It seems that the dot com bubble is still floating high - despite having gone through a global recession - if you have the right domain name to sell. Or should I say, if someone wants to buy that domain of yours.

While reviewing website submissions to Travel Notes, I clicked on the About Us link of a China tours company.

Apparently, in August, 2009 Beijing ANZ International Travel Service and Xian Yatu Networks Technology paid $200,000 to so-called 'domain king' Rick Schwartz for transfer of the domain ChinaTours.com. Nice money.

This domain purchase seems to be a serious one but since 1997 I have been constantly deleting old links, probably bought by unscrupulous buyers, that now point to web content that has nothing to do with what the domain name implies.

We still get the occasional e-mail from someone wanting to buy one of our domain names but I have never sensed an honourable interest in the purchase. At least no serious money, to really whet my appetite, has ever been put on the table.

What is Serious Money?

Well, in a time when the Domain Name Journal leads with an article titled 'The State of the Industry January 2010: We Asked 16 Domain Experts If We Hit Bottom in 2009 and Will See a Rebound in the New Year' I was interested to see what they had to say to justify such a long title.

Can you believe that Clothes.com sold for $4.9 million in 2008 and that Shopping.de checked out at $2,858,945? That's serious till receipts.

In the second half of 2009, Sedo.com made some of their best domain sales ever – with Fly.com (to Travelzoo) taking off for a reported $1.76 million and Russia.com (purchaser hidden through DomainsByProxy.com and currently parked up at Godaddy.com) just a snip away at $1.5 million.

A quick look at the weekly domain sales report didn't reveal much in the way of any 'travel' domains competing with these sky-high prices; although I did notice that CityHotels.com is currently parked up (with searchmagnified.com links) through Sedo for $40,000. Bargain.