VIP.com Domain Sells for $1.4 Million

British betting site operator Leisure & Gaming plc has paid $1.4 million to acquire the domain name vip.com. The sale is the highest publicly reported domain resale of 2005, nearly doubling the $750,000 price for sales of property.com and website.com. The deal comes just two months after Leisure & Gaming plc acquired VIP Management Services and its themed online betting sites for 23.4 million pounds (about $42 million US).

Prices for registering a stand-alone .com domain remained unchanged this month at all major providers except Register.com, which ended a $30 "sale" and is once again the priciest domain seller at $35. The bargains on new domains have shifted to packages in which a domain is bundled with a hosting account. Go Daddy last week began offering domains for $1.99 with the purchase of any non-domain product, such as hosting or SSL certificates. That slices $2 off the $3.99 price for that package, which Go Daddy introduced in January.

While .com names have always commanded the highest prices in the secondary market, prices for other top-level domains are rising as well. An Australian media company has paid $150,000 for news.net, the largest .net sale of the last two years, according to Domain Name Journal. The news.com domain is owned by CNET.