So, “.com” domains have been available for a long time - a very long time in Internet age. However, as the Internet is becoming more and more global, domain suffixes specific to each country are popping up every day. Thus, the goldrush of domains Internationally is creating impetus for people all over the world to find the next new Diamond.com (which, by the way fetched $7.5 million).

“As people in many regions go online, these names will become great pieces of real estate,” says Marc Ostrofsky, president of iReit, a private company that is accumulating domain names and is backed in part by Starbucks (Charts) founder Howard Schultz. In the past year and a half, iReit has amassed a domain portfolio of more than 400,000 names.

This spring it spent millions of dollars - Ostrofsky describes the amount as “mid-seven figures” - to buy up a collection of names ending in .de (Germany), .nl (the Netherlands) and .fr (France). The firm is now looking into deals in India and China.” [1]

“One explanation for the offshore-domain gold rush is pretty straightforward: Try to register almost any dot-com name, whether an acronym, a compound word, or even a common typo, and you’ll find it’s gone. ” [1]

Based on reported sales between June 11, 2007 and June 24, 2007, DN Journal reports 5 of the most expensively sold domains cost more than six figures including the top domain “Masculin.com” which roughly sold for $201,792 dollars which is “masculine” in French. A non “.com” website in “CC.cc” went for $70,000. Several International domains fetched more $25 gran from Apartamentos.es (”apartments” in Spanish) for a little over $40 gran, 3 German domains (Solar4you.de, red.de, check.de) all sold for 20,000 Euros or about $27 thousand dollars. Six.tv went for $25k. Moneytalks.tv for 15 gran, Heidi.ch just under 15k. Even a UK domain went for a little less than 12k — I don’t like the domains that have more than one period like “co.uk” or “co.jp”. I know that people who are surfing are lazy and even that extra “period” or “dot” puts them off. A majority of the top selling domains are still “.com’s”, but other domain suffixes are starting to penetrate the top selling list. [2]

And as usual, with the Internet industry, we can’t ignore the adult category. While Diamond.com is listed as one of the highest domain sales, Porn.com was sold recently for $9.5 million and before that, supposedly Sex.com was sold for $12 million. [3]

1. http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/29/technology/nextbigforeign.biz2/index.htm
2. http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm
3. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/15/porncom-sells-for-95m-cash/