Domain names are like real estate on the internet. Once you buy one, you own it forever. It’s only when someone chooses to sell their domain name (property) or lets their yearly registration lapse that it becomes available to the public again. However, even if a domain name expires, it’s often quickly snatched up by major domain name aftermarkets, which may then auction it off or keep it until a buyer with a large budget is ready to pay a high price for it.
With many generic and exact match “.com” domain names already claimed, the ongoing growth of the internet is driving up their value. Whether through private sales, brokers, online auctions, or domain name aftermarkets, thousands of major domain names are bought, sold, and acquired each week. Meanwhile, new domain TLDs are being introduced to help new website owners and brands secure relevant domain names, as most standard .com, .net, and .org domains are already taken.
A Look at This Years Top Domain Sales
Yes, the domain name business is quite a lucrative one — but it’s not often that you find domains sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. In Blogging.org’s Domain Sales infographic shown below, we can see the ten highest selling domain names so far this year. The most exciting one in the group is Porno.com, which went onto sell for an amazing $8,888,888 — which was also the 4th highest domain name sale in history. (source)
Another big domain sale was that of Give.com, which was sold to Brent Oxley, founder of HostGator. Word is that Brent has plans to start a charity based site / service around the domain name.
In addition to seeing the sales amount for each of the domains shown within the infographic below, you will also see where and how each of the domain sales took place. While Porno.com was a private sale and was an “all cash” deal, the majority of other domains are sold through domain brokerage services like NameJet, Sedo, MostWantedDomains and others.
When it comes to putting a value on a domain name, it’s all about finding a buyer that want it. While some domains sell for millions, many will sell for several thousands, which is still a great return on investment if you were able to outright register the domain name for it’s initial $10 per year registration fee!
What’s even more exciting is that we still have a few more months left in the year, so we might even seen a few more big sales take place before the year is over.
