The cost, whilst nowhere near as much as the $1m paid for the s in cruises.co.uk four years ago by the company, is still the highest amount paid for any new .co domain, released just two years ago showing the increasing importance of second level domains to companies looking to maximize the brand online.
Cruises.co will sit firmly in a portfolio of domain names, including www.cruise.co.uk, www.cruises.co.uk and www.rivercruises.co.uk, as well as www.cruise.co which was purchased two years ago. This latest purchase comes just four years after Carnival Corporation sold Cruise.co.uk back to Andrew Gardner and Seamus Conlon, and coincided with the company paying the highest recorded UK price for a domain with the acquisition of www.cruises.co.uk for 560,000.
| Top 10 .co domain purchases | – | Top 10 .com domain purchases | ||||
| 1. | Cruises.co | $81,000 | 1. | Insure.com | $16,000,000 | |
| 2. | taobao.co | $31,500 | 2. | Sex.com | $12-$14,000,000 | |
| 3. | vehicles.co | $18,500 | 3. | Fund.com | $9,900,000 | |
| 4. | unity.co | $12,500 | 4. | Porn.com | $9,500,000 | |
| 5. | shipping.co | $11,000 | 5. | Business.com | $7,500,000 | |
| 6. | caribbean.co | $10,610 | 6. | Diamond.com | $7,500,000 | |
| 7. | bankers.co | $10,000 | 7. | Beer.com | $7,000,000 | |
| 8. | paydayloans.co | $9,375 | 8. | Israel.com | $5,800,000 | |
| 9. | chi.co | $7,110 | 9. | Casino.com | $5,500,000 | |
| 10. | paydayloan.co | $6,425 | 10. | Toys.com | $5,100,000 | |
Table: Samples of domain names and prices paid in recent years
Compared to the next highest recorded prices for UK based .co.uk domains:
- Recycle.co.uk – 150,000
- Ink.co.uk – 130,425
- Mobile.co.uk – 120,000
- Taste.co.uk – 110,000
Commenting on this latest addition, Seamus Conlon, Managing Director of Cruise.co.uk said, People may have thought that we were crazy in spending so much money on the purchase of www.cruises.co.uk but it has certainly paid for itself as it is now the largest cruise community in the UK.
As the Internet develops further, its becoming more and more important to have the right URLs and thats why we have invested in cruises.co. We also wanted a non-country specific URL for our future development plans. We need to make sure that we have control of this URL to ensure consistency across our brand and maintain our number one rating on Google across the various sites.