The letter U : Premium or not ?

italiandragon · 11-02-2007, 12:04 AM

I disagree about the letter U being non-premium.

Why?

- it`s one of the 5 vowels.

- according to this survey:

http://www.mcgees.org/fourletterdomains.html

the letter U has been the 4th preferred letter as starting letter:

Registration rate for domains beginning with a certain letter:
Most popular:
a: 72.7%
w: 70.4%
t: 68.0%
u: 66.4%
i: 66.3%

- and according to these statistics :

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=914452

the letter U in English is used more than letters like M , C and F and is right in the middle of the list (same in the italian language).
If we analise the stats regarding French and German , then the U is used even more.

So based on all of this , from now I personally will judge the letter U as premium and I suppose that who wrote originally the 3 char price guide has done this little mistake and since that all domainers followed that mistake.

But certainly since I am not perfect either , I`d love to hear all opinions about this.

Let`s find out what NP members think about the letter U once for all!

Thank yoU

Silhouette · 11-02-2007, 12:05 AM

I like U and "U"

**mellowmasher** · 11-02-2007, 12:07 AM

I like it

VURG · 11-02-2007, 12:11 AM

With 17 out of 26 letter,I think that the premium category has too many letters already.

Gult · 11-02-2007, 12:12 AM

It's a premium letter imo. I like it

italiandragon · 11-02-2007, 12:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VURG

With 17 out of 26 letter,I think that the premium category has too many letters already.

So, what are you saying? Should we split all the alphabet in 4 categories and not 3?

I see from those stats a CLEAR picture.

U and W should be premium while Y should be average.

The "bad" ones or let`s say less used would be just X - Z - Q which are 3 of the 4 less used in the stats page.

KingDon · 11-02-2007, 12:22 AM

Let me look my LLLL's over before I weigh in

Charley · 11-02-2007, 12:46 AM

U is a non premium as well premium letter. Consider words like sun, fun, gun, nun, number, etc, the "u" in it phrases the word.

But words like cyu, tyi, etc don't mean anything so that's non premium.

VURG · 11-02-2007, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by italiandragon

So, what are you saying? Should we split all the alphabet in 4 categories and not 3?

I see from those stats a CLEAR picture.

U and W should be premium while Y should be average.

The "bad" ones or let`s say less used would be just X - Z - Q which are 3 of the 4 less used in the stats page.

I'm saying that I'd sooner consider kicking out letters like F,G,H,L and R than consider adding another letter to the category. It may be better to split the domains into two groups of 13 than one group of 17 and one group of 9.

One thing to consider is that premium status is in relation to acronyms not words. Hence I don't think much of the 1st stats ref.

Also, I don't think that Mcgees stats is very relevant either. I wouldn't use either references to justify "U" being premium. There are more useful online reports to consider. I'll try to find one when I have the time.

Love our pedantic conversations Italian!

ginge133 · 11-02-2007, 01:05 AM

You dont really need to split them into anything.

With LLL's or even LLLL's just treat them individually and search through google and other places for potential uses and end-user's for the letters. If the domain has lots of potential uses but has less preferable letters, you can usually pick up a bargain.

I can see where it comes from but imo there is way too much valuing on 'letter quality' when the real thing should be looking at potential for the domain because Ive seen a lot of 'All Premium' LLL.coms that look really nice, but when you delve a bit deeper, there not that good.

VURG · 11-02-2007, 01:11 AM

http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/Interes...t_Domain_Names

accentnepal · 11-02-2007, 01:28 AM

I got one of the very last LLLL.coms with "H" as the worst letter in August, 2005. From that time every domain available (other than short-lived drops) had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z .

That situation continued until early this year when the "K" and ""W" were bought out, followed by U, J, V, and Y in that order, if I remember correctly.

So for a year and a half the all-premium letter names were unavailable while names containing at least one non-premium were easy to find. I gobbled a lot of W and K, thinking those with other good letters were better than all-premium with the lesser letters. But that was how the market saw things, and it was not just 3character.com.

italiandragon · 11-02-2007, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VURG

I'm saying that I'd sooner consider kicking out letters like F,G,H,L and R than consider adding another letter to the category. It may be better to split the domains into two groups of 13 than one group of 17 and one group of 9.

One thing to consider is that premium status is in relation to acronyms not words. Hence I don't think much of the 1st stats ref.

Also, I don't think that Mcgees stats is very relevant either. I wouldn't use either references to justify "U" being premium. There are more useful online reports to consider. I'll try to find one when I have the time.

Love our pedantic conversations Italian!

What does mean "pedantic" ?

I`d love to read more reports!

Quote:

Originally Posted by VURG

http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/Interes...t_Domain_Names

that report shows the number of ALL domains so it`s not good as we`re talking here only about 4 letter domains.

Quote:

Originally Posted by accentnepal

I got one of the very last LLLL.coms with "H" as the worst letter in August, 2005. From that time every domain available (other than short-lived drops) had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z .

That situation continued until early this year when the "K" and ""W" were bought out, followed by U, J, V, and Y in that order, if I remember correctly.

