Bookkeeping.co.uk sold on Sedo this week for £3,300. A domain of this calibre is often referred to as a “category killer domain”. Meaning if you create a site on bookkeeping.co.uk and it’s relatively good, it will easily rank no.1 in Google quickly and your business will effectively control 99% of search traffic for that market. Hence – “killing the category”. A good example of this would be Ancestry.co.uk.
What’s on the site at the moment?
The site seems to be parked at the moment. There’s no “Coming soon” page listed, but it would seem the nameservers have been changed to a hosting company. This indicates that there is some movement behind the scenes by the owner and the domain is being pushed forward in to development.
History
The web archive shows the domain was first registered in 2002 and has never been used commercially. A clean domain with no spam or Google penalty history.
Potential Market
Google search trends for the term “bookkeeping” over the last 5 years show it’s a very popular search phrase. There are noticeable peaks around February and March which would coincide with year end and annual tax returns. The search volume is consistent, but I think the variety of search phrases being used for book keeping would indicate a split between key phrases.
Book keeping and accountancy is an almost recession proof industry. As long as there are businesses, book keeping services will needed and always be in demand. This domain has the potential to be “category killer” and with a relatively good product and some promotion could be a very lucrative investment. I see three potential areas where the domain could be used:
- Vanity domain for a bookkeeping or accountancy firm
- Online bookkeeping software service developed for small businesses(SaaS)
- Domain for running online bookkeeping courses and teaching.
Was £3,300 a good price?
I think £3,300 was a pretty cheap price for a domain of this calibre within the finance and accounting industry. Domainers seem to add a couple of 00s on the end of a domain when the buyer could potentially be a bank or an accountancy firm. The real value from this domain comes from its versatility. I see three potential uses for the domain which could all potentially be £1 Million plus businesses. The problem is that there are some very big fish in the accountancy market e.g. Sage and Quickbooks.
