How it works
Short version: 100 words, one owner each, highest bidder wins, and it is permanent.
01
There are exactly 100 words
Not every word on the internet — a curated set. Generic dictionary nouns only: no brands, no proper nouns, no names of real people. New words arrive in announced drops as the board fills up. A small board is the point; it is what makes any single word worth owning.
02
Each word is auctioned once
Every word carries a reserve — $25, $50 or $100 depending on the word — and bidding opens well under it, from $10. Each bid has to clear the current one by at least $5 or 10%, whichever is larger. Whoever is highest when it closes owns the word.
Below the reserve a word does not sell. It is not an opening position to be haggled down from; it is the price under which we would rather keep it.
03
Winning it ends it
When an auction closes the word is gone. Not expensive — gone. It does not reappear at a higher price, it cannot be taken from whoever won it, and no amount of money reopens it.
That is the whole reason to be in the auction rather than watching it. There is no second chance on a word, and there is no later.
“Permanent” is bounded by one honest thing: the site has to exist. We commit to running for at least 12 months from the day you buy, and if we close before that you get a pro-rata refund against that period. After it, no refund. The terms say it precisely.
04
A last-second bid does not win it
Any bid in the final couple of minutes pushes the close back by the same amount, and it can happen repeatedly. An auction here ends when people stop bidding, not when the clock runs out.
While the auction runs we hold your money rather than charge it. Lose, and the hold is released and you are charged nothing. Win, and that hold becomes the payment. Either way you are emailed the moment somebody passes you, with the number it would now take and how long is left.
05
What you actually get
- A URL you can say out loud. ownaword.lol/<your word> points wherever you set it, for as long as you hold the word. Put it in a bio, on a slide, on a card.
- Your name on the board and the page — display name, a line of copy, a logo and one outbound link.
- A live badge for your README or footer that updates itself, and a share card that renders your ownership as an image. You can preview it for any word before buying.
- Click counts you can verify. Outbound links are tagged, so the traffic appears in your own analytics rather than only in our number.
Links are nofollow and pass through an interstitial until reviewed.
06
Machines can read all of it
Every word is also an endpoint. /api/w/<word> returns the owner, the price, the history and the current asking price as JSON; /api/words returns the whole board; /llms.txt states the same facts in the format language models look for. All public, no key, CORS open.
Owners are buying visibility, so making the record awkward to read would work against the thing they paid for.
07
What you do not get
Any right to the word itself. This is a display lease on one website. It is not a trademark, not a domain, not transferable, and it grants nothing anywhere else on the internet.
08
What gets removed
Illegal content, malware, phishing, adult content, impersonation of a real person or company, and anything that makes a link unsafe to click. Removal frees the word; refunds in that case are handled case by case.
Common questions
- What does it mean to own a word?
- It is a display slot on this website: your name, a line of copy, a logo and one outbound link on that word's page and on the board, plus a vanity URL. Win the auction and it is yours permanently. It is not a trademark, not a domain, not transferable, and it grants no rights over the word anywhere else - anybody can still use the word, everywhere, for anything.
- How much does a word cost?
- Every word carries a reserve of $25, $50 or $100 depending on how contested the category is - the price below which the word does not sell at all. Bidding opens well under that, from $10, so what a word actually costs is whatever the last bidder was willing to pay. Each later bid has to clear the current one by at least $5 or 10%, whichever is larger.
- How long do I keep the word?
- Forever. There is no expiry, nothing to renew, and no way for anyone to take it from you afterwards - the word is auctioned once and never returns to sale. The site commits to running for at least 12 months from the day you buy; if it closes before that, you get a pro-rata refund against that period.
- What happens if somebody outbids me?
- Nothing you have to act on. We place a hold when you bid and only charge it if you win, so being outbid releases the hold and you are charged nothing at all. We email you the moment it happens, with the price it would now take and how long is left.
- Can somebody steal the word in the last second?
- No. Any bid in the final couple of minutes pushes the close back by the same amount, and it can happen again and again. An auction here ends when people stop bidding, not when the clock happens to run out. The page says every time it has been extended.
- Can I get a refund?
- If you lose there is nothing to refund, because you were never charged. If you win, the payment is final. The two exceptions are automatic: a duplicate payment landing in the same instant, and the site closing inside its committed operating period, which earns a pro-rata refund.
- Where does the money go?
- 25% of what each sale nets - after the card processor takes its cut, not before - goes into the Attention Pool, and the pool is spent on one thing only: advertising that features words the community owns. The rest runs the site. Every allocation and every campaign is listed on the transparency page, which is the whole ledger rather than a summary of it.
- Is the link I get a dofollow backlink?
- No. Outbound owner links are nofollow and pass through an interstitial until reviewed. What the slot delivers is people clicking through — the clicks are counted and tagged so the traffic shows up in your own analytics — not search authority.
- Can I buy any word I want?
- No. The catalogue is a closed set of 100 curated words — generic terms only, no brands, no proper nouns, no names of real people. New words arrive in announced drops rather than on request.
Back to the board·All 100 words by category·Compared to the Million Dollar Homepage