SEX.com fiasco is not unexpected...

[dn-101]

SEX.com fiasco is not unexpected...

It was reported here at DNF 2 years ago that at that price level and that biz model the deal
is not sustainable.
Here's the link:

http://www.dnforum.com/f250/domain-names-portfolio-management-theory-thread-286221.html


Star Performers
It turns out that one doesn’t need star-quality domains to make a decent living. As a matter of fact, some of the stars can literally kill your business.
Let’s take a look at the financial workings of sex.com. This domain was purchased for $12,000,000 with a commercial rate loan at 11.75%/10 year.
At this rate the sex.com owner has to pay $170,435 in monthly payments. It was reported that sex.com attracts close to 3,000 visitors a day, with half of those converging. Several years ago the adult industry was paying publishers anywhere from $2 to $5 per visitor. These days the numbers are $0.25 to $2.00. Assuming sex.com is getting the top dollar we get
3000 x $2 x 30 days x 50% = $90,000 estimate.
$170,435-$90,000= $80,435 shortage!
Yes, there is a good chance that another shmuck will come along and shell out $25 million for this domain and rescue the current owner. Meanwhile, the sex.com owner is bleeding.

 

[owntag]

According to a sales source.

XXX.com gets 1.4M uniques per month
FreeSex.com gets between 600K and 725K uniques per month

 

[Stian]

I'm willing to bet my left pinky finger that Sex.com receives more than 3k uniques/day. 30-50k uniques/day is more likely.

 

[dn-101]

Happiness is a positive cash flow

 

[silentg]

It would for sure sell again for a higher price. Sex sells.

Pornhub should invest in it. They rank #1 for the keyword sex on google

 

[wussadotcom]

If they already ranked top for that particular why should they spend more to get that particular .com

 

[Credit]

I'm pretty sure sex.com gets wayyy more than 3k/day - at least 10x more. At least. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100k/day.

 

[Theo]

It's all irrelevant if it's going under the ax due to liquidation of assets.

 

[rianvisser]

I think you might be basing your theory upon Compete stats. They estimate an average of 120 000 visitors per month, which will be around 4000 per day. But, remember that Compete only measures US traffic as they are monitoring US Internet usage trends.

I tend to agree with the rest that Sex.com may get way more than 4000 visitors per day when taking all visitors from around the world into consideration.

 

[Seraphim]

3k visitors a day my arse...

I love reading through blog and forum posts with stats and dollar figures based on Alexa and Compete scores. What's next, valuate.com? Get real...

 

[Mike Cruz]

3k visitors a day my arse...

I love reading through blog and forum posts with stats and dollar figures based on Alexa and Compete scores. What's next, valuate.com? Get real...

Come on now, Valuate is a upgraded version of Estibot, much more enhanced! It values Sex.com around $14,000,000 ~ Got to be legit.

 

[rianvisser]

Come on now, Valuate is a upgraded version of Estibot, much more enhanced! It values Sex.com around $14,000,000 ~ Got to be legit.

You are not serious, are you?

 

[Seraphim]

Come on now, Valuate is a upgraded version of Estibot, much more enhanced! It values Sex.com around $14,000,000 ~ Got to be legit.

Ok Sir, what you're going to want to do is punt this Oscar Mayer that direction. The woman standing 700 yards beyond those tall trees, hasn't had an orgasm in 4 years...

Focus... you can do this...

 

[katherine]

It values Sex.com around $14,000,000 ~ Got to be legit.

Domain sales are the best appraisals

 

[Mike Cruz]

You are not serious, are you?

Ok Sir, what you're going to want to do is punt this Oscar Mayer that direction. The woman standing 700 yards beyond those tall trees, hasn't had an orgasm in 4 years...

Focus... you can do this...

Domain sales are the best appraisals

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[DTalk]

Oh, I'm sure Sex.com gets enough traffic...

Problem with Sex.com is not the decline in the paying porn industry....nor lack of traffic....but, a lazy use of a sublime asset.


This thing could be the greatest money-spinner on the net...Needs full-blown development + a good biz model + power SEO & promotion.

Whatever it sells for today, in proactive hands, this could be a $50 - $100 million domain just 3-5 years into the future.

.

 

[Tim Schoon]

compete.com shows 120-200k US uniques/mo, thats only us traffic.

also the alexa rank is FAR above 3k uniques/mo.
60k alexa isnt massive for a name of this quality, but surely receives more than 3k uniques/day if i compare it to my own domains..

 

[charlescarreon]

When I sat down with Yishai Hibari, Gary Kremen, and Joel Dichter in December 2000, Sex.Com had just shy of 900,000 hits (don't remember uniques) per day, and banners sold for $50,000/month. However, it was being used in what was then a high-risk fashion, and may have been a cover for money-laundering. Still, the traffic was humongous, and if Ron Levy's willingness to license it for $400k/month plus 40% of the upside from there, a copy of which proposed agreement I still have somewhere, at least one sleaze visionary saw a way to make a buttload of cash.

We must remember, Gary Kremen had not even the foresight to publish a website at Sex.Com during the sixteen months he owned it, from May 1994 until it was stolen in September 1995. Instead, he paid $2K to buy Match.Com during the same time period. That is a man without a porn bone in his body. And I, the top member of his legal team, had virtually no knowledge of domains in general outside of the legal end, that I was busy creating by analogy to California water law (Yuba River Power Company case). So we were people with legal acumen, but not industry insider knowledge.

Once Gary got control of the cash flow, the experience, and other things, IMHO, knocked him off balance. He and I separated acrimoniously, due to abominable behavior on his part, and an excess of confidence on mine. After he left off working with Hibari, which I had urged him to do, he undertook a site-design that built on (1) His favored notion of creating third-level domains like gay.sex.com, and (2) His poor sense of graphic design (gray background, little or no graphic content). Gary's rate of deal-making accelerated, but the word in the industry was that the traffic wasn't converting as well as it had during the Cohen era, and link-buyers melted away. Gary didn't make any successful content, didn't use the brand to sell anything in particular, didn't venture into DVD sales or VOD, and in general demonstrated how little he really liked thinking about sex. To some extent, you need a dirty mind to succeed in online sex.

Now Gary is a green entrepreneur, selling software for Solar Installer Estimating at http://www.cleanpowerfinance.com. That's much more his style.

 

[dn-101]

My traffic numbers may have been significantly off, but so is the ppc. They barely get a nickel.
And so, the ppc model here is DOA.
Type in doesn't convert:
http://www.ricksblog.com/my_weblog/2011/03/anonymous-guest-post-sexcom-and-a-qualified-review.html

 

[nguyenjustin]

PPC model is worth crap nowadays. I get enough to pay for renewal. and maybe a little bit extra to pay for some of my webhosting....

Sex.com may get their payment not from Big ppc companies like google. but maybe from individual companies.. something like the milliondollarpage website...

But in my honest opinion... PPC is not worth anything anymore.. google adsense is paying me crap for my 3 character keyword domain name, which gets a very decent amount of hits.