VacationRentals.com: The $35M Domain That Outsmarted Expedia (Temporarily)
In 2007, HomeAway shelled out $35 million to acquire the company behind VacationRentals.com. Not because it had a booming business. Not because they needed it. But because they didn’t want Expedia to get their hands on it. The purchase was a power play in the high-stakes battle for online travel dominance—and the domain at the center of it all? VacationRentals.com.
Early History of VacationRentals.com
Originally registered in the late 1990s, VacationRentals.com operated as an active vacation rental listing site that was sitting on prime internet real estate. By 2000, it reportedly featured around 30,000 property listings, indicating its early prominence in the vacation rental market. The name was clear, obvious, and search-friendly. It didn’t need branding. It was the brand.
In 2007, HomeAway, a vacation rental marketplace based in Austin, Texas, acquired VacationRentals.com for approximately $35 million. According to HomeAway's CEO at the time, Brian Sharples, the primary motivation for this purchase was to prevent competitors, particularly Expedia, from acquiring the domain. "The only reason we bought it was so Expedia couldn’t have that URL." This was more than a domain acquisition. It was a chess move in a growing $100B travel industry. And it worked—for a while.
The Power of Exact Match Domains
So why pay $35 million for two words anyone could Google? Because VacationRentals.com wasn’t just a name. It was a direct line to intent-rich, high-converting search traffic.
In the early 2000s, exact match domains (EMDs) were SEO rocket fuel. Type "vacation rentals" into Google, and this domain would reliably show up at the top. No paid ads. No content strategy. Just raw domain authority.
Even today, "vacation rentals" generates over 300,000 monthly searches globally. That kind of discoverability is a growth lever. For companies like HomeAway or Expedia, owning that keyword meant controlling a customer acquisition channel that could print money.
Domains like this functioned as a performance marketing asset, an organic traffic moat, and a trust signal all rolled into one. For any business that relies on trust and visibility, that's gold.
The domain also lent instant credibility to a lesser-known platform. A first-time visitor to VacationRentals.com didn’t need an ad, a pitch deck, or a referral — the domain itself was the reassurance. That kind of semantic clarity is nearly impossible to buy in today's crowded naming landscape.
Keyword Domains vs. Brandables
To understand the full strategy, it helps to break down domain types:
- Keyword domains (e.g. VacationRentals.com, Hotels.com): Built to capture search traffic and trust.
- Brandables (e.g. Vrbo.com, Airbnb.com): Built for long-term differentiation and brand equity.
Some founders launch with keyword domains for organic discoverability, and others build with brandable domains to carve out a niche in a category. Both are valid launch and branding strategies—they’re just tailored to different goals and positioning.
HomeAway did both. They owned VacationRentals.com for its search juice, and Vrbo for its brand potential. Vrbo, short for “Vacation Rentals by Owner,” had been around since 1995, and was acquired by HomeAway in 2006. Over time, Vrbo would become the centerpiece of their branding efforts.
The Ironic Ending
Despite HomeAway's efforts to keep the domain out of Expedia's hands, Expedia Group eventually acquired HomeAway in 2015 for $3.9 billion, which means they got VacationRentals.com after all.
Following the acquisition, Expedia consolidated its vacation rental brands under the Vrbo name (originally known as Vacation Rentals by Owner), which HomeAway had acquired in 2006. As a result, VacationRentals.com now redirects to Vrbo.com, serving as part of Expedia's strategy to unify its vacation rental offerings under a single, recognizable brand.
Even as a redirect, VacationRentals.com still feeds long-tail traffic and backlinks into Expedia’s orbit. The brand equity lingers. It’s still a high-value asset—just one tucked behind the curtain.
Final Thought: A Lesson for Founders
If you’re building a company in a competitive space—especially one reliant on search, trust, or lead gen—your domain is your storefront. It’s often the first impression, the shortcut to credibility, and the foundation of your brand equity. The VacationRentals.com story isn’t just about URL flexing or empire-building. It’s a masterclass in domain strategy, and a reminder that it’s hard to outrank a perfect domain.
