Print, Design & Websites
Posted: November 14, 2017 • Posted in: Marketing Tips, Website Design
Earlier this year it was revealed that Elon Musk, one of the pioneers of PayPal had bought back the domain name X.com from his former company. It is estimated the cost could have been an 8-digit sum.
What better time then for a blog about domain names, what they are, and how to get one?
A domain name is essentially the name of a website, for example, ‘Google.com’.
A domain name extension or top-level domain (TLD) is the .com part of the address. Other popular domain name extensions include .co.uk, .org and .net.
At Kall Kwik, we can buy domain names on your behalf. All names are unique and can only be used for one website, so if you’re looking for a popular name, such as football.com, you’ll probably be disappointed. We can advise as to appropriate names and extensions for your brand.
Unlike X.com, most domain names are relatively cheap. The price varies as to what the TLD is and also how many years you wish to host the domain name for. Our most popular option is 2 years, but you can go up to 10 years if you wish.
If we have previously bought your domain name for you, it will need to be renewed every two years.
In 2014, it was announced that there were to be hundreds of new domain extensions added to the previous list of 20 suffixes. There are now over 1,000 TLDs in use.
These new extensions are still available to purchase, but are more expensive than traditional extensions and have never really gained any popularity. If you are looking for a .fish, .horse, or .love extension though, we can purchase these for you too.
One of the world’s first online banks, X.com, of which Elon Musk was co-founder, merged with another company Confinity in 2000 and became known as PayPal a year later. The company retained the X.com domain, although it hasn’t really been used in recent times.
On July 5th, Musk repurchased the domain name from PayPal, tweeting:
Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back https://t.co/bOUOejO16Y! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 11 July 2017
Elliot Silver, president of Top Notch Domains, speculated in his blog about the purchase that “this domain name could be worth into the 8 figures”, or at least $10,000,000!
According to the website mostexpensivedomain.name the top-5 most expensive websites by name are:
LasVegas.com – $90,000,000
CarInsurance.com – $49,700,000
Insurance.com – $35,600,000
VacationRentals.com – $35,000,000
PrivateJet.com – $30,180,000
It’s unknown what Musk plans to do with X.com – it’s currently home to a single x on a white background – but there is undoubtedly a lot of interest around it. If you too want to create a buzz with a new website, get in contact with our web design team on 01284 752266 or email [email protected]. We’ll be happy to help!
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