Expensive Domain Names: Where Are They Now?
Type in some premium, million dollar domains into your browser and take a look at some of the pages you will find. All of that wasted potential in so many parked pages and single page sites with ugly designs and no earnings.
But what about those they have had a high price tag on them in the past? What happened to all of those brilliant plans for these premium domains? Below are the sale prices and current statuses of some of the most high profile domains online.
1. sex.com – Back in 2005, sex.com sold for a whopping 14 million to someone who knew the trends of the internet and where the money lay. The potential of this domain is just so huge, you have to wonder what the owner is thinking. How can a $14 million domain with an opportunity to easily make millions each year be developed into a one page site with links to other sites? We all know how big this industry is, and it’s almost a crime not to use this domain name.
2. fund.com – Sold only months ago in March this year for an extremely healthy price of $9,999,950, just short of the 8 figure mark, fund.com I am glad to say is a developed site on the niche, you guessed it, funds. However, it is a shame that it isn’t very successful, with an Alexa rank outside the top 500,000. Their investment in the name seems to be taking a very long time to recover in profit.
3. porn.com – Finally! A site actually earning substantial profits on a domain name that almost guarantees success. It gets heaps of traffic with an Alexa rank of approximately 5,000 and probably has a 6-figure profit each year. The domain cost the current owners a hefty $9,500,000
4. diamond.com – Another site using its potential. Diamond.com is an online diamond jewelry store getting good traffic (alexa rank of 62,000) and is probably making a six figure income each year. Diamond.com was sold for $7,500,000 back in 2004.
5. beer.com – Sold for $7,000,000, beer.com is now a fully developed and established blokes website. It has an alexa rank in the top 100,000 (approximately 86,000) and has a very nice design/layout I must say.
6. casino.com – Another fully established and profitable website, casino.com, on a domain that also almost guarantees success, is an online casino site receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors each day and definently making huge profits, probably the biggest profits of all domain names listed here so far. Once again, I really like the design. Casino.com sold for $5,500,000 back in 2003, so this domain has age.
7. korea.com – Sold over eight years ago on New Year’s Day 2000 for $5,000,000, korea.com is also a fully functioning premium website about everything happening in Korea I assume (I don’t speak Korean). Korea.com receives the most traffic of all domains listed so far, with an Alexa rank of approximately 3,000 and recently that rank has moved to almost 1,000.
8. asseenontv.com – I know what you are thinking… How the hell did this domain sell for $5,000,000. I too am still in awe at this sale that occurred back in 2000. However, it is all about branding and use of the growing tecnology for promotion, as this domain has done quite well for the owners. It sells items that you can see on those pesky long advertisements on television and I am guessing here but think it might be a network. Anyway, it receives tens of thousands of visits each take and makes a great annual profit.
9. shop.com – Shop.com was sold for $3,500,000 back in 2003 which I think wasn’t a bad deal considering the growth of online shopping recently. As you might have guessed, shop.com is a huge online shopping company/service that receives hundreds of thousands of visits each day and must generate huge sales. I think I see a trend emerging here with these premium domain names.
10. wine.com – wine.com was sold for $3,300,000 in 2003 and is now the leading online wide retailer, offering services of shipping wine to all around America. I’m not to sure that I like the design but the site itself is successful, bringing in tens of thousands of visits each day and generating great profits.
Seeing how successful most of these sites are, it really makes me wonder what the guy who owns sex.com is thinking by leaving up a page with basically nothing on it. I noticed a trend of how the successful sites don’t rank for the keyword in their domain, but are successful because of the type in traffic. The successful sites are also those who have turned their domain into and online company, giving themselves and online identity.