Very short domain names?

wordpreneur aco · Mar 24, 2014

Hello All! Please pardon my ignorance, still relatively new to domaining.

Have a short domain name, Skyr.org, which I picked up on impulse while futzing around on eBay. Had no plans for it and don't know what to do with it, I just liked the way it looked.

Anyway, I've started immersing myself in domaining, I've noticed a bunch of messages about buying and selling short domain names (LLL.com, LLLL.com, NNN etc. etc.) I figured out what all the codes mean, but what I really want to know is: Why?

Is it a traffic thing? I don't know why, for example, I as a user would want to go to, say, 4289.com if the numbers mean squat to me. What's the angle? There's obviously one or more since there's a bunch of buy-and-sell posts on those domains. Can anyone point me to some reference where I can read up on what's going on?

Thanks for your help and time...

ees (Eldon)

Systreg · Mar 24, 2014

For LLL's, many company names are made up of 3 words, and for them, it may suit them to have the 3 letters for those words, or if it's not 3 random letters, it may be a real word which is brandable.

I suppose for LLLL.com names with random letters, they might appeal to US radio stations who are often called something like WRXZ etc, and again, if it's a real pronounceable 4 letter .com, it will more than likely be good for branding.

Edwin · Mar 24, 2014

Chinese sites love to use 3 digit and 4 digit .com names - much easier to work with than trying to get people to remember the transliteration of something into the roman alphabet.

That said, that doesn't make ALL such numbers instantly valuable (although 3 digit .com domains have a "floor" value that's quite high since there are only 991 of them) but that's one aspect that has been driving some great numeric sales recently.

When you get into 5 digits, then the only immediately obviously relevant use is as US zipcodes - if a 5 digit .com matches a popular zip code it's possible to consider setting up a site on it.

Similarly, there aren't many (relatively speaking) 3 letter domains, so those all have a certain "base" value in .com. Beyond that, the relative value will be determined by the exact letters (many people feel uncommon letters such as x, q, z etc. - basically the high value Scrabble letters - devalue them to an extent), the number of different uses the domain matches, whether it matches a stock ticker code or other significant acronym, etc. etc.

wordpreneur aco · Mar 24, 2014

Thanks Systreg and Edwin. I guess I was just sensing a weird imbalance in the amount and regularity of requests to buy those types of domains in the WTB forums. Hard to miss with all those codes -- heck, they even have codes for consonants and vowels! So, am still boggled about what they're all working...

Could be the Chinese thing, though. Didn't know about their market's thing for number domains.

Also interesting about the zip codes. Hmmmm....

Thanks again.