Short .com domain names worth big money: 2014 in Review

.Com domain names continue to sell for big bucks. Especially the short ones.

This is the final in a five part series covering the top stories in the domain name industry in 2014. You can also listen to the companion podcast covering these five themes of 2014.

Fresh TLDs and domain name choice be damned — short .com domain names are still worth a lot of money.

Take a look at DNJournal.com’s year-to-date sales chart and something will pop out at you. Short .com domain names are selling for a lot of money.

Of the top 10 domain names to sell, all but one are .com. 6 of the top 10 .coms are three characters or less.

The shorter, the better. GMO Internet led all public sales charts this year with its $6.8 million purchase of Z.com. Nissan used to use the domain name for its discontinued Nissan Z car.

Want a good two character domain name? Be prepared to pay seven figures. MI.com sold for $3.6 million, 37.com for $2.0M, and MM.com for $1.2M.

Three letters are worth a lot, too.

2014 saw a bitcoin firm acquire BTC.com for $1 million (paid in dollars, not bitcoin) and Qatar National Bank buy QNB.com for the same price. That ought to make anyone think twice ahead of selling a quality three letter domain for less than six figures.

While single letter domain names are available in some fresh TLDs for less than $1,000, the value of short .com domains remains uncontested.