I am not going to share the names of the two domain sales I made this week to protect the privacy of the buyers, but they were both hand registered within the past 7 days, and they sold for $360 and $400. I have a third domain name, which is related to one of the two that sold, and I think that one is going to sell for a little bit less today.

Well its taken many years but finally Moniker.com looks like they are going to start open their live domain auctions up for pre-bidding, starting with the Ft. Lauderdale DomainFest one day event and auction on May 13th.

DOMAINfest has recently announces that they will launch for the Moniker/SnapNames live auction a pre-auction bidding system. The Moniker/SnapNames live auction will take place at DOMAINfest Fort Lauderdale,Florida .

Moniker and SnapNames have reported a 42 per cent quarter-on-quarter jump in total sales of premium domain names in a news release released today. The sales include Guns.com for $800,000, PartySupplies.com ($360,000), ScreenSavers.com ($335,000), LoanCalculator.com ($215,000), HomeRun.com ($131,000), Migraine.com ($125,000) and the biggest of the lot, a private, seven-figure domain name sale. Moniker and SnapNames also announced they have partnered with GeoDomain Expo to host the April Showcase Auction online that runs from April 13, 2010 at 09:00 Pacific time to May 4, 2010 at 12:15 Pacific time.

Moniker and SnapNames have reported a 42 per cent quarter-on-quarter jump in total sales of premium domain names in a news release released today. The sales include Guns.com for $800,000, PartySupplies.com ($360,000), ScreenSavers.com ($335,000), LoanCalculator.com ($215,000), HomeRun.com ($131,000), Migraine.com ($125,000) and the biggest of the lot, a private, seven-figure domain name sale.

04|08|2010 6:09 pm EDT Patrick Ruddell aka Chef Patrick Joins Moniker’s Brokerage Team by Adam Strong in Categories: People – 2 Comments DNN learned earlier today that our friend Patrick Ruddell (of ChefPatrick.com seen to the left in his “domainer NASCAR shirt”at DomainFest) had joined Moniker as a domain name sales specialist.  Oversee confirmed this today with an announcement sent to all the domain blogs. We talked to Patrick earlier today on the phone about his plans

ScreenSavers.com was the top selling reported domain name sale for the week to March 21 according to Domain Name Journal, selling for $335,000 in a Moniker/SnapNames sale.

Did you know you could pay someone to help you come up with the perfect domain name? It’s true. A think tank of marketing experts can come together to help determine a perfect name for your online presence.

Why would something like this be needed?

It seems that most of the more obvious online names are chosen and it takes a bit more creativity to come up with a recognizable and easy to use domain name that reflects the core of your business.

The good news is you may not need to pay anyone to come up with a perfect name for your domain.

If you already know that your business name is in use on the web you might want to either alter your business name should you’re business still exist in the startup phase. In you already have an established business you could go with some of the suggestions you are likely to find on a domain registry site, but this often lacks a personal touch.

Invite your family and friends to assist in filling a piece of notepaper with words or attributes that describe you and your business. Find words that may describe the collective nature of your store.

For example you might have a ceramic store where you hand paint and fire a kiln to create one of a kind gifts based on the clients request. For the sake of this experiment let’s also say that you specialize in ceramic pigs, but sell other types of ceramics as well.

Start by listing either attributes or words that describe what you do.

Ceramics
Kiln
Paint
Hand-crafted
Gifts
Pigs
Flame
Fire
Paintbrush
Paint

OK, that’s just a few words that may describe what is happening in your business. As of this writing the following web address does not exist, which is why I am using it as an example. www.firethepig.com

Maybe not a perfect name, but it would be easy to remember and in a clever and memorable way describes the specialty aspects of the store.

When you visit a domain registry you can keep checking to see if a new choice in name is available. In some cases businesses will also buy domain names that may be similar or ones that feature a different web extension such as .net or .biz. These businesses will then redirect visitors who happen to type in the wrong address to the main site.

With competitive rates for domain names it has become much easier to lay claim to multiple domain names.

The truth is you can find multiple online businesses that can assist you in site development, design, graphics, audio, content and even naming your domain. In most cases you can learn the skills through a little research and even a bit of common sense and save money for your acts of ingenuity.

In a matter of minutes you can assess your skills as a business and see if those skills and attributes line up to create an online domain name that will stick in the minds of your site visitor.

Your site name is important to the marketability of your site. It may not be in your best interest to simply take the first idea that is available. Keep the domain as short as possible and keep things memorable.

The DOMAINfest conference series, presented by Oversee.net’s DomainSponsor monetization service, expanded today with the announcement of two new one-day regional power networking events to be held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and New York City .

Guns.com was the top reported sale in the week to March 7 on Domain Name Journal’s weekly list of domain name sales, selling for $800,000. The sale was far bigger the second top sale, guagua.com, which sold for $100,000