Garrett SaundryWith the impending launch of another TLD in .ASIA, it gets me thinking what is a domain worth? Although your answer of “Well whatever somebody is willing to pay for it silly!” is technically correct, but not altogether right. Domains are like land here in Vancouver. There is a finite amount and it seems like everybody wants some (although with domain names, it’s not possible to have everybody move in and split the mortgage between 15 people). Limited availability coupled with high demand serve to drive the prices up on regular domain names, and this is seen even moreso on premium domains.
Here’s a list of domains that have been sold for top dollar:
sex.com $12 million (purchased in 2005, read about the sale here)
porn.com $9.5 million (purchased in 2007, read about the sale here)
Business.com $7.5 million (purchased in 1999)
Diamond.com $7.5 million beer.com $7 million
Casino.com $5.5 million
AsSeenOnTv.com $5.1 million
Altavista.com $3.3 million
Wine.com $2.9 million
creditcards.com $2.75 million
Autos.com $2.2 million
Express.com $1.8 million
VIP.com $1.4 million
Men.com $1.3 million
Wallstreet.com $1 million
Rock.com $1 million
Fish.com $1 million
This is not a comprehensive list by far, as I’m sure that this record will be broken pretty quickly.
If you have a domain name that you may be hanging on to in the hopes of selling or if it’s just sitting around not doing anything but collecting virtual dust, you may be wondering how to determine exactly what it’s worth. There are a number of domain appraisal services out there. Fair warning though, some of them (like this one) are pretty subjective. I did a short comparison between 2 domain names, and it told me that the domain webnames.ca was only worth $1200, whereas a random domain that I picked ended up being worth $14000. I’d better get on it and register that one ASAP…
There is a limited number of domains, and the internet is still expanding at a rapid pace. Here is a list of all generic top level domains, and this is a list of country TLDs, which now represent 40% of the domain names registered worldwide.
I’m sure that there are some of us that remember the huge Internet and technology boom of the early 1990’s, and I am sure that there are just as many that remember the bust shortly after that. The bottom sort of fell out of domain name speculation at that time, and where we had been seeing people (and squatters) throwing away fistfuls of cash on domains that they thought they could make a quick and easy dollar on, much like the proverbial swamp land in Florida. These days people are being much more conservative and taking a wait and see approach when it comes to the speculation and purchase of domain names. That’s not to say we won’t see huge prices on domains, I think we haven’t even started to see sites go for big dollars yet. As the pool of available names shrinks, the domains that are out there can only go up in price.
In the end though, the worth of a domain name does in fact come down to what somebody is willing to pay for it. With more and more TLDs being bought up every day, it’s probably worthwhile to hold onto what you’ve got. On the other hand, if somebody were to offer you several million dollars for a domain you’re currently holding, it may not be a bad idea to take it.