Acronym domain valuation
 

I am actively watching the acronym domain space, and I see that too many times there are discussions about letter quality.

Many times I see people that are not aware of their domain potential. In both ways. Some are over-evaluating those, and do not sell even if they get a fair market price for it while others undervalue them.

Discussion about premium letters/bad letters is very important, and I see some very big price discrepancies between let's say an LLLL.com domain with only (so called) premium letters, and one with 3 premium letters + a U or a W.

End user price "evaluation"

As a note, I must talk about end user prices. Many times I read the appraisal section where a member asks about his acronym domain. And many people say reseller price $xx, end user price $xxx or so. An end user who needs your VYXZ.com does not care that it is VYXZ or it is HAHA. They need your VYXZ and do not care about market value, most probably they are not even aware of it. Never make valuations when facing an end user offer. Always treat them separately, with the eye of the end user, because the domain is worth as much as it is worth for them.

These days I saw some very cheap TVll.com sales. Maybe they did happen because V is a so called bad letter. In the case of TVLL domains, that V is far better than many other combinations. Always look if your domains do contain something like TV, IQ, OK, GO, VC (Venture Capital), IT, US, UK (and any other state or country abbreviation), etc. These are far better combinations than most made out of "premium" letters.

Acronym languages

Do not forget than when evaluating letter combinations the majority of the population is evaluating it according to their acronym POTENTIAL in the ENGLISH language.

Z, W are very good letters in German, H is almost non-existant in French (with some exceptions), K means nothing in Romanian, Q, X are very good in Chinese, and the examples can continue.

Sales prices

A domain that is non-sense for English speakers might be premium in Chinese (1/5 of the world). However, remember that most documented domain sales happen in the English speaking community. Most of the sales happen in the English speaking communities, and the biggest prices are paid by English speaking companies. Because the most customers on the internet are English speaking persons. (This may slightly change in the future however).

Country codes

An aspect that is very neglected by many domainers. Country codes. Let's give an example of a small business in Germany that is targeting German customers. They have a WZGT acronym. What will they choose? Buying their acronym in .com from a domainer, or registering their acronym in .DE, a cctld that is very strong in Germany. In most of the cases they opt for the second choice, because they target local customers that are more familiarized with their cctld than with .com or .net.

So, again this may lead in most .COM sales to English companies. Because .COM is like a country code in the US of A.

Letter importance

I see many statistics, that deal with letter usage. However what is important when taking into consideration acronym domains? Their STARTING LETTER POTENTIAL. How many times is a particular letter used as the STARTING LETTER of words. So any statistic has to be done keeping in mind that in domain names we are interested in starting letters.

Common words

As I said in previous posts, some letters are more end user friendly than others. One will see the letter O in many developed sites, at the end or at the beginning of the domain. Because O in many cases is a substitute for Online. Like O, I may stand for International, V for Virtual, E for Electronic, L for Limited, A for Association or Agency etc.

There are very used words that are common in acronyms (Association is very common since many associations have 3 or 4 words so they opt for an acronym), while other used words like for example Beautiful that are not very used in forming acronyms.

Branding potential

Some letters are not that strong in their acronym potential but sound very clear, so they pass the phone test. That is why CVCV's or VCVC's are more valuable, because they are easier to remember.
When auto-evaluating your domains, ask yourself how easy to pronounce it is. X may sound very cool sometimes, V sounds in most of the cases very clear, while K may be mistaken with C in some languages.

Acronyms - Examples

Finally, maybe as a helping tool, I made a list of most common acronyms for a letter. This is a partial list, but I hope you may find it useful in forming acronyms for your domains. If you have any suggestions for improving this list, please post in the thread.

As you may see some words are stronger (more used) than others. I tried to make the list with the most used words in abbreviations.

I wrote mostly English words here. Keep in mind the world is not all English :)

Obviously I missed many good words, but take this list as a non-complete work.

A

A is a strong letter having both quantity and quality acronyms. From a branding POV, it is also easily pronounceable.

