Don’t know if you’ve noticed but the quality of domains on auction at Domainfest, TRAFFIC and other online marketplaces has improved dramatically. On offer earlier this month were Stocks.com, Quotes.com, Alcohol.com XXX.com, Cable.com, Rate.com, Artist.com, Hamburgers.com, Koran.com, Patents.com and many more! Up at TRAFFIC are such blockbusters like UI.com, DA.com, BS.com, Lover.net, HomeSchooling.com, Mouse.com, Lifts.com and Keyboard.com among others.

You now routinely hear of top of the line keywords being offered and selling – Discos.com – Sold, Tees.com (lot) – Sold, BigApple.com – Sold, CableTelevision.com – Sold, Opticians.net – Sold and Lottery.net – Sold. This is just in the last month or so.

A lot of domains didn’t sell because the reserves weren’t in tune with the market pricing, but the very fact that these domains are even being offered is telling.

And the fact that a lot of these didn’t sell also tells another story, that the market isn’t willing to pay huge premiums even for great keywords in .com

Could this be an indicator that the approval of the new TLDs by ICANN would in some way devalue existing keywords, or at least make it tougher to sell them at peak end user prices?

Or should we just take this as a sign of the times? Would be really interested in hearing your views and arriving at a general consensus.