The web domain Internet.com is scheduled to be sold at auction this spring, with a starting bid of $35 million.
The auction is expected to mark the latest in a growing list of blockbuster domain sales in recent years, with sites such as Voice.com, Money.com, and PrivateJet.com fetching as much as $30 million. A handful of sites, purchased in private sales, have seen prices climb as high as $105 million.
The current owner of Internet.com purchased the domain for an undisclosed sum last summer from Afilias, then the largest U.S.-based registry services firm. Prior to the sale, the site hosted an online magazine. Though now a sales page for the auction, Internet.com consistently attracts more than 5 million unique visitors per month.
“Internet.com offers a unique global platform — the name, ‘Internet,’ and the domain, ‘.com,’ and the traffic that those two terms generate, bring enormous value to the domain,” the seller said. “Any number of companies or individuals can harness that built-in traffic and attention. And, of course, the name is distinctive: that you own this fundamental piece of ‘the internet’.”
The planned auction will be held via web conference by an accredited auction house, on a date to be announced. It is being spearheaded by Stevan Lieberman, managing attorney at Greenberg & Lieberman in Washington, D.C., and an expert in domain registries.
“More and more people are investing in this space — our escrow system for domain-name transactions last year saw twice as many sales as in 2019,” Lieberman said. “Investors are recognizing that domain names offer three things: a piece of digital real estate, a potential trademark, and a fungible product, and the sales are reflecting that value.”
For more information, please contact Alan Neuhauser at HAUS Strategic Communications — alan@hauscomms.com or 202-627-0441 — or visit internet.com.
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