It seems like everyone has a domain name these days. They’ve become so common we don’t even think about them anymore.
There are almost 300 million registered domains. Think about that … an apartment building with 300 million apartments in it!
You know what’s even crazier? There are not more than 1,000 possibilities for domain name extensions. 248 of those 1000 are country codes are things like .love, .guru, .online, .info, .porn, or even .xyz.
The first domain name ever registered was on March 15, 1985 and it was Symbolics.com. It belonged to a now defunct computer manufacturer – MIT AI Lab. They later sold the domain name, (some 25 years later in 2009) to XF.com Investments out of Dallas for an undisclosed amount.
But what most people don’t know is that it wasn’t actually the first ever domain name. That honor goes to nordu.net. It was created in January of 1985 and was used to serve as the first root server (nic.nordu.net).
Symbolics.com was the first domain name to actually be registered through the appropriate DNS process a few months later.
The most expensive domain name ever sold was LasVegas.com. They paid $12 million in cash but also have a built in payment plan scheduled to be completed over 35 years (2005 to 2040) and the total cost works out to be $90 million!
Other hot domain name sales include …
- CarInsurance.com – $49.7 million (2005)
- Insurance.com – $35.6 million (2010)
- VacationRentals.com $35 million (2007)
- PrivateJet.com $30.180 million (2012)
- Internet.com – $18 million (2009)
- 360.com – $17 million (2015)
- Insure.com – $16 million (2009)
- Bankaholic.com – $15 million (2008)
- Sex.com – $13 million (2010)
But that’s not what this story is about. This story is about protecting what you own.
We sometimes forget how important our domain names are.
But password hacking are more and more common. If someone can steal your credit card, social security number or password to your favorite porn site, what makes you think they can’t get into your domain name account?
The most obvious protection would be to use a strong password. This is something that is at least ten characters in length and includes both letters and numbers and the letters you use are both upper and lower case. Also throw in an odd character like a # sign too. Also don’t use words or names in your password.
Another way to protect your precious domain name account is to use the two step authentication. Simply put you are associating your domain name account with your cell phone number so to log in you not only need your password but a special code that they text you.
Your domain names are valuable and if they are stolen there is no guarantee that you can get them back. In fact there are more than a few stories (sex.com included) where a domain name was stolen and they victim didn’t get it back.
PROTECT WHAT IS YOURS! Lock down your domain name account because if you don’t, it’s not a matter if IF some jack ass will try and break in, it’s just a matter of when.