In July 2020, British SMS company IntisTele acquired the domain IT.co.uk for a reported £187,200 (around $242,000 at the time of the sale).
The sale made sense as a shorter, more accessible version of the difficult to spell IntisTele.com, and the company quickly started redirecting the domain to its existing website.
Just under a year after this purchase, IntisTele made another logical acquisition by buying IT.com for an undisclosed fee, although it is thought to be in the seven-figure range. IntisTele was represented in the deal by broker James Booth.
It was assumed that IntisTele would replace its domain with IT.com, or redirect it in a similar style as IT.co.uk.
Navigating to the domain today, however, shows that IT.com is the basis for an entirely new venture as its own subsidiary of IntisTele. It’s domain related, too.
Starting on November 1st, visitors to IT.com will be able to register subdomains of the IT.com name.
Domain hacks immediately come to mind, with customers potentially able to register names such as buy.it.com, download.it.com, or check.it.com.
It isn’t the first time that two-letter .com domains have been used to sell subdomains. CentralNIC, another British company, operates UK.com and US.com in a similar manner.
Thanks for the insightful article, I wonder what sub-domains are selling for?