In June 2010, the domaining landscape looked very different. The Internet was close to hitting 200 million domains (there are now over 362 million), and the .CO domain extension was preparing for launch by opening the land rush stage. Elsewhere, domain conference TRAFFIC Vancouver was in full swing, and DNJournal had a feature article about the success of one domainer’s daughter, who has now hit global fame under the name Lana Del Rey.
Here, I’m going to feature several notable sales from June 2010 to see what has happened to those names a decade on.
Table of Contents
Therapists.com – $50,000
This name may sound familiar to you, as it was recently sold for $91,000, almost exactly ten years since it sold for $50,000. In that ten year gap, Therapists.com hosted a content-based website offering relationship advice and more that you’d likely expect from visiting Therapists.com.
Recently, the name has been redirecting to BuckleyMedia.com, the site of broker Kate Buckley who was responsible for the $91,000 sale.
Slots.com – $5.5 million
The sale of Slots.com finished as the second-largest domain sale of 2010, after the sale of Sex.com for $13 million. Sold by domain registrar Moniker after an auction on SnapNames, Slots.com made tech news headlines with the likes of TechCrunch covering the sale.
Slots.com was acquired by gambling company Bodog. A year later, Bodog founder Calvin Ayre was indicted on charges of illegal gambling and money laundering, with the Bodog.com domain being seized (although it was returned to its owners since then).
Slots.com now offers a Bitcoin-based casino product.
Tr3s.com – $100,000
Even in 2020, it’s very unusual to see a four-character letter/number combination domain sell for a six-figure fee. In fact, Tr3s.com still holds the record for the largest four-character letter/number combination domain sale of all time, according to NameBio.
What was so special about Tr3s.com? It happened to be the exact brand match domain for MTV’s Tres brand, stylized as Tr3s. Launched in 2006, MTV Tr3s catered towards a massive bilingual teen and young adult market. By July 2010, MTV Tr3s had dropped “MTV”, and was being relaunched as simply “Tr3s”. Hence why they decided to acquire Tr3s.com.
Interestingly, MTV never acquired Tres.com which is owned by telecom company Three. Today, Tr3s.com redirects to MTV’s music pages.
Dating.com – $1.75 million
Since 2010, online dating has really taken off with the emergence of apps such as Tinder and Bumble that have attracted tens of millions of users. According to Statista, 196 million people worldwide are using online dating in 2020. Does that make Dating.com’s $1.75 million sales price in 2010 seem like a bargain now?
In 2010, Dating.com sold at a SnapNames auction with Harlequin Holdings Limited listed as the buyer. Based on archival copies of the site, they never did much with the domain aside from host a site about escorts. By 2015, there was speculation that the domain had sold again, with Jamie Zoch profiling the name’s history up to that point.
The name did sell at some point for an undisclosed fee, as Sol Networks Ltd now operates Dating.com. Its brands include TripTogether and Dating Positives.
CGM.com – $365,000
Even by 2020’s standards, this was a solid three-letter .COM sale. According to NameBio, CGM.com still ranks among the top 40 three-letter .COM sales of all time. Sold by Sedo on behalf of Tulca LLC, CGM.com was acquired by CompuGroup Holdings as an upgrade to their compugroup.com domain.
The upgrade was part of a rebranding as CompuGroup Holdings became CompuGroup Medical after several internal brands merged.
Since then, CGM.com has become home to the company’s global website, which also houses country-specific websites such as CGM.com/fr for France. In short, CGM.com seems to have become a very important part of the company’s online identity worldwide.
Other sales of note from June 2010 include:
- Kredit.com – $270,600
- Cheesecake.com – $100,000
- Pig.com – $125,000
- Bright.com – $112,500
- Doc.io – $24,600
- 627.com – $11,700