Association
Area
Agency
Administration
Ampere
About
Account
Advanced
Action
Article
Author
And
Ad
Ask
Annual
Analysis
Active
Apple
Answer
Adult
Academy
Army
Anonymous
Alpha
Amateur
Analog
Auto
Acronym
Austria

B

Big
Byte
Business
Bank
British/Britain
Bureau
Bio
Bar

C

Copyright
Corporation
Celsius
Company
Click
Category
Complete
Cost
Clear
Committee
Congress
Character
Carbon
Cent
Catholic
Conservative
Compute(r)
Coefficient
Calorie
Centimeter (CM)
City
Channel
Church

D

Digital
Day/DAily
Division
Democrat
Date
DAta
Database (DB also)
Director
Display
Device
Defense
Delay
Delta
DEpot
Diesel
Digit
Doctor
Deutschland (GErmany)
Department
Diet

E

Electronic (as in e-mail)
East
Email
Energy
Earth
Engine(er)
Exterior

F

Plenty of acronyms, but less used words.

Full
false
Failure
Fahrenheit
First
Friend
Find/Found
France
Force
Forward
Filter
Flag
Frequency
Female
Football
Fantasy

G

General
Group
Gram
Giga
Green
Gold
Gas
Ground
Golf
Good
Gross
Gate

H

Hour
Help
Hospital
Hydrogen
Home
House
Half
Hardware
Hold
Hungary
Husband
Humidity
High

I

One of the strongest meanings. Plentry of powerful keywords

International
Incorporation
Italy
Industry
Information
Internet
Investment(s)
Independent
Interactive
Input
India
Immigration
Inspection
Intermediate
Indicator
Interstate
Interest
Inter -

J

Outside of these words many names start with J (John, Julia, JAck, Jill, Jeremy, Jesus)

Journal
Job
Java
Jet
Just
Joint
Join
Junction

K

Less keywords, but still some strong keywords. Good branding also

Knowledge
King
Kilo-
OK
Kelvin
Kindergarten
Karat
Key
Knot

L

Limited
Legal
Large
Literature
Local
Level
Line
Liter
Left
Low
Loss
Light
Launch
Load
Label
Laser
Lap
Law
Leader
Laboratory

M

Media
Management
Month(ly)
Male
Middle
Meter
Music
Member
Money
Master
Machine
Mission
Material
Museum
Manual
Mass
Miss
Meta
Minor
Married/Marriage
Medium
Millenium
Military
Moderator
Multi

N

Non
Neutral
North
Number
Nano
Night
Noun
Normal
Natural

O

Online
Office(r)
Organisation
Operator
Oxygen
Orange
Official
Optional
Order
Outdoor

P

PM
PArk
Post
Page
Program
Power
Protect(ion)
Partner
Port
Provider
Priority
Portable
Processor
Problem(atic)
Parent
Petrolleum
Primary

Q

A very underrated letter IMO. Nice acronym potential

Question
Quality
Quantity
Quit
Quick
Quarter
Query
Queen
Quiz
Queue
Quarterly
Quake
Qualify/qualified
Quintal

R

Restricted
REpublican
Right
Reverse
Racing
Radar
Radio
Rate
Real
Risk
Rural
Reverse
Require(d)
Reset
REject

S

Social
Society
South
Second
Search
System
Sound
Sign
Store
Subject
Section
Short
Safe(ty)
Storage
Secret
Savings
Seminar
School
Superb
Smile
Star
Silver

T

Television
Telephone
Train
Trainer
Training
Time
Technology
TEam
Test
Term
Traffic
Teen
Temperature
True
TEmporary
Tax
Town

U

You(r)
University
United
Used
Unit
Ultra
Utility
Universal
Upper
Uniform
Urgent
Und (and in German)

V

Virtual
Video
VErsion
VEry
Value
Voice
Vice
Vision
Valley
Vehicle
VAriable
Vacation
Vegan
Visit(or)

W

World
Web
Work
West
White
With
Water
Window
Win
Write
Who
When
Where
Why
Wide
Week(ly)
Weight
Woman
Weekend
Wife
Wire
Width
Warm
Wholesale
Warehouse
Withdrawal
Waiver
Weight

X

Not very much acronyms. Probably the weakest letter from this POV. Still very brandable and good sounding.

Extra
Experiment
Exchange
Ex
Extreme
X ray
Ecstasy

Y

Yes
Year(ly)
Yard
Yen
You(r)
Young

Z

Not the strongest English letter but a very premium one in German for example). Also for branding it sounds very good.

Zone
Zero
Zodiac

Great post! Thanks for your time in writing this! Good job. This points out some very needed to be stated ummm.... well... statements. :D

Well written post Alex :)

Thanks Alex, great post :sold:

Excellent post Alex.
Thankyou
Repped

Thanks! Great Post!

