Previously Unreported Pre-2004 Sales That Were Verified In or After 2020 

In the past, DN Journal has not been able to vouch for domain sales reported before we started tracking and verifying aftermarket sales in late 2003. Many of the sales reported prior to that were not cash deals (payment was often made, at least partially, with stock that declined dramatically in value) and some of the reports were simply bogus. Since no one was verifying those reports, it was something some unscrupulous people would do in an effort to pump up the perception of value in a keyword string or TLD  they had a financial interest in.

That situation changed for some historical sales in mid-2020 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a new full text search engine that gives researchers access to corporate documents going all the way back to the year 2000. Previously, you couldn't go further back than the most recent four years. We learned about this new development from George Kirikos, who has a long track record of uncovering previously unknown blockbuster sales.

In response to that development, in July 2020, we started this list of notable pre-2004 sales (six figures of more) that have now been verified thanks to the newly improved SEC search tool. Other sales verified through the tool that occurred in 2004 or later have been added to the annual Top 100 Chart in our Domain Sales Archive for the year in which the sale occurred (for the years 2004 and 2005 those lists are labeled Every Sale of $10,000 or More reported for that year).