Highest domain sales of all time

[aww]

highest (published) domain sales of all time

Can anyone add to this list? $100,000 or above only:

Highest (published) Domain Sales of all time

(I'll add date-of-sale over time)

 

[armstrong]

men.com - $1.32 million (not completed until May 2004)

What do you mean by this? Hasn't it been paid for yet?

 

[aww]

Yes, men.com is in escrow, being paid for $200k at a time.
Seems like everyone kinda missed this fact. If they default on payment, it's not a sale.

 

[Rob]

A very interesting list,

Thanks!

 

[jj2ii3344]

Internet.com should worth way more than what it's sold for IMO!

 

[aww]

Actually you're right about internet.com and the inherit problem with this list is that a name that is bought for a huge amount years ago is then sold for even more later, I have more research to do!

I just found that BUSINESS.COM sold in 1997 for $150,000 and then was resold two years later for its peak of $7.5 million.

 

[RJ]

Originally posted by aww
Actually you're right about internet.com and the inherit problem with this list is that a name is bought for a certain about years ago and then sold for even more later.

I just found that BUSINESS.COM sold in 1997 for $150,000 and then was resold two years later for its peak of $7.5 million.

Yep, but I don't see a reason why a name can't be listed twice on the list for both sale prices since it is a listing of top sales. It's funny looking at this list because I remember when business.com sold for $150,000. It was quite a shocking figure back then for a measly domain name.



others-

Paintball.Com was sold for $100,000 in late 1999

The Beauty.Cc sale was a publicity stunt and not likely a legitimate sale.

newzealand.com was $1 million New Zealand dollars (actually $910,000NZ), not USD. It was only $500,000 US at the time.
http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196&highlight=newzealand.com

 

[aww]

Thanks for the updates, now applied, more encoraged

I've seen rumors of beauty.cc being a "stunt" but cannot find definitive news coverage of such a fact? Can you find me a reputable site stating so?

 

[RJ]

Originally posted by aww
I've seen rumors of beauty.cc being a "stunt" but cannot find definitive news coverage of such a fact? Can you find me a reputable site stating so?

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/33/cyber-fefer.php

 

[aww]

Ah very good. But it was a trade that included stocks "valued" at that much. It's the same deal for Business.com which people constantly refer to as the all time sale.

 

[Bill1]

cars.com should have sold for more
and men.com should have sold for less i think

 

[Riceman]

Originally posted by Bill1
and men.com should have sold for less i think

I agree on that. I think they overpaid

 

[aww]

Well they say your business name is 70% of your worth
(then again statistics are made up 67.29% of the time )

 

[AdoptableDomains]

There were a number of names in the .com bust a couple years ago that sold with other assets, but overall was probably the most valuable of the assets left in the packages. Toys.com and Pets.com come to mind. I don't know how you would break out the value though.

I would also guess for every publicly known large sale there are several more that the buying party contractually had an agreement between the parties of confidentiality. I'd be very interested to see what Delta Airlines paid for delta.com (they at one time were delta-air.com, and delta.com was something like a consuling company.

 

[aww]

The delta.com story is an interesting one:
(imagine 10k visits per day, over ten years ago!)
"What's in a Web Name? Sometimes, Mistaken Identity" NY Times September 21, 1998

Jeff Wood, the owner of Deltacomm InternetServices, an ISP in North Carolina, registered the name delta.com for his company in 1993.

Soon he discovered that as many as 10,000 people a day tried to access his site thinking that it was the site for Delta Air Lines. As a courtesy, he put up links to Delta Air Lines' site. The traffic was overwhelming his site, however. He contacted Delta Air Lines to sell them his domain name. It seems Delta wasn't interested -- it had already purchased its current domain, delta-air.com, from the infamous Dennis Toeppen.

Delta Air Lines reportedly said Wood wanted too much money and it was not interested. Wood then removed all links to Delta Air Lines' site from his home page. So many people complained that he put the links back up -- but added links to Delta Air Lines' main rival, American Airlines as well as a testimonial urging people to fly American.

Delta was not-too-bright IMHO, as the original price offered to them according to Jeff Wood was "more than $10,000 and less than $100,000". That would have been a steal compared to what they must have then spent on attorney fees.

Apparently Jeff Wood eventually sold delta.com to Delta Financial Corporation to duck a lawsuit, which then hit them directly instead.

Delta Airlines ended up owning delta.com in August 2000 after a four year fight. Nothing in print about the price, but the lawyers definitely got a chunk of money.

 

[Jeanco]

interesting list... you're just a wealth of knowledge aren't you aww

 

[CoolGuy]

I rue the day I obtain a large priced domain.

 

[NameTower]

i'm sure that 7.5 million will be topped soon

 

[aww]

Anything that goes above $7.5 million (or even $1 million for that matter) is probably some kind of stock trade or conditional deal over time. Otherwise it would make no sense as any site under that financial burden would have to profit thousands per day just to break even.

I'm more impressed with the middle list which is usually a cash deal like NewZealand.com

ps. try the ranking rating in the bottom right on this page if you'd like to see more research posts like this from me

 

[NameTower]

you never know