
One might think, who in their right mind would bid on this anachronism of a domain name, and yet, 23 bidders are fighting for ownership!
LOLOLOLOL
(Only Andrew of DNW would understand this.)
What the flipping f4ck. It’s almost 2020 and a domain about the dawn of 2018 is currently at $850 dollars.
Once again:
LOLOLOLOL
This has to be the biggest domain surprise auction of all time.
But wait a second… Historic WHOIS data from DomainTools, shows that the domain was used by the Russian organizing committee for the 2018 World Cup.
OMGOMGOMG!
That, might explain all the interest – but still, the domain is a dud, despite any residual traffic as it’s tied to a specific year.
Maybe one of the bidders is Vladimir Putin? 😀
Update: Auction ended at $18,050 dollars with the winner being DropCatch user “johndomain” – we’ll have to see if the auction gets paid.
The domain is linked to from over 2.5k sites (over a quarter mil backlinks total) including wikipedia, nytimes, washpost, etc. The bidders want this domain for its SEO value. Domain valuation is not always about the literal name itself.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ backlinks mean nothing when the targeted content can’t be reproduced. Sure, you can park the domain but the site’s authority then drops. It’s a catch 22.
Why can’t the content be reproduced? http://web.archive.org/web/20190202092439/http://welcome2018.com/en/ — Do you mean from a legal/copyright perspective?
I’m not arguing that this method is 100% on the up and up… but this is clearly why the domain has demand. The high bid is over $1k now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes significantly higher before the auction closes.
Because Google algorithms handle such scraped or recreated content with zero tolerance.
So even the guy who spent $6k on Motherisk .org had to ditch the copied content and write some content, hoping it will stick:
https://domaingang.com/domain-news/motherisk-org-someone-spent-6k-to-spoof-a-defunct-canadian-hospital-project/
Again, I’m not arguing that this method is advisable (although there’s a debate to be had for the value of these links, in my experience it is not as clear cut as you say) … but that’s not what my comment is about… I’m just saying this is clearly why the domain is getting 4-figure bids at auction. Domains with weak names but authoritative backlink profiles frequently go for 4 and 5 figures at auction. Your article expresses complete confusion regarding why the domain has bids (“What the flipping f4ck. It’s almost 2020 and a domain about the dawn of 2018 is currently at $850 dollars”) and doesn’t mention backlinks at all.
Garbage domain!! Some domainers have WAY too much money to waste!!
Mike – That makes sense. Auction ended at $18,050 and it seems that johndomain has a lot of cash to waste.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – No confusion there, sorry you are not familiar with this blog’s style. These domains offer no authority whatsoever without the original content. The old days of black hat SEO are gone.