The 10 Most Expensive Domain Names Ever Sold

Now who said that nobody will get million dollars from only selling less than 10 letters on the internet? I mean 1 short word. This is about short domain name that someone smart had found it first before everybody else in the world even aware of. Have you read my earlier post about domain sex.com that's sold for $14 million? Imagining how lucky you were if you owned that domain first? Well, it's too late for that sex.com. But if you're kind of inspired by this story, you could start exploring the internet to discover your hidden golden domain(s).

Adding to sex.com, below is a complete list of 10 domains which were the most expensive domain names ever sold in the world. Check it out!

1. Insure.com

Founded in November 1994 and bought by internet marketing firm QuinStreet for $16 million in the year of 2009. You know what? This domain price equals to 666 units of 2011 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Limited.

Insure.com = 666 Harley Davidson?
This mathematical equation looks odd to me, but it happened.

2. Sex.com

Founded in October 1995, sold for $13 million in 2006 and sold again for $14 million in 2010. Read my post for details.

3. Porn.com

(..now Google bot must be confused a bit why these 2 adult keywords - sex & porn – show up  in my blog)

Sold at $9.5 million in 2007 after 12 years it's founded. See? 2 of the top 3 of this list are sex-related domain. No wonder.

4. Fund.com

Fund.com was found in September 1994 and used by a website on the financial services industry and investment funds. It was sold for a price tag of exactly $ 9,999,950 in 2008.

5. Business.com

Shortly after it's founded in April 1998 by former Walt Disney Internet Group chairman Jake Winebaum and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton, Business.com was sold for $7.5 million in 1999 and was considered as the world's most expensive domain name at that moment. The domain retained its record until sex.com was sold for a higher price in 2006.

6. Diamond.com

Founded in March 1993, diamond.com was sold in 1999 for $7.5 million.

7. Beer.com

It's sold for $7 million in 2004 after 11 years it's founded in 1993. Other similar domains like wine.com and vodka.com are also among the top sellers.

8. Israel.com

Hate to see this . It's founded in April 1994 and sold for $5.88 million in 2008 at a domain auction held by Moniker Online Services, a leading domain name registration company located in Florida.

9. Casino.com

( hi, bot. It must be your first time to crawl the word 'casino' in my blog, isn't it? Please don't put it into account. )

Founded in December 1997 and sold in 2008 for $5.5 million. You don't have to play casino and risk the money in your pocket to win million dollars. Really inspiring…

10. Toys.com

The buyer is Toys R Us, a well known toys company. They bought the domain for $5.1 million in 2009 when the domain age was 11 years.

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OK, that's the list (sourced from Rich or Not). And now is my opinion.

Excluding the Israel.com, those 9 domain names are very short and great for branding purposes. And that is the interest of many big companies who will have no worries to spend a crazy amount of money just to get those short domains with popular terms (sex and wealth are the most) in order to easily penetrate their markets.

For SEO purposes?

Here's the fact. Insure.com does not even rank for the keywords it's targeting. I still believe that domain with long-tail-keywords looks like more seo-friendly. Now it's up to you to choose your domain, for branding, or for search engine? Or are you now inspired to make more money online by buying and selling domains?