• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, June 22, 2007 11:45 AM

The Web industry scoffed when Jake Winebaum and Sky Dayton bought the domain Business.com for $7.5 million in 1999. At that time, the purchase set a record as the highest for a domain name. The pair turned Business.com into a Web portal that receives conversion fees for sending traffic to sites selling real products and services. Now the duo are ready to sell, and sources say Business.com could fetch upward of $300 million.

Not a bad return, even when you consider that the Santa Monica, Calif. company posted $15 million in earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization in 2007. Dow Jones & Company and the New York Times Company are interested in purchasing the domain, which would bring users directly to one of their sites when typed into a browser as a URL. At $350 million, a deal would value the company at 24 times cash flow. But it's all about the domain.

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