Owning a domain name will typically cost between $10 and $20 a year, but that’s only a drop in the ocean in terms of possible price, new data has revealed.
Best Web Hosting (opens in a new tab) Hosting company (opens in a new tab) published a study of the seven most expensive domain names in history, with the most expensive domain costing $30 million in 2019.
Voice.com was bought by a team of technologists, artists and curators from business analytics and software firm MicroStrategy, with data from Hostinger suggesting the deal wasn’t great value value for money based on monthly site traffic figures (88.8k per month).
Most expensive domains
The seven major websites cost a combined $109 million and include the domain names: 360.com, NFTs.com, Sex.com, Fund.com, Hotels.com and Tesla.com.
The 360.com domain name was owned by Chinese internet security firm 360 Security Technology, but was bought by Vodafone for $17 million in 2015.
Data from SimilarWeb shows that its traffic significantly outperforms the most expensive domain with 23.9 million monthly visitors, making it the 154th largest website in China.
Additionally, the Sex.com domain name was sold in November 2010 by Escom to Clover Holdings after winning an auction.
Currently, the domain name receives more traffic than the rest of the top five sites combined, with 64 million visitors each month, and it is currently on sale, with minimum bids of $20 million so far.
“It’s fascinating to see how much money has been exchanged for specific domain names – the cost of the seven names on the list is over $100 million,” a Hostinger spokesperson said.
“For multi-billion dollar companies, the outlay is relatively low, especially if it secures your web presence, builds your brand, and provides a good flow of traffic to your site. However, as this study shows, spending millions of dollars on the domain name does not guarantee millions of website visitors.
Regarding Tesla.com, CEO Elon Musk previously mentioned that it took him ten years to buy the domain from Silicon Valley engineer Stuart Grossman for around $11 million.