Yep, Great post and thats a lot of writing.. Rep +1 for the time spent.

That's excellent work. Thanks for your time. :)

Q - Quad

Excellent work -- now people can see why I buy all those v,x, and z domains ;)

You just got some green rep from me.
Keep it up!

Thanks for the nice words and reps. I will try to improve my acronym examples as soon as I get some time.

thanks a lot for this thread Alex
i havent seen it before as i wasnt logged for a long time these days
rep added :tu:

Excellent read. Thanks for that. ;)

Great post! Thanks! Rep add

This is great stuff. Really useful info that I will make much use of in future.

Thanks

Great post Alex,
I've seen it only now. rep++

Letter quality is a domainer invention. Thus there are psychological blind spots - over emphasing the worst letter and nearly ignoring the other three for example. But the basic idea is very real, at the reseller level - the better the letters, the greater the likelihood of an end-user (high) offer. It is a percentage game.

Originally Posted by accentnepal

Letter quality is a domainer invention. Thus there are psychological blind spots - over emphasing the worst letter and nearly ignoring the other three for example. But the basic idea is very real, at the reseller level - the better the letters, the greater the likelihood of an end-user (high) offer. It is a percentage game.

It is indeed. But those who understand this, know how to invest wisely.

For example quad premiums are about $400. A triple premium with a W can be found at $200 or less. Is a W that bad instead of an F or H? Not really IMO. But reseller value is important to keep in mind if you want to have liquidity too.

Originally Posted by Alex

It is indeed. But those who understand this, know how to invest wisely. For example quad premiums are about $400. A triple premium with a W can be found at $200 or less. Is a W that bad instead of an F or H? Not really IMO. But reseller value is important to keep in mind if you want to have liquidity too.

The price gap between triple premiums with a W and those with an H is the other example that I had in mind of a psychological blind spot. Another is the over-emphasis on CVCV structure - many highly pronouncable / brandable LLLL names are not CVCV or even VCVC, and some CVCVs are pretty marginal, IMHO. The thing is that these psychological blind spots tend to continue and betting against them can be frustrating.

For those just starting:
Premium letters: ABCDEFGHILMNOPRST
Semi-Premium Letters: JKUVWY
Anti-Premium Letters: QXZ
CVCV = Consonant - Vowel - Consonant - Vowel
VCVC = Vowel - Consonant - Vowel - Consonant
LLLL = Four letters, no numbers or hyphens
.com = You really are just starting, eh?

Nice post.

Ever noticed that there are a lot better 5 letter acronym domains available for reg fee than a lot of 4 letter domains that people will pay $100+ for?

Seen a lot of NZ acronyms looked over in the past. I guess New Zealand is a small country. The Lord of The Rings movies are great though.

Great post, repped added.

By the way: for Chinese, AEIOUV are "bad" letters, the others are "good" letters.
"X,Y,Z" are in the top 10, "V" is the worst one.

Bing.

A very realistic approach ... My 2ct ...
 

Some acronym ideas:
VLFM.com --> Venture Loans Financing Mortgages etc. business.
VFLE.com --> Venture Loans Financing Exchange
TQMB.com Total Quality Management Bureau
TQDN.com - Total Quality Domain Names
tj6.com - The Jolly Six
etc.

I seldom saw such really realistic approach.
Indeed, traders have other priorities than end users.
I fully agree.
There are many more domain inventions ...
But imho that is not what the domain appraising industry want to hear.
People make a nice living from inventing things and pretending that we need them.
The pseudo-science of domain value estimation is an industry, and it pays off.
By example: People continue to mix domain elements (length, meaning, ext.) with web elements (page content, keywords, SERP, revenue, etc. as business assets).
Domain value must be evaluated separately from web value.
And there is no such thing as fair value, because everybody thinks differently.
Technically, there are no good or bad domains or character combinations, because they are comparable to phone numbers.
Domains are just addresses, and if we really want to remember one, we do will.
However, the big players sell appraisals as if it is plain truth but the small print says that the selling price can be very different of their opinion about value.
Good thread!

All the best!
Johnny.

Thank you very much for the guide. I have a LLLL.net which I think is quite valuable. This kind of confirms that for me. :)

F
finance
fashion

Thanks Alex, good job!