Although two bids -- one for US$500,000 and one that was almost $1 million -- were received, the bidding never got close to the reserve price of $2.3 million being sought by hell.com's unnamed owner, said Monte Cahn, CEO of Pompano Beach, Fla.-based Moniker.com.

"There is still lots of interest in hell.com," said Cahn, adding that he's received correspondence from several prospective buyers who were not at the live auction that began Friday. One reason the domain name didn't sell, he said, was that it was added to the pool of names being offered only in the last week, which didn't give Moniker.com much time to advertise its availability.

Hell.com was one of more than 250 high-profile Internet domain names that were for sale to the highest bidders this weekend at the third annual live auction, held at the World Association of Domain Name Developers' Traffic conference at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fla.

Other names for sale included appliances.net, Breathalyzer.com, CD.net, digitalcameras.com, Iran.com, MonaLisa.com, prohibited.com, reunite.com, transplant.com and vocalist.com.

The auction did sell 113 domain names, or more than one-third of the names up for grabs, according to Moniker.com. Those names sold for more than $4.75 million.