We just searched online to see if we could get headlesschicken.com and we were told it's a premium domain and would cost over $31,000. You buy a domain name from what's called a registrar, and they reserve those names from registries. But if you wanted to buy headlesschicken.us, that would only set you back $4.99. We were told that in the first quarter of 2018, there were 333.8 million top level domain name registrations.
Getting the name you want might not be easy, or might be expensive, as we just found out with our headlesschicken.com. Today we'll see who paid the most though,
First of all, if you're wondering why .com domains can be so expensive, it's just a matter of buying the best real estate. Brands are often most recognizable as .coms and it is a .com that will make your brand most visible in searches. As Forbes says, “Using a .com is the most authoritative way of guaranteeing your site will be found, along with providing other useful content around your brand.” It's not just about being found, either, having a .com business gives it inherent value.
20.
Casino.com Human vices are a great business to be in and gambling is a temptation many people can't turn away from. This domain was bought in 2003 for $5.5 million.
Of course, the site is all about gambling, offering games and a bunch of blogs on ways to risk losing your cash.
19.
Israel.com This was bought in 2008 for $5.88 million. It has an interesting story because it's said the domain was first purchased in 1994 by a Jewish/American man so people couldn't misuse the domain. He then sold it on and made a lot of money, although reports don't say how much he bought it for. If you visit the site now, you guessed it, you get lots of information about the country Israel.
iCloud.com iCloud.com is of course owned by the company Apple. It seems someone else had owned the domain and Apple had to pay out $6 million in 2011 to get it. The iCloud is where one can store all their data when there is too much to store locally. Apple also owns iCloud.org and iCloud.net. There are also reports that when Apple bought iCloud.com from a Swedish company called Xcerion it paid $4.5 million.
17.
Beer.com If you're a fan of beer this is where you go, or went. Right now, it seems that domain is not working. Apparently, it was bought for $80,000 by a couple of guys who wanted people to talk about beer, how to brew, the best beers, drinking games, etc. They sold it for $7 million in 2004.16.
Diamond.com This was sold for $7.5 million in 2006. We can't tell you much about this site, because if you go there now you get one page saying the “world's number one cryptocurrency exchange”. It used to be all about diamonds.15.
Business.com This was bought for $7.5 million back in 1999. It was originally bought by a guy called Marc Ostrofsky for a measly $150,000, so he made a ton of money from buying domains. It's all related to business obviously, with the latest story as we write this sounding like one of our own shows: 25 jobs you can get without a college degree.14.
Fb.com This domain was actually bought by Facebook in 2010 for $8.5 Million. If you type in FB.com it just takes you to Facebook.13.
We.com Most of you won't know what this simple-sounding site is about if you go there, only because many of you don't speak Chinese. The domain was reportedly sold for $8 million back in 2015. It's owned by Tencent, the huge Chinese company that owns the country's largest chat platform, WeChat. If you go there now you'll find stock listings.12.
Porno.com This domain was sold in 2015 for $8,888,888. It's the kind of site that redirects you to other sites that offer temporary titillation for viewers. The story goes that a guy called Rick Schwartz bought the domain from a student for $42,000 in 1997. That student had bought it the week before for $8,000. Rick certainly did well for himself.11.
Internet.com In 2009, the website Internet.com was bought for $9 million. Obviously, this is a vague name and you don't know quite what you're going to get when heading there. Well, much of it is about buying domain names, or monetizing a website, driving traffic to your website and marketing yourself.10.
Porn.com Ok, so another site we don't need to explain. The domain was bought in 2007 for $9.5 million. It's by no means the most popular adult content site out there, but it gets a healthy number of visitors from the U.S., India and Italy, according to Alexa.com.9. Hotels.com This was bought in 2001 for $11 million. This was way back in the day, and at the time people thought spending so much on a domain was crazy.
It's another site owned by the Expedia Group.8.
Sex.com Well, we think you can guess what this site is all about. You've all heard that saying, something along the lines of adult content being a key reason why people are using the Internet. The domain was bought for $13 million back in 2006. According to Alexa.com, it's the 338th most popular website out there. Most of the traffic comes from the U.S., followed by India, the UK, France and Canada.7.
Fund.com Fund.com is listed as selling for £9.99 million in 2008. That would have been around $15 million back then according to historical exchange rates. Not surprisingly, the website is all about matters concerning money. While the purchase of the domain is listed in pounds, it's actually run out of the U.S. The website sure is hard on the eye for something that cost so much money.It was also involved in a Ponzi scheme back in 2008/9 which didn't look very good for the company.
6.
Insure.com This belongs to a company called Quinstreet, which is based in Foster City, California. It was sold in 2009 for $16 million. Here you can get quotes on insurance, but you can also find an array of articles addressing issues related to health insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, home insurance, etc.5.
360.com This is another name that doesn't expressly tell you what you are going to see. It was bought in 2015 for $17 million. It's owned by a Chinese company called Qihoo 360 that deals in lots of things related to the digital economy, including Internet Security products.4.
PrivateJet.com PrivateJet.com was bought in 2012 for $30.18 million. The concept is simple enough, if you've got money to spare just go onto the site and book yourself a private jet, from a small aircraft to a large one, and off you go. It's not cheap of course. On its popular routes, the site tells us you can book a jet from West Palm Beach in Florida to LA as a same day return and it will set you back at least $57,000.3.
VacationRentals.com This was sold for $35 million in 2007. Again, the name is pretty self-explanatory, as it should be when you're spending millions of dollars. Behind Vacation Rentals is a company called Home Away, which has many acquisitions under its belt. Home Away was bought itself by the Expedia Group in 2015 for $3.9 billion.2.
Insurance.com This domain was also sold in 2010. It went for $35.6 million. It was also bought by Quinstreet and again deals with insurance of all kinds.1.
CarInsurance.com This domain was sold in 2010 for $49.7 million and again belongs to Quinstreet.As the company name uses a capital “I” for insurance when it writes the name (not in the URL of course) you can't help but read the name Carl. Carl doesn't quite scream 50 million bucks. The site offers car insurance information pertaining to where you live, insurance based on age, and recommends the best insurance for your budget.We should add here that some reports say that cars.com sold for a whopping $872,320,000 in 2015, although it doesn't seem to make the lists out there that have compiled domain sales data. Maybe a domain that you register today can be worth $50 million in a few years- or maybe you need to secure a domain right now before someone else does and charges you $50 million for it later!
