Most Expensive Domain Names ever Sold

Here is a list of the most expensive domain names ever sold. Google/Yahoo may easily top this list if they ever go for sale, but it doesn't look like it would ever happened. From Ontora's most expensive domains,

1. Sex.com ($14,000,000) - Sold to Escom LLC on January 19, 2005.
Today: A sponsored directory with advertisements for porn sites. Alexa Rank: ~800
2. Business.com ($7,500,000) - Purchased by eCompanies in 1999.
Today: A business directory organized by category. Alexa Rank: ~2,000
3. Diamond.com ($7,500,000) - Private sale to Ice.com on May 19, 2006.
Today: Online jewelry store. Alexa Rank: ~33,000
4. Beer.com ($7,000,000) - Bought buy a commercial beer company in 2004.
Today: A portal for the beer drinker’s lifestyle. Alexa Rank: ~25,000
5. Casino.com ($5,500,000) - Sold to a private interest in 2003.
Today: Domain squat with sponsored links to gambling websites. Alexa Rank: ~7,700
6. Korea.com ($5,000,000) - Purchased by True Net, Korea’s largest internet service provider, in January 2000.
Today: News and travel information for South Korea. Alexa Rank: ~22,000
7. AsSeenOnTV.com ($5,000,000) - Bought by a marketing company in January 2000.
Today: Original website that sells items featured on TV. Alexa Rank: ~35,000
8. Shop.com ($3,500,000) - Sold to Altura Int., an internet real estate group.
Today: Online retail store that includes products from multiple vendors. Alexa Rank: ~1700
9. AltaVista.com ($3,300,000) - Bought by Compaq for their new search engine in 1999.
Today: A search portal powered by Yahoo! Alexa Rank: ~200
10. Vodka.com ($3,000,000) - Purchased by Russian Starndard in December 2006.
Today: Redirects to Russian Standard Vodka’s website. Alexa Rank: ~3,970,000
11. Loans.com ($3,000,000) - Today: Redirects to Bank of America. Alexa Rank: ~N/A
12. Wine.com ($2,900,000) - Alexa Rank: ~17,000
13. CreditCards.com ($2,750,000) - Alexa Rank: ~17,000
14. Tom.com ($2,500,000) - Alexa Rank: ~44
15. Autos.com ($2,200,000) - Alexa Rank: ~48,000

A couple of things that I have noticed:

• Many of these million dollars domain are not very high traffic sites and they are used as a portal for their specific markets. Most of them has Alexa ranking lower than 20,000.


• Many of them are ranked in the top positions in specific generic search terms (sex, business, diamond, beer, casino, wines, credir cards, autos).


• Tom.com (Chinese) is the most expensive domain name that has non-English content and it also has the highest traffic among the domains in this list as well.


• The numbers with Vodka.com is eye-popping, a $3 Million domain with Alexa ranking close to 4M? Vodka is not even a high traffic keyword! Then again, the purchase was made in December 2006, and the site is not even developed.


• Loans.com is a future project for Bank of America?


• The web design with AsSeenOnTV.com is terrible! If they are willing to spend $5M on the domain name itself, they better spend just 1/1000th of it for a decent web design!