What’s a name worth? Apparently, fourteen million dollars. During the dot-com bubble, domain names were being sold at enormously inflated prices. However, this trend continues today, especially in the past couple years. So what domain names have been bought for the most money? Presenting - the 10 most expensive domain names ever sold.

1. Sex.com - $14,000,000 - Sold to Escom LLC on January 19, 2005
Today: A sponsored directory with advertisements for porn sites.

2. Business.com - $7,500,000 - Purchased by eCompanies in 1999
Today: A business directory organized by category.

3. Diamond.com - $7,500,000 - Private sale to Ice.com on May 19, 2006
Today: Online jewelry store.

4. Beer.com - $7,000,000 - Bought buy a commercial beer company in 2004
Today: A portal for the beer drinker’s lifestyle.

5. Casino.com - $5,500,000 - Sold to a private interest in 2003
Today: Domain squat with sponsored links to gambling websites.

6. Korea.com - $5,000,000 - Purchased by True Net, Korea’s largest internet service provider, in January 2000
Today: News and travel information for South Korea.

7. AsSeenOnTV.com - $5,000,000 - Bought by a marketing company in January 2000
Today: Original website that sells items featured on TV.

8. Shop.com - $3,500,000 - Sold to Altura Int., an internet real estate group
Today: Online retail store that includes products from multiple vendors.

9. AltaVista.com - $3,300,000 - Bought by Compaq for their new search engine in 1999
Today: A search portal powered by Yahoo!

10. Vodka.com - $3,000,000 Purchased by Russian Starndard in December 2006
Today: Redirects to Russian Standard Vodka’s website.

Domain names that almost made the list:
Loans.com ($3,000,000), Wine.com ($2,900,000), CreditCards.com ($2,750,000), Tom.com ($2,500,000), Autos.com ($2,200,000).

The ironic part is that most of these domain names never took off. What would you pay for a name? How much do you think Google.com - or digg.com - would go for today?

Numbers are based on sales reports and estimates from DNJournal.com and various news sources.