Press release claims that VPN.com is the 7th largest domain purchase in the world

what

Well this is a bit of a head scratcher. A press release went out yesterday disclosing the acquisition price of VPN.com and claiming, in the headline of the press release, that it is the 7th largest domain purchase in the world. At a final acquisition price of $976,730 I just know that’s not true.

If this were true, that would mean that there have only been six domain sales ever, that exceeded $976,730 and I think we all know there have been a lot more than that.

“Domaining is still as popular today as it was during the dot-com boom. Ask Michael Gargiulo, founder and CEO of VPN.com, because he now owns the record for the 7th largest domain purchase in the world. Premium, three-letter dot-com domain names are rare and extremely expensive, which makes this no small feat.” (Source – GlobeNewsWire)

While I definitely agree with the first sentence – Domaining is still just as popular (if not more) than it was during the dot-com boom, I know that the owner of VPN.com does not “hold the record” for the 7th largest domain purchase. Sorry but I’m calling BS here.

To prove it – here are 50 domains that sold for more than VPN.com:

Of course, this list goes on and these are just publicly reported sales! I would say that the purchase of VPN.com might be the 150th highest publicly reported domain sale in the world, but the 7th, come on, that’s just not true.

Now if you read through the press release you’ll see that they state that according to DNJournal it is the 7th largest domain sale of 2017, and hey I’ll buy that. However they should really correct the headline and first paragraph of the press release because to claim this is the 7th highest domain sale in the world is crazy.

Are you as confused as me? How did this press release get out without anyone taking a minute to fact check it?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton