What’s The Most Famous Domain You Used To Own?

by

Over the years many of us have sold hundreds even thousands of domain names, some of which have went on to become major or quite famous sites.

The question for a sleep Saturday morning in the dead of August is which domain did you used to own which has become a major or famous site?

This is not what is your best or highest sale, dollar figures are irreverent.

Its what domain did you used to own that is now a major or famous site.

For myself that’s an easy one, MyFlorida.com.

It’s now the “Official portal for the state of Florida.”

The site is ranked by Compete.com as the 753rd busiest on the net with over 2 million monthly visitors.

The domain MyFlorida.com also appears on million and millions of license plates throughout the state of Florida.

That’s mine, what’s yours?

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. Mr T says

    Great domain..I know there is no time for regrets but when you look back, do you wish you still had the domain under your wings?

  2. Mr T says

    Good lord, I just visited MyFlorida.com – that website needs a serious makeover. The design quality does NOT match the quality of the domain at all.

  3. MHB says

    Mr. T

    No regrets.

    I have other My…state domains and no one has ever come calling.

    The state of Floirda had plenty of choices including doing like Georgia did and going with Georgia.gov which is on all of their license plates.

    Proud of the sale, rather than regretful.

    Regarding the design of the site, remember it is the government

  4. Lou Mindar says

    The domain I’m most proud of selling was neither a high dollar sale nor is the domain overly famous. The domain is TeamUSAShop.com and it’s used by the U.S. Olympic Committee to sell Olympic-related merchandise.

    I’m a big fan of the Olympics and feel good about having something I could sell to help the USOC generate income.

    If the Canadian Olympic Committee is reading this and is interested, I still have TeamCanadaShop.com

  7. Leonard Britt says

    Perhaps my highest-profile sale was earlier this year selling the domain CarroYa.com to a newspaper out of Bogota, Colombia named El Tiempo. It has been developed into a local AutoTrader type website. But that sale showed me the value of an end user and that even for Spanish domains the right end user can still afford to pay over a thousand dollars. Prior to that sale I had never sold a Spanish domain over a thousand.

  8. jp says

    It’s not super famous but JoeSoft.com. I’ll always regret selling it but I know some day it will be mine again. Since my name is Joe and I’m big on writing software I always wanted to make some sort of software company on it and maybe pedal alot of the random utilities I make for myself over the years. I always envisioned using the slogan “Software for the average Joe”. So you could imagine my surprise after selling it from a NetSol anonymous offer and checking the site a few months later to see a software site from a well known company and using the slogan of all things, “Software for the average Joe”. Even more annoying to me is that I knew the company well that purchased it as when I used to own my old IT company I would purchase quite a few data recovery products from them. It’s like they gave me back my own money when they bought the domain. Oh well, hindsight. Ok even crazier it was my first domain I ever got and was a 21st birthday present from my dad. he called me on my bday and said he’d buy me one of “those domain thingies”. It was $70 for 2 years at the time I think. So I told him there was only one domain I want but I had been monitoring it for 2 years and it was already taken. Nonetheless I checked it’s availability again on my 21st bday an sure enough it had become available that day (or maybe a few days before coz I had checked it recently). So of course I took him up on that birthday offer, how could I not? I wasn’t a domainer at the time I bought it.

  9. RKB says

    SpincityCasino.com : It was a great sale. Now it has a nice casino site on it. Still have SpincityPoker.com and over 300 other casino and poker names, of course along with lots of other names.

  11. Pat says

    TahoeSouth.com

    It points to the CVB site (or LTVA, as they call it) for Lake Tahoe South Shore. Not that famous I guess, but a very nice site for an awesome place.

  14. sin says

    I used to a Three word Hypenated domain name last year which I hand Regged it for 6 bucks!
    It was something like xx-xxx-xxxx.net , which I sold for 4k 🙂 cant disclose the name since it was a private sale.

  18. elimam says

    for me it has to be Kazoku.jp (family in Japanese). I sold it to a cable company and it is now developed as family social network.

  19. Stephen Douglas_Successclick.com says

    I think I hit a homerun selling the domain “GrapheneSolutions.com” to the professor at the Univ of Wisconsin whose class came up with this new product that will change electronic device manufacturing as we know it. I agreed to sell it cheap in exchange for a permanent backlink. The professor’s class went on to win the Wisconsin State Science Fair on their graphene discovery.

    The second one, which I think is the best website I’ve ever seen developed within less than a year, is ROBOTRADIO.COM. The owner, who is handicapped, has created a website that engrosses you as soon as you type in the domain and start clicking on links. It’s an incredible piece of website artwork/development. You’ll probably bookmark it.

    The thousands of other domains I’ve sold, I haven’t followed up on, so I can’t report on them. But, thanks to EM-BEE, my ADHD mind is now constantly thinking of searching up every single one of them to see what they’ve become!

    Thanks a lot, broey! lol (i love the scope of your article – totally original and interesting for domainers – great job!)

  20. Soud says

    I’m not sure if my sales are considered famous but I’d like to share; my first domain I ever owned was kiwifi.com and it was my first sale, it got sold by me by contacting the end-user directly (it was only about 3 months old) I was feeling so lucky as a newbie to the domain industry. I then expanded my portfolio to around 20 domains and about another 3 months later I sold padsync.com sold through sedo. I then expanded my portfolio even further more like crazy and I know own 40 domains most listed at sedo. My 41st domain (not listed for sale) is mallenia.com which will be my first domain to develop…unless it’s been already another 3 months since padstnc.com 😀

  23. David says

    I reg’d UnitedStatesOfAmerica.com about 1996 but let it expire since I was obviously stupid at the time and did not want to pay the renewal fee!

