One of the oldest 'dot com' domain names, cobb.com, will go up for sale next week in an auction conducted by Sedo, a global leader in domain marketing. The auction commences 12PM EDT, May 7 (sedo.com).

Cobb.com was created by The Cobb Group in 1995 and is thought to be among the first hundred thousand commercial domain names registered (there are now over 120 million registered domain names, 90 million of them 'dot coms').

The Cobb Group was started by best-selling technology author, Douglas Cobb (no relation to the current name owner). Later acquired by Ziff-Davis when it bought the Cobb Group, cobb.com has been owned since 1999 by another best- selling author, the computer security expert, Stephen Cobb, CISSP.

Cobb used the site to publish free articles about security and privacy by himself and wife Chey, but recently transferred this content to cobbassociates.com, home of his consulting business, Cobb Associates. He relocated his personal web site and Cobb genealogy content to stephencobb.net.

"With these changes I didn't feel the need to keep cobb.com," said Cobb, "Given the hot market in domain names today, I decided it was time to sell." Comparable values range from strauss.com at $50,000 and walkers.com at $175,000, to bdsm.com at $295,000 and tandberg.com at $1,500,000.

"I'd be pleasantly surprised if bids for cobb.com reach seven figures," said Cobb, "but with auctions you never know." He noted one appraisal put the value "in the high sixes, others the upper fives." And Cobb thinks search engines still put a high value on domain names: "The name itself makes a big difference to who tops search results."

"In other words," suggested Cobb, "If the letters c-o-b-b are an important part of your business name or identity, owning cobb.com will probably give you more bang for your marketing buck than any other type of advertising."

As to who will get the domain, Cobb says it's hard to predict. "Right now some serious speculators are playing the domain market and might buy to resell, but there are many potential corporate buyers--Hoovers lists over eighty "Cobb" companies around the world--from Cobb Theatres to Cobb-Vantress, Cobb Tuning, and just about any business in Cobb County, Georgia."

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