The Sex.com domain sold for $13 million. Clover Holdings, based on the island of St. Vincent, made the winning bid. No one knows why. The BBC reports that “The sex.com domain has changed hands several times and at one time was under the control of a conman who stole it from its original owner.”
The most recent owner of the domain, Escom, went bankrupt. A court is to approve the final sale in five days.
It should really come as no surprise. Some analysts believe that the only sites that make money consistently are those that traffic in pornography. A look at the largest sites by number of visitors as measured by Alexa and other research firms shows that porno sites have a large number of spots among the top 500 by visitors.
The abundance of Internet porn may be the biggest problems facing the site’s new owners. Sex.com is likely to come up high on most search engine results for sex and pornography sites. But, the key to success in the adult entertainment industry is a mixture of content and price. Sexual images and videos are a commodity on the Internet now. It is not clear that people are willing to pay for one additional site to satisfy their needs.
Sex.com is the one domain to own, one could argue, for pornographers who hope to profit from one of the largest businesses on the web. But, as is true with many businesses, the early movers take the market. Sex.com comes to that market very late.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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