After holding photographer.com for 10 years, Blake Newman sells the domain name for $133,000. Despite an industry average of less than $10,000 for domain names, this may signal a rebound in domain name investing.

While this sale may seem significant in the post-dot-com era, Newman is comfortable with his decision because he has seen highly successful companies rely on domain names that have little to do with their mission, product or service, e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Monster, Napster and eBay.

"It is the reputation of my great photographers, our professionalism, training and team concept that brings clients to our website, not our domain name," says Newman, president of Artists & Associates. "I believe that people will still visit us at artists-associates.com because of our great reputation, not simply because we had owned photographer.com."

Newman still owns over 350 domain names and is considering a contest, survey or test marketing to see which domain name might be the catchiest or easiest to remember. On the top his list are: PHOTOSTRATEGY.COM, PICTURE-QUEST.COM ARTISTSCAFE.COM, PHOTO-AGENT.COM, PHOTOGRAPHERAGENCY.COM, PICTO-GRAPHX.COM, PHOTOGRAPHERS-REP.COM, and PHOTO-CORPS.COM.
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Excellent sale.