If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that sex sells.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Web’s simplest sex-based domain name — sex.com — has just sold for a reported $13 million. Or, to put it in a rhyme, 13 million bucks for a synonym of … well, you know.
Sex.com: The $13 Million Domain
A company from the Caribbean called Clover Holdings is behind the $13 million sex.com bid, according to the BBC. It’s not yet clear what Clover plans to do with the sex.com site (though I think we can all take a guess).
To be sure, 13 million’s no small chunk of change, even in the high-stakes domain game. In fact, if the sex.com sale goes through — it still has to be approved by a court — the name stands to be one of the most expensive in the history of the World Wide InterWebs.
Get this, too: The last sale of sex.com is also among the grandest domain transactions of all time. Back in 2006, original sex.com owner (and Match.com founder) Gary Kremen sold the domain for $12 million. The company that bought it ended up declaring bankruptcy, leading us to where we are today.
Sex.com and Other Expensive Domain Names
So if sex.com is worth $13 million, what other domain names can fetch that kind of cash? According to some records, the current top dollar-grabber is internet.com. A company called QuinStreet reportedly bought the domain for a cool $18 mil back in ’09. QuinStreet is also said to have forked over $16 million for insure.com that same year. Both of those sales, however, appear to have included assets beyond just the names themselves.
The 10 highest priced standalone sales, according to industry magazine Domain Name Journal (as reported by ABC News):
- • Fund.com: $9.99 million
- • Porn.com: $9.5 million
- • Diamonds.com: $7.5 million
- • Slots.com: $5.5 million
- • Toys.com: $5.1 million
- • Vodka.com: $3 million
- • Candy.com: $3 million
- • CreditCards.com: $2.75 million
- • Computers.com: $2.1 million
- • Seniors.com: $1.8 million
Man — if we could only find a way to combine a bunch of these into one mega-spectacular super-domain, we’d have a billion dollar idea on our hands.
Wait! I’ve got it: VodkaCandyForSeniorsWhoPlaySlotsOnComputersWithCreditCards.com.
Big money, here I come.
JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can find him on both Facebook and Twitter.