KEY POINTS:
Software company owner Chris Clark is rolling in dough - he's just sold the pizza.com domain name for $2.6 million (NZ$3.26 million).
American Clark paid just US$20 for the domain 14 years ago when, as an internet consultant, he thought it might help him grab a lucrative contract
with a pizza company. It didn't, but he's not too worried now.
"It's crazy, it's just crazy," he told the Baltimore Sun after a week's worth of anonymous bids online had given him the incredible profit. "That amount of money is significant - it will make a significant difference in my life, for sure."
The first bid, on March 27 was for $100, but by the next morning it was $500,000, before finally climbing past the $2 million reserve set by domain specialists Sedo.
Sedo boss Jeremiah Johnston described the address as a "once in a lifetime opportunity".
The identity behind the buyer of pizza.com is, so far, being kept secret.
One of the driving factors behind the 43-year-old deciding to cash up the pizza.com domain was the $3 million sale of vodka.com to a Russian liquor exporter in 2006.
"I thought, 'Why don't I just try to see what the level of interest is?'" Clark told the Sun. "If someone's willing to pay that much for Vodka.com, maybe there's more interest in pizza.com."
His only regret now is not buying up more generic, industry-encompassing domains when he had the chance.
"In '94, you could have just registered everything and anything," he said. "I think about that now, yeah."
Other domains that have attracted big chequebooks are fund.com, which sold for $10 million last year; business.com and diamond.com both went for $7.5 million. The porn king's dream domain sex.com was sold for a massive $12 million in stock and cash.
Web speculators are no longer seeing stupid money paid for domains - after all, there are 150 million of them registered, so it's becoming a lot harder to come up with names that will attract buyer interest.
Domain names that cover entire subjects - and, importantly, finish with the magic .com - are the most sought after, as they often match keywords used in internet searches.
Internet marketing specialist Catherine Pancake told the Baltimore Sun that Clark's domain would be very effective in pushing up a company's search ranking.
"It would be great to have 'pizza' as a domain name," she said, stating the plainly obvious, "it will be recognised highly by Google as being relevant to pizza."
- NZ HERALD STAFF