I have to say, I’m amazed at the sudden interest there has been recently in the 4 letter dot net marketplace. I have tried to provide as much useful information to as many people as possible and have been running regular scans of premium LLLL.nets for the past few days. It all seems to have caused quite a stir but not just for the English speaking among us!
Having checked my blog stats for the past few days there has been interest from all over the world. I have backlinks coming from forums focused in all areas of the domain marketplace including the Netherlands, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Spain and from other sites including a blog called Bielskus who submitted a comment. I would love to know what their article is about and whether they have positive or negative views on this particular niche, the only problem is I don’t speak Lithuanian! Does anyone know of an online Lithuanian > English translator?
It’s great to see my blog reaching parts of the globe ‘I didn’t even know existed’ and it also gives me a better understanding of this market niche. Its useful reading other peoples views regardless of whether they are positive or negative and it just shows the potential of LLLL.net’s.
I would just like to say thank you to all of those who have linked back to Quad Letter Domains, I hope you have found the site useful and you come back soon!
5 Responses to “Going global!”
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February 4th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
You’ve provided a great resource, Rich, particularly in the scans you provide, and there’s just been a torrent of demand for quadletters that everybody’s hungry for more.
Next up! .orgs!
February 5th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Hi,
Thanks for the work on the lists. Although I have been buying domains for a while it been based on other criteria such as traffic, links, etc. A good friend pointed out the hot market in 4 letter .com and .net markets and lead me here.
I’m a little bit confused on one point. In the past when people were talking about 4 letter premium domains they were talking about pronouncable names with a vowel or two in it.
Yet in the list of premium 4 letter domains you listed most - probably 95% are all consonant. Has the criteria of what constitues a premium 4 letter domain changed? Is there just that much demand for 4 letters that anything with 4 letters qualifies as a premium domain?
I have read some of the posts here where people refer to double premium or quad premium domains. What are they?
When you say these are the available 4 letter domains. Does that mean these are the domains that are dropping, or domains being offered at auction or both. Thanks in advance for your help.
All the best,
Ted Sudol
February 5th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Hi Nicola,
Thanks for the positive feedback! I can’t see LLLL.org’s ever being bought out, that’s an even smaller niche… Maybe in a few years time we will see some movement in that market.
Hi Ted,
Different people have different opinions on what is premium and what is not. Some confusion lies in that fact that some domainers call a good quality CVCV combination (consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel) a premium domain even if the vowel is a ‘U’ which isn’t considered a premium letter.
When valuing a LLLL domain one of the main things to take into consideration is letter quality. This can change the effectiveness of a domain in the end user market because, for example, the letter Q is the least used letter in the dictionary. It therefore is considered a ‘bad’ letter and one that has low acronym use in comparison to other letters. See my article here for more info on this.
Which moves us on to what is a premium letter? Many people have different views on this but many come to the same conclusion - A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,L,M,N,O,P,R,S,T are all considered premium letters. The remaining letters in the alphabet can then further be sub categorised into varying levels of ‘bad’ letter in the same way that we could do this with premium letters in reverse. You can get an idea on the desirability of these letters if you watch the premium buyout that is happening right now. The domains that are left are those which begin with the least desirable premium letters.
Here are some more definitions:
Anti-premium: An LLLL with none of the above premium letters (QZXK)
Single premium: An LLLL with only one premium letter (XQZE)
Double premium: An LLLL with two premium letters (EKLZ)
Triple premium: An LLLL with three premium letters (ODKR)
When I have been referring to available domains in my recent scans these are LLLL.nets that are free to register. They may have been created and dropped in the past but I don’t scan for this. There isn’t many all premiums left! Almost less than 1000 now!
Hope this helps, if you have any more questions I would be happy to assist in any way I can!
Rich
February 6th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Thanks Rich for the explanation. That’s really clarified things for me. Read your post that all of the LLLL.com names are gone. What do you see for the future? Should someone continue to persue LLL.coms where ever they may be found or go on to the 4 letter nets and orgs? Someone on this thread posted an interesting Google trend map showing seaches for .com names increasing while searches for the same names with the .net extension going down.
What have you seen been the effect of new TLD’s being introduced on existing domain extension and their markets?
Thanks again.
All the best,
Ted Sudol
February 6th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Hi Ted,
I think the future of LLLL.net’s is bright yet a longer way off than many people already assume. The next phase of the buyout will be VCVC combinations and triple premiums. There are still tens of thousands left and it will be a long time before they are bought. Many people assume that the buyout will occur before the end of 2008, however, I think this is very optimistic. I could be wrong but I think it will be at least two years before we see an LLLL.net buyout. It took LLLL.com’s a long time to mature and reach a buyout and although the sales of LLLL.com’s are fuelling the LLLL.net buyout I can’t see it completing within a year.
LLLL.org’s are a no go in my opinion. Its crazy to think that there will be a buyout and even if there was it wouldn’t happen for 10+ years!
Rich