The www.cruises.co.uk domain name has sold for $1 million (£510,554), in a deal that has been reported to break the record for the highest price ever paid for a .co.uk web address.

The company that has bought the name is a cruise deals website, www.cruise.co.uk.

News of the record breaking deal was reported by travel industry news website, TravelMole.com, which claims that the deal tops the highest price previously paid for a .co.uk domain name, which was £150,000, paid by venture capital firm ASAP Ventures to acquire recycle.co.uk.

Cruise.co.uk says it will use the new domain www.cruises.co.uk to host a social networking site focussed on cruising and its original domain name will host cruise deals. The www.cruises.co.uk site currently hosts cruise holiday reviews, question and answer forums and user photos, searchable by cruise line and destination.

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Cruise.co.uk managing director Seamus Conlon told TravelMole that he made the purchase because the "cruises" domain was consistently returned higher up search engine rankings than the singular "cruise".

According to TravelMole, the top five highest prices for .co.uk domain names are:

1. cruises.co.uk, £511,000, purchased January 2008

2. recycle.co.uk, £150,000 – purchased October 2007

3. ink.co.uk, £130,425 – purchased 2007

4. mobile.co.uk, £120,000 – purchased 2007

5. taste.co.uk, £110,000 – purchased 1997

Meanwhile, the highest priced .com domain names are:

1. sex.com, $12 million – purchased 2005

2. porn.com, $9.5 million – purchased 2007

3. business.com, $7.5 million – purchased 1999

4. diamond.com, $7.5 million – purchased 2006

5. beer.com, $7 million – purchased 1999

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