Marchex to Fox: Hola Amigo! .. Buys 100 domains for $10 million in Cash

http://www.dnjournal.com:80/lowdown.htm

Great piece in DNJournal.com this morning referencing Marchex's Announcement partnering with News Corporation (Latin Channel Division) on the development of a bunch of Marchex's premium domain names.

Quote: "Marchex recently acquired more than 100 Spanish-language Web sites from two separate parties (one of them being Paraguay's Chris Chena. Chena, who was featured in our July 2005 Cover Story). The acquired Web sites collectively generated more than 1 million unique monthly visitors for the month of April 2007".

Looks like they paid about $10 per monthly unique for Latin traffic..  said traffic likely coming from a mixture of pure organic type-in traffic but the majority probably from Chris Chena's development of the sites.

Given the staggering number of insanely good domains in their collective portfolio, I'm shocked that Rupert Murdoch isn't cementing his legacy on the Internet by buying Marchex in its entirety. Instead he's busy courting the darling of a bygone era for 8-10 times Marchex's value! Rupert baby... the best assets on the Internet don't come with thousands of staff and projections through 2012 - they are right under your fingertips, on your keyboard.

Comments

[Javier florentin]

En hora buena por chena ya lo eh felicitado, es uno de los grandes domainers de subdamerica, entre ellos tiene muchos dominios premiun como juegos.com y viajes.com valuados mas de 1M. Una nueva era esta comensando en la venta de Dominios en español. Salidos

[RJ]

Generic Domains add no value. Any hits you see are a result of people 1) typing into the address bar instead of Google search (by mistake). They quickly back out of the result screen when they see the substandard leads or click out of sheer curiosity backing out quickly to Google where quality results are displayed. WHen you want to see a movie you don;t go to videos.com You go to Netflix or amazon.com or walmart.com (to buy)..you are simply spinning your wheels. Most peole lose money in this business..

***FS*** The laughing sound you just heard came from the private jet that whistled over your cubicle filled with people who are 'spinning their wheels'. Not trying to be overly hard on you, but domain-name type-in traffic has been around since the beginning of the net.. it is real ...it works.. Google, Yahoo (and Microsoft) know it. Don't take my word for it. Do your own research. If you did.. you just wouldn't talk 'crazy talk' like that. 10-15% of google's own traffic comes from this imaginary fairy dust.. more of Yahoo's (as %) serious serious.

[Sahar Sarid]

I have a feeling he is about to realize it very soon..
:)

***FS*** Me too.

[David Wrixon]

If you have low grade names particularly in alternative extensions, then you cannot expect much type-in, using SEO to leverage your earnings is the only way forward, unless you can afford to go into the market for better names.

From what I have seen, development on low grade names is a lot more effective than it is on high grade names. If you have a two or three word combo, the chances of getting it onto the front page of search for the keywords combos contained in the domain are very good. You might not get a huge amount of Search, but what you do get can be leveraged.

If you have a high grade single word domain like Insurance or Computers getting onto the front page of search is likely to prove to be just about impossible, however, much development you do. Yes, if you can get it there yes you would stand to make a serious amount of money, but frankly unless you have a genuine commercial website and the associated infrastructure of a vast retail chain behind you, you are going to struggle to get high enough up the Search Rankings to make much of an impact. It would seem to me the rational approach in most cases is to sit back and accept the not inconsiderable revenue flow from type-in until somebody with the resources to take things to the next level turns up and buys you out.

To go to the next level, you effectively have to kiss domaining goodbye and become a more conventional entrepreneur. The question is why would you want to? You go from having one of the easiest managed business there ever was, where you have control of your life, to rejoining the rat race for much higher levels of commercial risk and much lower ROIs. Even if it made you richer, what would be the point?

[Cameron Johnson]

Congrats to Chris Chena. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy!

[Robb]

I think Marchex got a good deal, these are great generic Spanish words, and it's a huge language in the America's and Spain, with good future growth. The value is roughly the same as for the recent sale of porn.com, and I would rather have the Spanish portfolio no question. Makes me want to buy some Marchex stock before they're taken over.

[Steve M.]

...me thinks RJ is (in the words of the late great Joe Karbo) too busy working to make any money...

[TMfor]

Rupert should buy us all - one billion for Frank, one billion for Marchex, couple of billions for the rest of us - he could own half of the internet for less money than WSJ...