Is $13 million a fair price for Sex.com?

Last week it became known that the domain Sex.com maybe soldfor $13 million. If this deal goes through, it won't formally be the largest deal on the secondary domain market, as there are known larger sales, in particular Insure.com for $16 million or Insurance.com for $35.6 million.

Nevertheless, the deal with Sex.com can be considered the largest. After all, purchasing a domain (and, incidentally, the corresponding registered trademark) in the case of Sex.com essentially means purchasing ready-made traffic and high search engine rankings. Moreover, this traffic is logical and natural.

Essentially, Sex.com is more than just a domain. Even if this site were turned into a service, for example, for online sex shops, essentially dividing it into many smaller resources, the traffic to its main page would be enormous.

The purchase of the Sex.com domain by the offshore company Clover Holdings actually raises more questions than it answers. Specifically, why did its price only increase by $1 million while the service was under the previous owners' control?

It's possible that the price of the Sex.com domain was artificially lowered, particularly by domain auction representatives, and the decision to force the current owner to sell the domain was also made under duress. I wonder what the true price would have been if Sedo had put the domain up for public auction? Many Western analysts believe it would have likely exceeded $13 million.

The Sex.com domain, like no other, derives its value from those three letters—the name itself. Natural traffic, without the need for advertising, will allow the owner of Sex.com to quickly recoup the investment. It's no wonder that back in the early 2000s, the site's annual profit was estimated at $40 million. So why was the domain sold so cheaply now?