A mammoth domain name sale sends shock waves through the domain name business.
Rick Schwartz, aka the “Domain King”, has done it again.
As first reported by TheDomains yesterday, Schwartz sold the domain name Porno.com for $8,888,888.88.
Here are my thoughts on the sale.
1. First, a hat tip to Schwartz. He’s a polarizing figure, and you might not agree with everything he does or says. But this latest sale solidifies him in the halls of domaining. And, regardless of what you think of his antics, his big sales help all .com domain name owners.
2. I don’t know much about the online adult business. I hear that porn purveyors are struggling, but clearly a lot of the online distributors are doing quite well. In my book, the three top public domain name sales of all time are now porn related: Sex.com, Porn.com and now Porno.com. (I ignore Fund.com, because there was some funny business going on with the buyer.) Also, consider the premium sales .xxx has managed to pulled off in recent years. The company that bought Porno.com has purchased many other valuable domain names.
3. I was a bit surprised to hear that this is the highest ever single domain deal transacted at Escrow.com. I believe the company has done a handful of 8 figure transactions, but I guess those included more than one domain or perhaps other assets. It’s possible that the allocation of value in those larger transactions included a domain for more than $8.9 million, but Escrow.com wouldn’t necessarily be made aware of the split between domains in a multi-domain transaction.
Joseph Peterson says
“Escrow.com wouldn’t necessarily be made aware of the split between domains in a multi-domain transaction”
Their default form for multi-domain transactions includes itemized pricing.
Steve says
Rick IS a brilliant salesman! Kudos to The King! He has done an immense amount of work for the industry and this recent sale confirms it again. Making these sales stats public raises all decent .com boats!!!
Peer says
Kudos to Rick! Phenomenal Sale! Also i like the fact, the whole story, how he acquired it, monetize it, and sold it. Its transparent and it helps domain business get more validity. I see sometimes when people announce their Big sale, they don’t give numbers, any story, most time comes out as gloating and ego boosting which helps no one. I think it helps people tell the whole story. also i agree with @steve’s sentiments,”…raises all decent .com boats”.
Nic says
Yes, good in all sorts of ways from domain professionals.
But equally, I cant help but think that the buyer has no imagination.
Unless of course the intended application is not porn related; that would be interesting.
Joseph Peterson says
I’m all in favor of imaginative brand names.
Still, there are straightforward projects that do best with purely descriptive domains.
Cars.com and Apartments.com would exist as a domain names, developed or not. Shouldn’t somebody build them into sites about cars / apartments?
It would take a LOT of imagination for everybody in the world who can sell cars to SHUN Cars.com simply because it’s not a creative brand name!
The same applies here. Incidentally, from DotWeekly’s piece about the buyer of Porno.com, you can see that they have a pretty extensive network of adult sites / brands. There’s a little bit of imagination in that.
DR.DOMAIN says
Congrats Rick Schwartz. About the final sales price: Was the buyer Asian? (all 8’s) Whatever the case…I don’t have much confidence that the end user will get much if any actual value out of it. The porn industry in general has deflated & decentralized so much in the last decade.One need only see the rambling wreck that is sex.com to see that no one in that industry really has a clue where or how to get max (or any) money.
JZ says
the buyer runs a number of ‘tube’ sites with tons of pirated material. he controls a large amount of adult traffic and a number of premium adult domains. adult in general may be suffering but the big tubes full of stolen content are making bank.