Sex.com: What Do You Do With It?

As you’re no doubt aware by now, Sex.com was recently sold by Sedo for a record breaking all-cash deal of $13,000,000. The domain name has an interesting history and there have been various things on the site.

If you owned Sex.com, how would you develop the domain name? We all know the saying that “sex sells,” but the real question would be how to make money from Sex.com.

IMO, I don’t think people are actually looking to get laid via Sex.com, although they might be looking to get off so to say. To satiate these customers, sex videos would seem to be the answer. However, if visitors are looking for porn, there are many free sites that would directly compete with a porn offering, and monetizing the traffic could be difficult.

Of course it could be a site about sex – tips and toys, perhaps. However, it would seem that would be a difficult way to earn a return on the $13 million investment. There would probably be more targeted domain names that could be bought for much less.

Sex.com has received considerable press coverage, and perhaps that alone would be worth millions of dollars in brand equity. It’s a cornerstone property for sure, but making money seems to have been difficult.

So the $13,000,000 questions is what would you do with Sex.com if you owned it?

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

14 COMMENTS

  1. If it were us, we would have as a free porn tube site, These sites do make serious cash from affilate, ppc and adspace.

    I know that the largest tube network clears over $750k per month Profit!

    Which is a huge amount of money to actually clear before tax!

    Sex.com would be a great free porn site, but there are lots legal issues etc with Free porn sites etc so who knows if they want the hassle or not.

    Porn.com has done well out of the business and its a pay site so maybe developed into a full blown paysite might work also.

    thats our two cents on the matter!

  2. You would think that with the amount of free sites out there, there would be no reason for people to pay for pornography, but this is not the case. There are lots of people who pay for pornography, I can’t remember the statistics but I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere that the adult entertainment industry makes more money than Hollywood.

    And with the figures above, 750k/month over a year and you’re already looking at paying about 1/5th of that domain price(after costs) in a year. And that’s without all those other things that they could sell, ie escorts advertising on the site, products, DVDs etc.

  3. Pay site with exclusive content, free Video/Image front end but with QUALITY content. Monetize with text/CPA ads and a really low monthly subscription rate of about $5.

    If you can’t get 250,000 people to take that offer with that domain, you shouldn’t be in the biz.

    That’s $1.25 million a month from subs and your ad revenue/CPA/Affiliate commissions should be well north of $100k a month.

    $13 million was a steal. Just do $2 million more developing the site/platform and you’re gold. Get your money back in 12 months.

  4. oh, and make sure you only have the highest quality girls/guys on the web. You need 10’s across the board to stand out.

    $10/mo premium content option will boost those numbers through the roof.

  5. Yikes. Loren is a better man than me. Be careful on that link everyone. As for sex.com it’s a great name but the highest grossing sites seem to be hand registered names. I think it’s a bad investment. People will find porn regardless of domain name

  6. Sex.com should be used to brand a major sex product or similar. It has practically instant accurate memory retention. For example, when you watch an infomercial the only way to request the product is via the toll free number or web site URL and both are usually extremely porous – leaving a lot of money on the table. On the other hand, the porn market has changed and I believe the return would not justify the investment. However, when used to brand a worldwide product the numbers are easy to crunch. If Sex.com raised sales 10% of a $50 million yearly grossing product that would come to a $5 million gross boost – in the first year alone.

  7. @ Black Hat Domainer

    Very True … Try for a round $20 Million

    Domain carries a lot of prestige …

    And i say …

    Stop!

    being conned in to selling your
    domains for peanuts, by other DOMAINERS
    and BS Auction Sites working in cahoots …

    The few BLUE MEANIES that are …
    suppressing and rigging prices for self gain
    are hurting you everybody else.

  8. A domain like sex.com could/should be a one stop sex shop with everything to appeal to the widest audience possible, ie:

    The best selection of Sex toys anywhere in the market (Discreet mail order)
    Quality Sexy Lingerie (mail order)
    Good selection of Free photos, videos
    Paid subsciptions for exclusive content and live webcams/chat
    Adult DVD sales, possibly a DVD rentals club done by post?
    Huge selection of Adult magazines for mail order plus offer subscriptions or club rates.
    A discussion forum to bring more people in and build a community.
    Hire professionals, ie: A quallified doctor, sex therapist or agony aunt (like the newspapers), people could ask their advice, it could be done by online chat, email or a premium phone line, possibly live webcasts ?

    The worldwide sextoy & lingerie market must be a huge one and well worth going after a slice of it…a big slice 🙂

    Best of luck to the new owners whatever they decide to do with it.

  9. “… what would you do with sex.com..?” – I’m sure I’d think of something, in the meantime Id 301 it to somewhere like Our Lady of the Divine Abstinence or something, sit back on watch the hilarity ensue. Sometimes you gotta raise a little mayhem heh 🙂

  10. Something along the lines of what David said, only I would stay away from any product associated with the porn industry.
    I am thinking SEX the newest Automotive breakthrough, or SEX the perfume, or line of grooming products, etc,.

  11. I would turn it into an educational site that has private speakers that come to events and hold discussions/talks on sex. You could make ton of money, and help others out in the end.

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