World’s Top Ten Most Expensive Domain Names

Written by: tom Filed Under: Collectibles, Real Estate on March 11th, 2010

World's Most Expensive Domain Name - Insure.com

For over half a decade, Business.com reigned as the world’s most expensive domain name after its 1999 sale for $7.5 million. That was shortly after the site was founded by former Walt Disney Internet Group chairman Jake Winebaum and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton. The domain retained its record until 2006, when Match.com founder Gary Kremen decided to get out of the adult entertainment industry and sold Sex.com for $14 million (or $12 million, depending on who you ask) in 2006.

While the current market for internet domains is nowhere as solid as it was during the dot-com peak, the market remains strong and is experiencing solid growth. Each year tens of millions of dollars are exchanged during the resale of domains.

The record for most expensive domain name ever sold changed hands again in late 2009, when internet marketing firm QuinStreet purchased Insure.com for $16 million. Other top dollar domain sales of 2009 include Toys.com, purchased by Toys ‘R Us for $5.1 million in March of 2009, and Candy.com, sold for $3 million in June of 2009.

Enough with the preamble, though—check out the world’s top ten most expensive domain names:

1. Insure.com, sold to QuinStreet for $16 million in 2009.
2. Sex.com, sold for $12-$14 million in 2006.
3. Fund.com, sold for $9.99 million in 2008.
4. Porn.com, sold for $9.5 million in 2007.
5. Business.com, sold for $7.5 million in 1999.
6. Diamond.com, sold to Ice.com for $7.5 million in 2006.
7. Beer.com, sold for $7 million in 2004.
8. Israel.com, sold for $5.88 million in 2004.
9. Casino.com, sold for $5.5 million in 2003.
10. Toys.com, sold to Toys ‘R Us for $5.1 million in 2009.

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(40) Comments

40 comments...What do you think?

  1. Posted by Scott Davis 24th January, 2006 at 4:21 pm

    Sex.com actually sold for $12 million, according to Reuters. I wonder what the owner of http://www.TheRecordBreakingDomain.com is going to since he was trying to break the business.com record himself.

  2. Posted by Lad 7th February, 2006 at 11:13 pm

    Hi

    I think this record can be broken !

    http://www.themostexpensivedomainnameintheworld.com/

  3. Posted by john 4th April, 2006 at 2:00 pm

    bahah thats such as a waste of time, I hope no one buys it

  4. Posted by Miguel 4th April, 2006 at 4:08 pm

    never says never. 7.5 million is not a big amount for a big enterprise.

  5. Posted by Martin 5th April, 2006 at 4:28 am

    I think that a pricey domain name is not allways necessary – let’s look at domains like amazon.com, google.com, yahoo.com – they are more succesful than ie books.com or search.com

  6. Posted by Adi 24th October, 2006 at 4:48 am

    What about wallstreet.com?

  7. Posted by Peter 20th August, 2007 at 12:09 am

    I wonder what this 2 digit domain can sell for?

  8. Posted by 16th letter » Blog Archive » Million dollar domain names 21st September, 2007 at 10:40 am

    [...] Internet Marketing Gagetopia.com Royal Pingdom Unhandled Perception Wikipedia Most-Expensive.net [...]

  9. Posted by Luca calzonu 27th January, 2008 at 11:08 am

    This is wrong, the domain name http://www.italia.it was recently bought for 45 million dollars by the italian government. Yet though the website was closed after a couple of months due to a lack of popularity

  10. Posted by Vivian 13th February, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    MostExpensiveDomainSold.com has announced a

    domain charity
    raffle to compliment the grand opening of its charity drive. 
    Raffle participation is free and allows participants to contribute to a worthy
    cause.

    This one can go down in history as the
    most expensive domain sold
    for charity.

  11. Posted by James 19th February, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    These are all copycats from my idea. I register worldshighestprice.com and mostexpensivedomain.com back in june of 2005 and put them on ebay to sell to set the record. Check the day these two where register. Then therecordbreakingdoain.com was register four monthe later. I own several including worldsmostexpensivedomain.com and also worldshighestpricedomain.com So I am the orginal and I do own the worldsmostexpensivedomain and the others. So if the record was to be broken Surely they would want mine wouldn’t you think? God Bless!

  12. Posted by Eko 21st February, 2008 at 5:53 am

    wow… 45 millions dollar for nothing?
    i guess that was a big loss for italian government

  13. Posted by elshan 2nd May, 2008 at 2:04 am

    More than $4 Million in Domain Names Sold At Moniker’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C WEST Live Auction
    Families.com, Greeting.com, Blogster.com, RealEstate.mobi, and ET.com were among auction’s big sellers

  14. Posted by RJB 13th June, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Wish I’d bought up a bunch of the simple ones way back in the day…..

