2008-03-30 20:32:48
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.