Value test: Are domain names still linked to brands today?

The wealthy LeEco has just changed its domain name. LeTV.com has officially changed its name to LeTV Video and has activated the internationally renowned domain name le.com, which is worth tens of millions of dollars. It is said that this change of domain name is to better adapt to its globalization strategy. Coincidentally, the domain name Tesla.com finally belongs to the American car company Tesla. Tesla has not yet disclosed how much it paid for the domain name.

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In the Internet industry, when the big guys have money in their pockets, they often spend a lot of money on domain names. Therefore, many domain name investors have made a fortune. Some people say that domain name investment is to make a lot of money without doing anything. 360.com was sold for 110 million, and game.com was not sold for 120 million. In the Internet era, good domain names have become scarce. In the secondary market, the transaction price of a 4-digit .com domain name is at least 50,000 yuan. The more expensive is a 2-letter .com domain name (for example, jd.com), which costs more than 3 million. A 2-digit .com domain name (for example, 58.com) costs more than 6 million yuan.

These are just benchmark prices in the market. If a domain name happens to be favored by a "tycoon" company and is forced to buy it, the transaction price may be unexpected. For example, in 2013, JD.com spent more than 33 million yuan to buy jd.com. Although the cost was high, the industry estimates that this was not a loss, as the new domain name saved JD.com more than 100 million yuan in traffic promotion costs.

Although a memorable and short domain name can really have a multiplier effect, in today's world of highly developed search engines, is the bond between domain name and brand value still solid?

We know that most Internet users do not browse the web by entering the domain name directly. Most users can only remember the URL of baidu.com. When they open the browser, they will first open Baidu, then search for the information or content they want, and click on the links provided by the search engine to browse. In addition to beginners, advanced users will also save the websites they like to browse in their favorites so that they can open them at any time.

Of course, it is undeniable that easy-to-remember and simple web names are often accessed directly without using search engines. For example, users who are used to online shopping often enter jd.com or taobao.com in their browsers to browse. You should know that the domain name of JD.com used to be 360buy.com, and many people even thought that JD.com was a website under 360 (Liu Qiangdong: How can this be tolerated?). Vipshop's original domain name was vipshop.com, which was not particularly easy to remember. Later, it spent tens of millions to purchase VIP.com, which is now fully operational.

Therefore, for users, a good domain name demonstrates the strength and reputation of a company, allowing users to directly access the website without having to go through search engines. Secondly, it also protects its brand image. So in general, for companies with ideals and financial resources, domain names are very helpful in shaping brand value.