The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived by Alex Tew, a then
21-year-old student from Cricklade, Wiltshire, England to help raise money for
his university education. Launched on August 26, 2005, the website is said to
have generated a gross income of $1,037,100 USD and has a current Google
PageRank of 6. The site's Alexa ranking as of 2008-03-08 is 53,555, having
peaked at around 127.[1]
The index page of the site consists of a 1000 1000 pixel grid (one million
pixels), on which image-based links were sold for US $1 per pixel, in minimum
ten by ten blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to
be displayed on them, a URL to which they were linked, and a slogan displayed
when hovering the cursor over the link. The aim of the site was to sell all of
the pixels in the image, thus generating one million dollars of income for the
creator.
On January 1, 2006, the final 1,000 pixels left were put up for auction on
eBay.[2] The auction closed on January 11 with a winning bid of $38,100.00,
bringing the final tally to $1,037,100 USD in gross income.