  27. Soud says

    @David I’m sorry for your loss (yes, I’m trying to make it sound like someone has died ::( Best luck in future stuff.

  29. BobLee says

    Does “soon to be famous” count? 🙂

    Use to own MoreWin.com. I never thought much about it… renewed it a couple of year and as I was checking myself as to what to do with this ‘achilles heel’… (I mean it’s definitely not Business.com, right?) …I get a short email saying they had been trying to reach me thru a service with no success and were interested in this name… They are a VERY recognized international sports retailer. The domain immediately sold in 2 days for several thousand dollars.

    Point is… you never know 🙂

  30. LouK says

    I ran the top level domain .tv and sold it to Verisign in 2001. They paid a fair price at the time, but we were jsuy 7-8 years too early,

  32. Tasha Kidd says

    It would have to be a toss up between two really cool products, not necessarily in the famous category, but very hip, nontheless.

    One was LiveU.com to a great Israeli company that has a go-to product for live video streaming uplinks to satellite, used by major broadcasters and Indie producers, alike, around the world.

    The second one is Reactable.com sold to a company built around a university research team that has created a very cool interactive table for collaborative music creation among small groups. Would be great at a club or the next domain conference, for an after party. It’s not famous yet, but it’s gaining some serious steam, with it’s latest installation at Discovery. See Reactable.com and check out some of the videos on youtube.com

  33. Jim Holleran says

    I should track some of the names I sold since 1998 but I have not. I know JuegosGratis.net which I sold for $10,000 a couple years back, the guy was doing real well with the site.

  36. Erica Douglass says

    I owned MiniServers.com — and acquired before the Mac Mini existed! — and sold it to a hosting company not too long ago.

    I also picked up 10for10.com and numerous variants (10410.com etc.) and built a company around it and sold that for 5 figures to another hosting company.

    -Erica

  39. LS Morgan says

    Because of MyFlorida.com, I always took a liking to My(FloridaCityName).com’s as brandable and intuitive names that could be had cheap (I remember when a lot of them were out there for reg; not too many, anymore).

    I own MyStAugustine.com (aftermarket) and MySaintAugustine.com (dropcatch) which is my hometown and they do get a surprising amount of whois lookups. Both are slated for full scale development, once I get away from business here in the Windy City and back to the Sunshine State- unfortunately, St. Augustine is a hyper-popular tourist destination and the competition in that space is mighty due to the hotel affiliate gold, with a few deeply entrenched for-profit guides and portals out there…

    Cool to know the history of MyFlorida.com. Every Floridian knows it well. I agree that you shouldn’t have any regrets selling a name like that, just because it was developed and became popular. Chances are, if you had asked too much money, they would’ve just moved on to another name.

  41. Rob Sequin says

    I sold AutoBlog.com in 2004. Now owned by AOL and has a PR8… active site.

    Not the best domain or most money but most “famous” one I’ve sold.

  43. Andrew Rosener says

    I sold Humiliated.com to a top UK Adult internet company. Good sale!

    Also makes great conversation piece at dinner with friends! Best part is when you tell them to go check out what’s on there now…

    My personal favorite sale though, was IbericoHam.com!!! This is the single most expensive meat on earth. It is a special ham which only comes from one region of spain and will cause you to convulse in delight upon eating. It was illegal to import into the USA until about 3 or 4 years ago. I bought it (along with several other related names) 6 or 7 years ago when I first tried this ham in Spain.

    One day I’m driving to my office and listening to NPR radio when they announced that the FDA had approved Iberico Ham for import into the USA and that George W Bush was about to receive the first of these hams at the White House.

    First thing I did was track down the importer. Sold it to him for a few thousand dollars PLUS a whole 17 pound leg of the ham shipped to my door along with appropriate carving knife and podium in which to hold the ham.

    It was a proud trophy on my kitchen counter for the 4 weeks it lasted. I was eating Iberico Ham morning, noon & night with good Rioja wine for a month until it was gone!

    No joke, this stuff sells (the Reserva) for over $150 / Lb.

    I wish I could do that all over again.

    I still own SpainHam.com and tried to trade it outright for another one of those Iberico Hams, but he wouldn’t go for it…

  46. Ozie Jackson says

    I sold StoriesOfUs.com to a film producer. It is not so famous but the films target peer pressure and bullying so I am happy it is being used for a good cause.

  47. Wade Thomas says

    How much did you sell MyFlorida.com to the state of Florida for ?

    And did they come to you or did you find a way to go to them to offer it ???

    A couple of my favorites that I have sold in the past have been:

    ClassifiedAds.com – sold it in the early days for WAY too little money!! LOL 🙂

    PersonalPower.com – tried selling to Tony Robbins, but they would never buy it. Then Guthy Renker came inquiring to me. They owned a trademark of a similar version of the name, but not the official “Personal Power”. There had been a fan company that owned the trademark, but was out of business. So I was able to buy & sell it without any legal problems.

    I do suggest people check http://www.USPTO.GOV for trademarks on the names that they want to purchase or register to stay out of legal issues when buying a domain name!!

  49. Domo Sapiens says

    Just saw a car from FLorida with myflorida.com license plates engrabed.
    Is that a promotion?
    .(it could have been a rental)

    (I’m in Texas)

    Cheers.

  50. MHB says

    Domo

    As I said in the post MyFlorida.com appears on almost every license plate in the state, except for a few specialty plates and have done so for over 10 years

  51. Domo Sapiens says

    Very nice.
    Had no idea, I don’t read everything as I am getting old just glance thru stuff.
    Viral stuff..
    I understand how you feel about it now …
    you get to see the url everyday (not to mention is the State official site).

    Cheers.