Sales of domains Fly.com, Russia.com, America.com and Brazil.com were among the top ten highest valued URLs in 2009 as travel and geography-related sites showed a rise in popularity with buyers.
Data from domain marketplace specialist Sedo shows that the well publicised purchase of Fly.com by Travelzoo just weeks ahead of the metasearch engine's launch in February 2009 was the biggest transaction of the year at £1.2 million (almost $1.8 million at today's prices).
Russia.com was also another high-ticket item, going for over £900,000 ($1.4 million).
Sedo says there is a general increase in geographic and travel-related domains changing hands, with Sudan.com (£75,295) and Kiev.com (£54,601) also appearing high in quarterly tables in the later part of 2009.
Sedo business development director Nora Nanayakkara says:
“The findings suggest that marketers are looking to capitalise on the benefits that geographic domains offer. Search engines like Google put significant weight on the keywords within domain names, so having a geographic domain name that incorporates a place name can take a website right to the top of search engine rankings.”
Despite the high value sales, all except Fly.com appear to be dormant, at least as travel-related websites (all three have GoDaddy branding and affiliate links).
The ten most expensive global domain sales in 2009:
fly.com
1,152,173.24
russia.com
904,319.74
call.com
678,749.65
server.com
478,143.83
america.com
474,977.28
files.com
449,845.74
christian.com
366,917.29
top.com
327,916.88
talk.com
303,994.08
brazil.com
302,489.98
- Fly.com - £1,152,173.24
- Russia.com - £904,319.74
- Call.com - £678,749.65
- Server.com - £478,143.83
- America.com - £474,977.28
- Files.com - £449,845.74
- Christian.com - £366,917.29
- Top.com - £327,916.88
- Talk.com - £303,994.08
- Brazil.com - £302,489.98