What’s in a web address? Quite a lot of cash. Business Insider scoured domain name resourceDN Journal and put together a list of documented million-dollar, domain-only “.com” sales. Unsurprisingly, sex- and gambling-related domains are some of the biggest money makers.
Here are a list of the most expensive domain names of all time:
Fund.com — $10 million
Year sold: 2008
After the flashy sale, Fund.com ran into a lot of trouble. It had to declare most of its financials unreliable in 2009 and continuously failed to file reports. If you go to the site now, it’s a white background with the phrase, “Please come back later to check FUND.com”
Porno.com — $8.9 million
Date sold: February 2015
“Domain King” Rick Schwartz flipped Porno.com. He bought it from a college kid way back in 1997 for $42,000.
Porn.com — $9.5 million
Year sold: 2007
At the time of its sale, Porn. com was the biggest all-cash transaction for a domain name and the second-largest domain sale. Moniker helped sell the domain to MXN Limited.
Diamond.com — $7.5 million
Year sold: 2006
Odimo.com handed over the domain to an online jewelry retailer, Ice.com, in a private sale for one of the priciest do-main name swaps of all time. But guess what? It’s back on the market. GoDaddy, which is brokering the deal, says it’s looking for jewelry buyers, or otherwise.
Z.com — $6.8 million
Date sold: November 2014
Japanese internet service provider GMO Internet bought Z.com from Nissan Motors. Z.com is one of only three single-character domain names currently existing in the .com space, GMO says.
Slots.com — $5.5 million
Year sold: 2010
As TechCrunch pointed out at the time of the sale, that is more than $1 million per character.
Toys.com — $5.1 million
Year sold: 2009
Originally sold for $1.25 million as part of a bankruptcy court proceeding, days later, it was put up for auction again and Toys R Us ended up shelling out just over $5 million for the powerful domain name. It’s kind of surprising how basic the site still looks today.
Clothes.com — $4.9 million
Year sold: 2008
Shoe company Zappos bought Clothes.com. Now both are owned by Amazon, but Clothes.com still redirects to Zappos’s apparel selec-tion, not Amazon’s main site.
Medicare.com — $4.8 million
Date sold: May 2014
eHeathInsurance.com paid $4.3 mil-lion in cash and $300,000 in debt for Medicare.com
Sex.com — $13 million
Year sold: 2010
Sex.com entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest domain-only sale in history
