A milestone has just been reached: the domain name has hit 25 years old.
On the 15th March 1985, the very first domain name was registered. It was for a computer maker called Symbolics, and who would have realised the revolution it would signal.
Back in 1985 there were just 6 .com domain names registered. Now there are around 86 million active .com domain names and there are around 100,000 domain names registered every day. On top of that, there are around 113 million websites with their own domain names that have come and gone.
It wasn’t until 1997 that the Internet hit the milestone of 1 million domain names registered. And to underline what a heady time that was, there were over 20 million registered in 1998.
Back then, of course, domain names were a lot more expensive – .coms were usually registered for £50 to £100 per year. You can of course register a .com domain name with Daily for just £5.99 a year.
Thanks to the laws of supply and demand, some domain names have gone on to be worth a lot more than their original registration cost. Just recently the world’s most expensive domain name sex.com came to auction. Back in 2006 sex.com changed hands for $14 million.
And as for Symbolics, the pioneering owner of the very first domain name? The sad news is that they went bust, and the domain name was bought by a speculator back in 2009.
As we all know, not every Internet road is paved with gold!
How much is your domain name worth? Leave a comment below.
