The first domain ever registered is symbolics.com. This historic event took place on 15 March 1985, when the domain was registered by the Symbolics Computer Corporation, an American company, and interestingly, four years before the World Wide Web even existed, the company registered the domain. Symbolics.com is therefore more than 33 years old. In that time it has changed hands and purpose, but it still receives thousands of visitors a day.

In today’s post, we’ve written some more interesting facts about this and some other domains over their more than 30-year history.

The history of the oldest domain

As we have written before, Symbolics Computer Corporation was the proud owner of the first registered domain. But in 2009, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and XF Investments sent out an enquiry to see if symbolics.com was for sale. As the current owner of the first registered domain was in severe financial difficulties, they decided to sell it. The exact sale price is not known, but as it is one of the most recognisable domains in the world, the value of the sale exceeded several million dollars. So, after 24 years, symbolics.com has a new owner.

In addition to the domain’s high visibility, the new owners have gained many other benefits of ownership:

• The domain has attracted thousands of visitors a day throughout its lifetime due to its special character.
• Its use increases the visibility of the company owning the domain.
• The possibility of using the domain for a number of projects, such as the Great Internet Museum, located at http://symbolics.com/museum.

10 interesting facts about domains

Over the course of more than 30 years, many interesting things have happened in the domain name space. We’ve pulled together 10 more interesting facts about domains for you.

1. In addition to symbolics.com, bbn.com, think.com, mcc.com and dec.com were registered in 1985.

2. In 1987, the 100th domain was registered. To date, more than 333 million domains have been registered.

3. Initially, domain registration was free. In 1995, Network Solutions acquired the right to sell them. The price for a two-year registration was USD 100.

4. 1998 ICANN, a non-profit organisation, was created to manage and control the domain registration process and the allocation of IP addresses.

5. Although the Soviet Union no longer exists, you can still register its national .su domain.

6. In 2010, the world’s most expensive domain name – vegas.com– was sold for an estimated USD 90 million. Some sources also report that cars.com is worth a staggering $872 million.

7. Mike Mann registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours in 2012.

8. Google.com should be googol.com. When the founders of Google were looking for a free domain, they misspelled the original domain name and Google was born.

9. One of the world’s longest registered domains is thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com.

10. As of 2017, there are more than 1,500 domain extensions.

Register your domain while it’s still available

If you’ve read today’s post, you may have realised that there are fewer and fewer options to choose the domain you want. If you want a .COM domain, in most cases the only domains available are those with at least five letters in the name, and many of these are already taken. But don’t worry, even if your desired .COM domain is already taken. At NEOSERV, we offer the largest number of domain extensions in Slovenia, so you’ll be able to find the right domain for you.