Pixel Advertising: The 2005 Pixel Homepage Craze and What Happened

In 2005, pixel advertising became one of the web’s strangest crazes. After the Million Dollar Homepage sold tiny blocks of pixels for $1 each, dozens of copycat “pixel homepages” appeared overnight. This article looks back at that craze, what happened to those sites and what the idea can still teach anyone advertising online today.

Quick answer: Pixel advertising meant selling small blocks of a single web page, usually 10 x 10 pixels, as permanent ads with a logo and a link. The Million Dollar Homepage made over $1 million this way, but hundreds of copycats followed and almost none succeeded, because the idea only worked as news once. Today, advertisers use search, social and display ad networks instead.

How the pixel homepage craze started

It all began with the Million Dollar Homepage, launched by British student Alex Tew in August 2005. The page, still online at milliondollarhomepage.com, sold a 1000 x 1000 pixel grid at $1 a pixel, in blocks of 100 pixels, so the cheapest ad was $100. Within weeks of launch, Tew said he had already made enough money to pay for his whole university course. When we first wrote about it in September 2005, about 41,600 pixels had sold.

Press coverage brought huge traffic, which made the ads more valuable, which brought more buyers. By January 2006 the page had sold out, with the last 1,000 pixels auctioned on eBay, for a total of just over $1 million.

The pixel advertising copycats of 2005

Tew later said that copycats “popped up almost immediately”, and before long there were hundreds of sites selling pixels. In September 2005 we started listing them as they appeared. Each tried a small twist on the original:

• Cheaper pixels: the Million Penny Homepage sold a million pixels at one cent each, and Half-a-buck Pixels charged $0.50 a pixel.
• Free pixels: the Zero Dollar Homepage gave pixels away, hoping to earn from other paid ads.
• Other currencies: the Million Euro Homepage, the Australian Million Dollar Homepage, the Million Yuan Homepage and the Dutch MiljoenPixels.nl copied the model for their own markets.
• Charity tie-ins: One Million Pixels and Million Dollar Pixel promised part of each sale to charity.
• Themed grids: Million Dollar Mosaic built a soup can out of 10,000 small cans, Links Across America sold plots on a US map, and Ebay Pixels was only for active eBay sellers.
• Prizes and goals: 250000.org offered buyers a chance to win $25,000, and The Peoples Vehicle sold pixels to buy a new car, with each buyer voting for a car brand.

Prices and terms varied, but almost all used the same 10 x 10 pixel block, a single image and a single link.

What happened to pixel advertising sites?

Very few pixel advertising copycats sold more than a handful of blocks. The Million Dollar Homepage worked because it was first: journalists covered the novelty, and that coverage was the real product advertisers were buying. A second, third or hundredth pixel page had no story to tell, so it had no traffic, and ads with no traffic are worth nothing.

Most of the copycat sites from our 2005 list have since disappeared. Even the original now suffers from link rot: a 2017 Harvard study found that about one in five of its links were already dead, and later checks found even more. Tew himself tried another pixel idea, Pixelotto, before moving on and co-founding the meditation app Calm.

Lessons from pixel advertising for 2026

The pixel craze is a fun piece of web history, but it still has useful lessons for anyone marketing a site:

1. Being first matters. A new idea gets attention. A copy of it rarely does.
2. Traffic is what advertisers pay for. An ad slot is only worth what the page around it attracts.
3. Permanent links don’t last. Sites close and domains change, so “forever” ads become dead links. Measure ads by results, not promises.
4. A good story spreads. Tew’s clear goal (paying for university) made the idea easy for journalists to share.

If you want to advertise or earn from ads today, ad networks and targeted campaigns give you measurable results. On the publishing side, placement still matters, as we explain in our guide on which AdSense ad sizes earn more.

FAQ

What is pixel advertising?

It is a form of online advertising where a web page is divided into small blocks of pixels, and each block is sold as an ad with an image and a link.

Did any Million Dollar Homepage copycats succeed?

Almost none came close to the original. The idea depended on media attention, and that only worked for the first site.

Can you still buy pixels on the Million Dollar Homepage?

No. It sold out in January 2006 and the page has been frozen since then.

Would pixel advertising work today?

Only as a one-off stunt with a fresh twist and a good story. For steady results, normal ad networks and search ads are far more reliable.