With domains being such a hot topic at the moment as the first new gTLDs have been released we couldn’t help but notice the amount that Mail Online has recently paid for a new domain.
The Mail Online has been dailymail.co.uk since it was established, but they have just successfully completed the acquisition of dailymail.com, with hefty price tag attached! The .com domain for Mail Online has cost the company £1 million; the process was also extensive process and included negotiations with US paper, the Charleston Daily Mail which has held the domain since 1996. Mail Online wanted this acquisition as part of its strategy to grow international traffic, which has already increased by 70%, predominantly from the US. As well as increasing international traffic it will give Mail Online the chance to use US advertising. Mail Online has 161 million monthly unique visitors who will land on dailymail.com instead of dailymail.co.uk. To keep up with this domain shift and predicted increase in international traffic, staff numbers have been doubled to 80.
This shows how valuable domains can be to a company and just by changing a domain, website visitors and traffic can be vastly increased potentially increasing profit for the company.