A Domain Name that is Pure Gold

The NameBio daily domain sales report for Aug. 6, 2018 indicated that the domain name pure.gold sold on Flippa for $980.  To my knowledge there has been no official sales announcement, so I decided to try to see who was the buyer, as well as do a short comparative analysis. Along the way I looked at some existing companies  that use the term pure gold in their business name or product line.

Some Possibilities

The name "pure gold" is widely used by a number of different products and companies. At least for me here in Canada, Google search on the term is dominated by sites that relate to the Pure Gold Mining, a major gold mining company headquartered at Vancouver, BC, Canada.  Their signature project is the Madsen Mine that you can read about here.

While the name pure gold is an obvious for gold mining companies, it also finds its way into a wealth of other products.  For example a US based cosmetics reseller has a whole line of products that use the term pure gold. You can read about Pure Gold Cosmetics here.

One of the main uses of gold is in jewelry, so it is not surprising that the name finds use in that field as well.  For example, a Singapore based buyer and seller of gold and silver jewellery operates at the website https://www.puregold.com.sg/.

A jewelry reseller with 150 locations mainly in the Middle East and Singapore operate under the name Pure Gold with a website at the domain name https://www.pugold.com/. Yes, you read that right, no r in the word.  They sometimes show this on icons with the r in a dark gold colour, but it does, to me at least, seem contrived, and if I was giving them advice it would be to upgrade their domain name.

Pure gold is also used in ways you would never guess.  For example, a travelling exhibition by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen shows how rubbish can be repurposed into valuable products. They use the title "Pure Gold".  It operates at this website - check them out!

Why is Pure Gold so Popular?

The purity of gold is measured in karats (carat spelling in some jurisdictions). The karat (carat) unit means 1/24 part gold by weight, so something that is pure gold would be 24 karat (carat). Due to rounding, actually anything between 99.95 and 100% would be considered 24 karat and pure gold (even though not 100% purity).

The term pure gold, that literally means gold above 99.95% pure, is more broadly used to represent that a product is genuine.  As such, it could be creatively used in many contexts. The term "pure gold" (without quotes) brings up more than 770 million results on Google search. As the expression is so popular in everyday speech, and with a positive connotation as well as easily spelled and spoken, it is an ideal branding term.

I did a Google Books Ngram Viewer search to see how popular the term "pure gold" was used in books over the years.  The term was more common in 1900 than currently, although after reaching a minimum in 1986 the term has seen an increase in use in the most recent decade.

Was the Sales Price Reasonable?

It is almost always difficult to estimate the value of a domain name.  This is one of the reasons that the automated expressions of worth (such as GoValue and Estibot) frequently give very different results. Those results also frequently do not agree even approximately with actual sales prices.  Always remember that any domain name has a value equal to its worth to a potential purchaser.  As pointed out above, multiple potential purchasers could significantly benefit from owning this digital asset.  While past sales data may help to determine whether a domain name price is reasonable, it is only one component to consider.

Somewhat surprisingly the term "puregold" has only sold once, at least as listed in the NameBio database.  In 2016 CBDPureGold.com  sold on Flippa for $100.  If we look at exact match words 'pure', it has sold 5 times (only 4 different domain names since one sold twice) for an average price of just over $3000. Interestingly, pure in the .io extension sold in January of 2018 on Flippa for $918, but then  sold at the end of May, 2018 for $8500 on  ParkIO, a very nice turn around for the domain name investor!

If we look at sales in the .gold new domain extension, there have been 11 sales with an average price of $1464. Stay.gold sold for $7000 and liquid.gold for $1500.  It seems to me that pure.gold is at least as good as these names, and therefore a somewhat higher price would have been justified.While I think the domain name probably sold for less than its intrinsic value,  in the context of still somewhat slow sales of new domain extensions, it is probably a reasonable price. I was surprised that the GoDaddy GoValue estimate of worth of pure.gold was only $288 (these values vary so it may show differently when you check).  In my opinion this is significantly less than the domain name is really worth.

The Likely Buyer

So who purchased the domain name pure.gold? With privacy protected Whois it is now much harder to identify a new owner unless there is a public statement or the domain name is rapidly put into use. The Whois record for pure.gold indicates that the owner is from Singapore, and I immediately thought that the likely purchaser was PureGold of Singapore, and that they had upgraded from a third level com in a country code to a generic global second level domain name.  I see this would be smart business move for promoting themselves to international sellers. However, when I checked today the domain name redirects to an Undeveloped.com for sale page, implying that the domain name has been purchased by a domain name investor. This domain investor seems to be based in Singapore.  So it is possible that the domain name is still available and could be acquired by an end user.

Reflections on the Sale

I think this an example of using a new domain extension to obtain a more direct, memorable and descriptive domain name. A direct match of a company or product line and the domain name is the ideal situation. As I have indicated, the domain name would work perfectly for several different end users.  It is important that the branding and marketing services employed by organizations are well informed with all domain extension options, and that they are vigilant and let their clients know when a direct match domain name is available. In the same way that businesses and organizations must be vigilant about reputation and new business trends and opportunities, they should also stay informed about new branding and domain possibilities.  This task is made more challenging by the plethora of new extensions, but it is important.  If you feel  I can help you with this, in one of the niche areas I have expertise in, please do get in touch.

If it is true that this domain name is still for sale, I hope that it will soon be utilized by an end user as it is a superb domain name. Indeed the name is pure gold!

Links:

• NameBio
• NameBio report of sale of pure.gold
• NameBio sales of .gold extension
• GoDaddy GoValue site
• Estibot site
• Undeveloped.com listing of the domain name
• Our site NamesThat.win - thanks for visiting
• Permanent link to this blog post

Original post Aug 9, 2018.

Disclosure:  I am not associated with the buyer or seller or any of the companies listed here.  I do not hold any domain names in the .gold extension.

Fine Print

This post is offered for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered domain name investment advice. While an attempt has been made to be accurate, there is no implied or explicit warranty, and you are responsible for verifying any information of importance to you.

In a few cases there may be affiliate links will on this blog. This means I receive a small amount if users visit or make purchases via the link. You do not pay any additional charge due to using an affiliate link, and in some cases below the normal price. I receive no identifying information about who clicks, or does not click, any link. I never accept compensation to provide favourable review of any particular service or product.

I try to be fair, balanced and objective in my analysis.  If you feel this post does not meet that standard, please express your concerns to me.  As disclosure, I do have a domain portfolio that is predominantly ngTLD domain names, although I do also own a number of .com, .ca, .co and a few other country code extension domains..

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