Russia.com sells for $US 1.5 Million

The domain named Russia.com was sold for $1.5 million through domain name marketplace Sedo. It’s one of the largest prices paid in 2009 for domain name. The buyer was not disclosed. The sale follows closely on the news release concerning Cyrillic spellings to be used for the Russian internet.

Launched in May 1995, Russia.com’ was owned by NewMedia Holdings, Inc. and operated under a license from web consultancy Paley Media, Inc. since 2004. Russia.com currently offers information about Russian travel, and claims more than 8,000 monthly unique visitors (according to Compete).

NewMedia Holdings and Paley Media also operate the media properties on the following domain names as country channels: Algeria.com, Morocco.com, PuertoRico.com, SouthAfrica.com, Scotland.com, Ukraine.com, etc. Those web-sites, which have similar designs, are monetized with Google contextual, search and banner ads.

The .ru domain name Russia.ru is operated by NewMedia Stars. Russia.ru is leading Russian internet TV channel with a monthly reach of $2 million in Russia in September 2009, according to TNS Web Index.