Porn.com domain sells big…cha-ching$$$$
The world of “type-in traffic” domains flirted with 8 digit figures this week. Cybernet is reporting a 9.5 million dollar sale for the domain second to sex.com for an estimated 12.5M and with Business.com trailing with a reported 7.5 million at the peak of the 1999 hayday.
For those of you unfamiliar with “type-in traffic”, entrepreneurs and “domainers” use this strategy to capitalize on users typing generic names directly into a browser. Since domains have become a finite resource on the Internet, search and type in traffic are the general ways of finding information about a particular topic or subject. It’s not hard to imagine why someone would want webhosting.com, I was guilty of typing that in myself to find web hosting services in the late 90s rather than using search engines at the time.
Richard Rosenblatt (former Myspace chairman) of newly formed Demand Media raised $120 million in 2006 to take advantage of highly trafficked domain names in various content verticals from A-Z, whether it be real estate or weight loss. If my memory serves me correctly there was a piece in Business 2.0 regarding Mr. Rosenblatt’s new venture. It’s easy to see why so much funding is needed for highly trafficked sites when domains bring in million dollar price tags. Siliconbeat points out a great example of a site like flashgames.com that is bringing in 150K+ in ad revenue by being nothing more than a glorified link farm to other game sites. Clearly Richard Rosenblatt and his army of VCs think they’re on to something. In the meantime, atta-boy to MXN for buying porn.com (if it wasn’t in the XXX industry, I would have thought they overpaid).
