Article
Million Dollar Homepage Alternative: Internet Billboards in 2026
The Million Dollar Homepage proved that people will pay for a place on a shared page. The harder question is what that place is worth a year later.
By Claim a Frame · Published
What was the Million Dollar Homepage?
In 2005, student Alex Tew launched the Million Dollar Homepage: a single page of one million pixels, sold at $1 per pixel in blocks of 10 × 10. Each block carried a small image and a link. The page sold out within months, and the final 1,000 pixels went to auction. It became the best-known example of pixel advertising and of the internet billboard as an idea.
Its appeal was simple. Buyers got a fixed spot on a page that many people were talking about, for a price that a small business could afford. The novelty of the page was the marketing.
Why people still search for a Million Dollar Homepage alternative
The original page never changed after it sold out. That had a cost. Attention faded once the story was old, and over the years a large share of its links stopped working as sites closed or domains expired. A buyer from 2005 still owns a few pixels, but few visitors arrive through them.
Modern versions try to fix this in different ways. Some keep selling space over time. Some rank buyers by what they paid, so a higher payment takes a more visible spot. Some add a visual setting that is worth sharing on its own. Each choice changes what you actually buy.
Four questions before you buy ad space on an internet billboard
1. Do you buy a spot, a time window or a rank?
A fixed pixel grid sells a permanent spot. A rotating banner sells time. A pay-to-rank site sells a position that can change when someone pays more. None of these is better in every case, but you should know which one you are paying for and what happens when you are displaced.
2. What happens to your listing when someone pays more?
On some sites the displaced listing disappears. On others it moves down or into an archive. If your ad can vanish, the price is a rental. If it stays visible at a lower position, part of the value remains.
3. Can you see the traffic before you pay?
Public visitor numbers and click counts help you estimate a cost per visit. A site that shows none of this asks you to buy on novelty alone. That can still be a fair purchase, but price it as a creative experiment, not as media with known reach.
4. Is the link sponsored?
Google asks sites to mark paid links, for example with rel="sponsored", as described in its guidance on qualifying outbound links. A correctly marked paid placement brings visitors and visibility, not search ranking. Be careful with any site that sells a paid link as an SEO backlink.
A 3D gallery instead of a pixel grid
We built Claim a Frame as our own answer to these questions. It is a walkable 3D virtual gallery where businesses, creators and artists hang an image with a link. We publish this article as the team behind it, so read this section as a description of our product, not a neutral review.
- Price: empty walls start at $5 and the Grand Frame at $25. Every wall shows its current minimum on the frame list.
- Ranking: works are ranked by what they paid. To take a place, a claim must beat its holder by $5 or 5%, whichever is larger.
- Displacement: your work never comes down. When someone claims above you, it moves down one wall. Past the last wall it hangs in the Archive, where it stays clickable. We email you each time it moves.
- Payment: Stripe holds the amount on your card and charges it only when your work passes the automatic content check.
- Measurement: each label shows the clicks your work has had, and the public statistics show visitor numbers for the gallery.
- Links: links to buyers’ websites are marked as sponsored. They bring visitors, not search ranking.
The setting is part of the ad. A logo in a gilded frame reads differently from a 10 × 10 block, and every wall has its own page and share image that you can post as part of your launch.
Million Dollar Homepage vs a virtual gallery
| Million Dollar Homepage (2005) | Claim a Frame | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A fixed block of pixels | A ranked place on a gallery wall |
| Starting price | $100 (100 pixels) | $5 per wall, $25 for the Grand Frame |
| Still for sale | No, sold out | Yes, every wall can be claimed |
| When outbid | Not possible | Work moves down, then into the Archive |
| Creative format | Small image in a grid | Framed image with a label and a link |
How to measure an internet billboard ad
Link to a page made for this placement and add a campaign tag, for example ?utm_source=claimaframe&utm_medium=paid_placement. Record the visits it brings for 30 days and divide the price by those visits. Count traffic from your own posts about the placement separately. The placement gives you something to share, but it does not guarantee visits from either source.
Common questions
Can you still buy pixels on the Million Dollar Homepage?
No. All one million pixels sold by early 2006, and the page has not sold new space since.
Is a pixel ad or gallery placement good for SEO?
Not directly. Paid links should be marked as sponsored, and search engines do not treat them as endorsements. The value is in visitors, the creative story and what you share about it.
What is the cheapest way to try an internet billboard?
Pick a site that shows its prices and traffic, spend the smallest amount that gets a visible spot, and measure the result before you pay more. On Claim a Frame that starts at $5 for an empty wall.
For more background, read our guide to bidding sites and our comparison of pay-to-rank leaderboards and gallery placement. When you are ready, see how Claim a Frame works.