Most Expensive Domain Names Ever

What’s in a name? Your domain name defines your company’s business and how your customers perceive you. It’s your philosophy, your identity, everything that you are. We are www.justsearching.co.uk because just searching is what we’re about. As domain names are so cheap (just £35 for a .com for two years from Just Search) is it any wonder that billions of domain names have been registered on the Internet?

Sadly they don’t all turn into websites, many domain names just sit ‘parked’, never to fulfil their potential. Bought by speculative domain resellers hoping to cash in on the domain’s potential value, because domain names can sell for a lot more than the £35 we sell them for.

In fact, domain names can sell for obscene amounts of money, if you have the right domain name in the right market. I feel a list coming on, do you?

If you’re thinking of buying a domain name with a view to selling it on at a later date, you might be interested in these domain names that have sold for considerably more than the nominal fee they originally cost.

This list doesn’t represent all of the domains ever sold, just the most interesting ones. The top five however are the five most expensive ever, to date at least!

#10 VIP.com

Sold for: $1.4 million in September 2005
Bought by: Leisure and Gaming
Sadly this isn’t a website dedicated to that awful Pamela Anderson show of the same name, it’s a gambling website. For just $1.4 million it wasn’t much of a gamble either.

#9 CreditCards.com

Sold for: $2.75 million in July 2004
Bought by: Austin
Considering natural SEO and a strong link campaign can get a site listed for ‘credit cards’ $2.75 million might seem a bit steep, but as the revenue generated from the loans industry is so huge the high outlay on the domain has more than likely paid for itself.

#8 Wine.com

Sold for: $2.9 million in September 1999
For this sort of money you’d think they’d actually be trading globally, alas you’d be wrong. Wine.com sells only to the US market. Something of a missed opportunity there as I do believe some European countries are quite partial to a drop of wine.

#7 Shop.com

Sold for: $3.5 million
Sounds like a great domain name, but be honest, who’s ever bought from here? When you shop online you use sites like Amazon, eBay or Play. The domain names aren’t important when compared to the branding, link building and SEO.

#6 AsSeenOnTv.com

Sold for: $5.1 million in January 2000
At over $5 million I question the wisdom of this one. Bought at the height of the .com boom this was a lot of money for a very long domain name that is nothing more than a marketing slogan. If this comes up for sale again expect the owner to lose a considerable amount of his money.

#5 Beer.com

Sold for $7 million
Again this is a lot of money for a domain that won’t generate that much type in traffic. Primarily a lads’ site, beer.com is aimed at the Internet’s biggest user base.

#4 Diamonds.com

Sold for: $7.5 million
Guess what they sell? Not to be confused with a motor insurance company for women. Considering the high ticket price on their stock this is potentially a good price for such a prestigious domain name.

#3 Business.com

Sold For: $7.5 million in 1999
The former Guinness World Record holder for the most expensive domain name ever; business.com, sold back in the .com boom era of the late 90’s. After the crash in 2001 it was expected that no domain would sell for a greater amount. The predictions proved inaccurate.

#2 Porn.com

Sold for $9.5 million in 2007
Personally I’d have thought this one would have gone for more in a time of renewed Internet speculation. I don’t know what’s on this site, I’ve never looked

Finally, the most expensive domain ever is…

#1 Sex.com

Sold for: $11 – $14 million (disputed reports) in January 19th 2006
Bought by: Escom LLC
It had to be didn’t it? The most expensive domain name ever changed hands in January 2006 for an estimated $11 million, although some reports put that figure as high as $14 million. The type in traffic alone makes this domain worth the cash.

That’s quite a profit on the original cost of just a few pounds.

Sex.com was once stolen by a fake domain transfer request, something which landed the registrar VeriSign in court.

It has to be stated that these prices were paid for just the domain names themselves, not the websites they were hosting. Obviously whole websites sell for a lot more, like Google’s $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube; which would in turn mean the domain names for those websites would be worth a lot to the company. For example, if Google.com were ever to become available for purchase, expect the record $11 million paid for sex.com to be considerably beaten.

Of course that will never happen, will it?

What this list has shown us though is that domain names aren’t the most important thing for an online business. You don’t need to spend millions on dvd.com to sell DVDs; you just need a catchy name and a good SEO strategy. It’ll work out much cheaper in the long run.

Darren
SEO Programmer