The world’s most expensive domain name is going to auction
One of the longest running Internet sagas is set to take a further twist tomorrow. The world’s most expensive domain name is set to go to auction. And if you’ve got $1m lying around – the minimum starting bid – you could get yourself a piece of the action.
Action is perhaps the right word, because the domain name in question is Sex.com.
DOM Partners LLC, the company selling the domain, acquired it for and eye watering $14m back in 2006
Is it worth it?
How can a domain name be worth that much money? At the end of the day its all about eyeballs. Long before the likes of Google, Facebook and others rocked up, the sure fire way of making money online was in pornography.
The amount of searches for porn on Google each day is enormous. Add to that the number of people who will just type ‘sex’ into their address bar, and you can see that sex.com has the potential to grab lots and lots of visitors. As our SEO Guide will tell you, having a domain name that includes a keyword that you want to rank highly for is an important way to boost your position on Google.
According to a 2008 book The Sex.com Chronicles by Charles Carreon, the domain was already making $15,000 a day a few years ago.
Other high value domain sales include:
fund.com ($10m)
porn.com ($9.5m)
business.com ($7.5m)
diamonds.com ($7.5m)
An interesting history
The sex.com domain was first registered back in the early 90s, and it has had a colourful history. Would-be rival owners have included Mexican jails; there have been international chases; and plenty of pursuits, accusations of hacking, and legal action.
It seems that there’s quite a few people who want the domain. Richard Maltz the auctioneer said “we don’t know who’s serious and who’s not, but prospective bidders need a $1m certified cheque. It should be interesting.”
Fancy grabbing it and using it for your WebEden website? No, I thought not!