How much do the most expensive domains of the Internet cost?

How much do the most expensive domains of the Internet cost?

US $25 Million were paid by Google for the exclusive rights of the .app generic domain on the Internet. This generic domain name was obtained by auction, organized by ICANN (The Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers). When a domain name is assigned by auction, it means that several companies were interested in buying it.
The price that was paid by Google, is the highest number in the history of auctions.

Google succeeded in overcoming 12 other competitors, including Amazon, to have the authority over this domain.
.App is the abbreviation for application and Google now has the power to sell any domain name that ends in the .app extension. It will be released as an open top-level domain in 2018.
This gTLD is very useful in the business of technology and for companies that offer applications and software products.

The auctioning for these generic top-level domains began in June 2014. Initially there was a limited amount, including .com and .net, but ICANN set out to expand the range and “promote competition” in domain registration. Now the plan is to bring 500 new domains to the market, which is the largest expansion in decades.
Last year Amazon and Google were fighting over the .buy domain, Google failed and Amazon managed to get it for a price of US $4.5 million.

Beyond the world of technology companies, the multinational Johnson & Johnson obtained the .baby domain in December for US $3 million.
The company Radix held the previous record in the price of generic domains. Radix managed to buy the domain .tech for US $6.7 million in September 2014. The specialty of this company is in obtaining generic domains and then sell subdomains.

Anyhow, all these prices that were paid seem nothing compared to the prices paid for full domain names. Here are 3 examples:

  • Despite it may appear surprising, the largest amount ever paid for a domain name was to obtain the insurance.com. It was bought for US $35.6 million by a marketing company – QuinStreet. The price paid was also for the content of the website, which now represents an insurance search engine.
  • VacationRentals.com comes second in the history of most expensive domain names. In 2007, a founder of a vacation rental company got it for US $35 million.
  • The third place is for the domain PrivateJet.com that was acquired by the Atlanta Nations Luxury Transportation company for the price of US $30.18 million in 2012.