A website’s success is basically based on one thing that’s its name. It’s also known as the domain name and has the power to make or break the site’s success. Every site must have a unique name which will allow a race to claim the perfect, brand-building online address that’s easy for people to find. Buying a domain name for a website can be expensive and sometimes the domain names have been sold for tens of millions of dollars. A spokesperson from Hostinger, a web hosting provider said, “It’s fascinating to see how much money has exchanged hands for specific domain names—the cost of the seven names in the list adds up to more than $100 million.”
But if you wonder are these domain names worth all that money? While some of the expensive website names sold for dollars have achieved a huge number of monthly visitors, others fell did not and failed flat. Here are the 7 most expensive domain names of all time.
1) Voice.com
Voice.com has nothing to do with voices if you are thinking so. This is the least visited but one of the most expensive sites on the list. The website is a marketplace where users can create NFTs and list them for sale. According to the site’s description, the site aims to ’empower artists from all walks of life to build sustainable art practices using the power of blockchain technology’.
Cost: $30 million
Purchased: 2019
Current Monthly Traffic: 90,000
2) 360.com
360.com was purchased by a Chinese company called 360 Security Technology in February 2015 Vodafone. It is now the 154th largest website in China, proving that achieving the number-one spot takes more than money.
Cost: $17 million
Purchased: 2015
Current monthly traffic: 24 million
3) NFTs.com
NFTs.com was purchased in August 2022 and is a bit of a wildcard. The website seems the owners have abandoned it and has no clickable buttons or functionality. At the time, demand for digital artwork was already on its way down from a January 2022 peak. The traffic of the site is too low to be estimated by the tool Hostinger, SimilarWeb that is used to pull those numbers.
Cost: $15 million
Purchased: 2022
Current monthly traffic: Not available
4) S*x.com
It’s not a surprise that this website S*x.com attracts the most traffic on the list because of its name. According to CNET reports the former owner of the website, Escom, declared bankruptcy and was forced to give it up. Then the domain name was sold through an auction in November 2010. A company called Clover Holdings, registered to the island of St. Vincent, got the website name for $13 million. Recently, it went back on the market, as the company tries to flip its investment. The minimum bid for the domain name starts at $20 million.
Cost: $13 million
Purchased: 2010
Current monthly traffic: 64 million
5) Fund.com
Fund.com was sold for $12 million at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. It is an investment website that offers informational content and financial services. But it went up for sale again in 2009. Today, the site boldly calls itself “Your #1 source for financial information” and rakes in a solid amount of traffic.
Cost: $12 million
Purchased: 2008
Current monthly traffic: 293,000
6) Hotels.com
Hotels.com bought the domain name in 2001 for $11 million and has made quite a business for itself since acquiring it. It is one of the oldest sales on the list. As the name is quite explanatory the website helps its visitors make the best hotel reservations according to their needs and budgets.
Cost: $11 million
Purchased: 2001
Current monthly traffic: 44.5 million
7) Tesla.com
Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded Tesla in 2003. It was then taken over by Elon Musk in 2008, but the company didn’t purchase Tesla.com until 2014. Elon later said it took him 10 years to secure the same domain name. Eventually, the company took it over from Silicon Valley engineer Stuart Grossman for around $11 million. The site receives nearly 17 million visitors on monthly basis, as all Tesla vehicle and energy storage product sales go through the website.
Cost: $11 million
Purchased: 2014
Current monthly traffic: 16.9 million
Hope you now realized that investing in domain names is a good idea.
