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The Million Dollar Homepage - 20 years later
In 2005, British student Alex Tew had a simple but brilliant idea: a website with one million pixels, for sale at one dollar each. His goal? To earn enough money to pay for his studies.
The concept was straightforward: companies and individuals could buy pixels, place their logo or ad, and link to their own website.
From pixel to million
What began as an experiment quickly grew into a global internet phenomenon. By 15 September 2005, Tew had already sold 15,100 pixels (source: web.archive.org). Within a few months, a hype had started: companies were competing for their spot on the digital advertising wall. In January 2006, the last pixels were auctioned off on eBay, bringing Tew’s total earnings to $1,037,100. The Million Dollar Homepage was a creative marketing idea. It was also one of the first examples of how viral internet use could lead to financial success.
The inevitability of link rot
Although the site is still online, it has also become a fascinating example of link rot. Many of the original links now lead to empty pages, expired domains, or even malicious websites. This happens because companies go bankrupt, websites move, or domains expire and are resold.
Link rot is a common issue: the internet is dynamic and fleeting. Old links lose their value, and digital archives become increasingly fragmented. Still, the Million Dollar Homepage remains a unique time capsule, a snapshot of 2005, complete with working and broken links as digital fossils.
Our analysis of the Million Dollar Homepage
To get a clear picture of the extent of link rot, we programmed a PHP script that checked all the links on the site. The results:
- 19% working (200 status code, but often leading to “domain for sale” pages)
- 40.5% redirects (30x redirects to https, other domains, or sales landing pages)
- 17.5% broken (16.5% 40x browser errors + 1% 50x server errors)
- 23% unknown (domain no longer exists)
In other words: only 40.5% still works, and much of that no longer shows the original content. What was once a popular digital advertising wall is now a digital fossil, of which only fragments remain intact.
db8 on the Million Dollar Homepage
Curious what the website looks like today? The original site is still online: milliondollarhomepage.com. If you look closely, you’ll see that db8 is also part of this piece of internet history. Just below “RentPixelAds.com” you’ll find an old db8 logo with the text “For your Joomla! / Mambo CMS interactive website.” And yes: the link to db8 still works :-)
What does this mean for your website?
The Million Dollar Homepage shows how fragile links and content on the internet really are. Without active maintenance, websites fade and valuable pages become untraceable. Want to prevent your website from meeting the same fate? Then structural maintenance and link management are essential.
db8 Website Support helps organizations keep their websites up-to-date, secure, and findable. From Joomla website maintenance to automated link checks: we make sure your website won’t become a digital fossil.
