As reported on DNN.com late last week, Richmond.com has been purchased by Media General, parent company of Richmond Times-Dispatch and other newspapers in different medium to large markets. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Richmond.com receives 2.7 million monthly page views, 120,000 monthly unique visitors and an 8.8% share of the Richmond online viewing market.

Richmond.com has been one of the best examples of a non-newspaper-owned geodomain that saw huge traffic (and presumably revenue) figures because of the great content they produced. They had no newspapers to print and could focus all of their efforts into producing great, relevant articles that were important to viewers in the Richmond area. The 2.7 million page views to 120,000 unique visitors shows that people return to the site frequently, proving how important good content is.

I don’t know any details about the deal aside from what I read, but I presume the Richmond Times-Dispatch online newspaper will eventually be integrated with the domain name Richmond.com, which is certainly better than the current domain name they use, InRich.com. Media General will receive the best domain name for the Richmond area as well as a devoted audience.

I won’t preach, but this deal is exciting for someone like myself. My plan continues to revolve around making Burbank.com and Lowell.com websites that are useful and important to people who want to learn more about these cities. As revenue increases, I intend to hire reporters to expand the news offering on the sites, which will increase traffic and revenues.  I hope 2009 will be a year of great growth for Burbank.com and Lowell.com, and if the last two weeks of search engine traffic for Burbank.com is indicative, it’s going to be a very good year.

TRAFFIC Down Under will hold a charity auction of ten premium domain names with the revenue to be donated to the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a non-profit advocate for the domain name industry.

The auction will benefit the ICA, a grass roots organization formed to ensure domain services and owners are robustly represented in areas of great risk and importance to the global domain community.

The ICA utilizes dues and contributions to enable activities related to legislative lobbying, regulatory representation, industry public relations, legal test case support, industry publication of statistics and reports, revenue research, and market intelligence. In order for the association to continue and expand its activities, it requires the support and participation from current members and the entire professional domain name community.

We are happy to announce that the top ten domains to be auctioned off are:

LanzaroteCanaryIslands.com – Kevin J. Sinclair
CityChicks.com – Anonymous
FreeRangeFoods.com – Howard Hoffman
AudioCabinets.net – Rick Latona
CarbBlockers.com – Fabulous.com
FranchiseCompany.com – Fabulous.com
BiometricReader.com – Fabulous.com
MovingCosts.com – Fabulous.com
DisplayUnit.com – Fabulous.com
BodybuildingProducts.com – Fabulous.com

These domains are to be auctioned without reserves at the conference Gala Dinner on the 19th November. Rick Latona Auctions has also committed to donate their expertise and time to manage the charity auction.