  15. Posted by Gemma 23rd August, 2008 at 7:25 am

    RJB, you are not alone…

  16. Posted by Michael 17th April, 2009 at 3:17 am

    Actually, The Most Expensive Domain Name Will Be Mine. I Can’t Disclose The Name Because I Haven’t Bought It Yet. :D

    619.793.XXXX

  17. Posted by Eric 8th May, 2009 at 9:17 am

    My cousin is selling his domain votalk.com for $35,000 I should tell him to sell it for more after reading this. You could make a living on this

  18. Posted by GK 15th June, 2009 at 6:47 am

    How much should EASYWEAR.COM be worth ?

    Any guesses ?

  19. Posted by donna 29th June, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    how will you know the price of a domain name? Wow wish I can make my website as expensive as that! yay!

  20. Posted by Robdomain 13th July, 2009 at 9:45 am

    i literally own the most expensive domain name – http://www.iownthemostexpensivedomainname.com It’s for sale. But can you afford it?

  21. Posted by donna 19th July, 2009 at 11:48 pm

    I will work hard to make my website pricey. hehehe. But i dont even know how to design it. How will we know the price of the site? Is there any calculator for that?

  22. Posted by Planet Orange 10th August, 2009 at 5:42 am

    How much should WEBMASTERCAFE.ORG be worth ?

  23. Posted by Marc 15th August, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Here is a name that will bring in millions in sales. The ultrasonic industry is a multi Billion dollar industry. The name ultrasonics.com will be to the ultrasonic world like cars.com is to the automobile industry

  24. Posted by udara 23rd August, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    the most expensive domain is micheljackson.com for a cool 21 million

  25. Posted by Instant Site Machine 7th September, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    Anyone interested in moneypotential.com?

  26. Posted by BigManta 23rd September, 2009 at 1:39 am

    Domain names continue to grow in popularity and price as each year goes by. If you take a look at fund.com, you will see that it sold for just under $10,000,000. I actually just released a post about the Top 20 Most Expensive Domain Names and it’s amazing what some of them have sold for.

  27. Posted by John Gilbert 29th September, 2009 at 9:28 am

    One controversial domain that made the news recently is
    capitalismisevil.com because it was missed by Michael Moore for his upcoming movie theme.

  28. Posted by Ed 9th October, 2009 at 12:49 am

    HEY GK, EASYWEAR.COM IS A NICE DOMAIN NAME AND YOU COULD SELL THAT AT LEAST A HUNDRED GRAND.

  29. Posted by amie 11th October, 2009 at 2:51 pm

    umm, easywear is not even worth 1 grand

  30. Posted by amie 11th October, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    john gilbert is just trying to hype up his domain name, michael moore didnt want that, stop lying.

  31. Posted by lonappan 20th October, 2009 at 5:14 am

    What about science and geography domains

  32. Posted by foto 26th October, 2009 at 5:04 am

    unbelievable!! .. I just cannot imagine how…

  33. Posted by clavier arabe 1st November, 2009 at 9:32 am

    I will work hard to make my website pricey. hehehe. But i dont even know how to design it. How will we know the price of the site? Is there any calculator for that?

  34. Posted by hamed 24th November, 2009 at 8:34 am

    tell them to find some web designer.

  35. Posted by yazzy 29th December, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    How much do you think can be sold a website like diordesign.com? is it worth to put it on sale now?

  36. Posted by tony 16th January, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    anyone want to start bidding….

    with alcohol sites selling for millions, and prescription sales being huge. what would you consider bidding on ReeferRX.com 14 some odd states have legalized medical marijuana sales, and many other countries have done the same already.

  37. Posted by B 27th January, 2010 at 5:57 pm

    The most expensive domain sales have not been published.
    Super short generic 2 letter domains like LG.com
    recently bought by million dollar companies like the korean technology conglomerate LG Corp
    have reached much higher prices – vb.com/fame.htm
    give a list of some of the most expensive domaines

  38. Posted by Stefan 2nd February, 2010 at 11:19 am

    what do you think about abord.org could it be sold for a good price ?

  39. Posted by Luiz H. 16th February, 2010 at 7:13 pm

    How much should YARDRAY.COM be worth ?

  40. Posted by Nards 23rd February, 2010 at 2:15 am

    I have two great domains for sale:

    finishbook.com and friedchickenstrips.com

    How much does anyone think I could get for each one?

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