So for a year and a half the all-premium letter names were unavailable while names containing at least one non-premium were easy to find. I gobbled a lot of W and K, thinking those with other good letters were better than all-premium with the lesser letters. But that was how the market saw things, and it was not just 3character.com.

Y ran out few hours ago while few U and V are still there.

Pred · 11-02-2007, 02:41 AM

I love 'U' but it rates as average though imo.
If a company wants for their acronym then becomes premium to them.

Obviously more popular acronym letters sell for more as there is more competition for those letters, and more type in usually.

Many great applications obviously though
, Universal, Ultimate blah blah

country names;

Ukraine
United States
United Kingdom
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Uruguay
UAE

etc

Most importantly of all though & this applies to LLL, LLLL, L-L-L is if a company wants a certain set of letters, whatever they are, they are premium to them,
whether RSC, XYZ, UWZ

Get my drift?
So what we think, matters not

GreenGambler · 11-02-2007, 03:01 AM

IMO the letter u is a premium letter. IMO all vowels are premium letters.

accentnepal · 11-02-2007, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by italiandragon

Y ran out few hours ago while few U and V are still there.

That is correct - as the first letter of a LLLL.com. I was speaking in my post about the worst letter of the four - another way some people categorize LLLLs, for example the term "all-premium" means (conventially) none of the four letters are non-premium. There certainally are many different ways to cut the pie -- which is good because this way we are not always going after the same domain.

hawkeye · 11-02-2007, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charley

But words like cyu, tyi, etc don't mean anything so that's non premium.

Not really sure why you'd call these words. Miscellaneous lll combos with a 'u', don't compare in anyway with Fun, nun, etc. which are actual words, so I don't get your analogy on this.

sashas · 11-02-2007, 01:29 PM

I think that J needs to be added to the premium list...the most popular first names in the western world start with J (John, Jack, Jennifer, Jeremy, etc.)

owntype · 11-02-2007, 01:56 PM

When the first letter is U, it works

NameBaby · 11-02-2007, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenGambler

IMO the letter u is a premium letter. IMO all vowels are premium letters.

i aggree with it, even i go to register domains with "U"
not let them go

DNK.it · 11-02-2007, 05:29 PM

This is almost all sale of LLLL.com with U in it... hope this is useful

http://www.tdvr.com/domain.php?search_fd1=%25u%25

Alex · 11-02-2007, 06:54 PM

I myself consider U and K good letters.

How would I split them:

Premium letters
A, B, C, D, S, T M, N, P, E, I, O, L

These are all very strong ones. I agree that E is better than P for example, but all are exceptional letters.

Good letters
F, G, U, K, W, H

Average letters
Y, J, V, (V being the best here)

bad letters:
Z, X, Q (Z being the best here IMO)

Anyway, this was a guesstimate, and I do not base my selection on any criteria. But certainly the letters can be grouped in many categories.

We must pay attention to two things:

1. Languages: X may be premium in one language and may be the worst letter in another. H is not premium for example in French, while U is very popular in Germany, X is popular in China, Y is not popular in many European languages etc. The premium/non premium letters are classified in the English language (where the most prospective domain buyers might come from).

2. When judging a letter for being premium or non premium we have to look at its acronym potential. So it does not matter how often it is used in the middle of the words, but how often does a word start with that letter and how used that word is. Considering this Q doesn't look that bad at all. Q is bad because it is not that brandable.

I once started making a list of all potential acronyms for some letters, if you say so, I might do a list to help us forming acronyms etc.

I like U

VURG · 11-02-2007, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by italiandragon

What does mean "pedantic" ?

I mean that our discussions are often about issues that most people consider trivial such as ranking letters and debating on the issues of the definition of premium.

Quote:

Originally Posted by italiandragon

that report shows the number of ALL domains so it`s not good as we`re talking here only about 4 letter domains.

I thought the thread was in relation to the definition of the word premium in related to letters. I may have misunderstood the thread a bit.

I did some personal stats on letter frequencies of available 4 letter domains before that report came out that showed similar results.

The definition of a "premium letter" is usually in relation to the probability of a letter being used for an acronym. While looking at stats on letter frequencies on words might show some information, you have to understand that:
a - Frequency of letters fluctuates based on the position within a word and acronyms are usually only related to the front letter within a word.
b - Some words are more frequently used than others in acronyms and hence the letters are more frequently in acronyms. (e.g. University, Church, Mortgage, Consulting, American, Sex, Real Estate, etc...)

Personally, I think that the yafla stats are great as they are looking at what letters are at the start of 10's of millions of domain names and the letter "U" only has around 600,000 domains in the analysis registered when most letters have over twice that.

At the end of the day, the definition of a Premium Letter is always going to be controversial.

italiandragon · 11-02-2007, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VURG

I mean that our discussions are often about issues that most people consider trivial such as ranking letters and debating on the issues of the definition of premium.

I thought the thread was in relation to the definition of the word premium in related to letters. I may have misunderstood the thread a bit.

I did some personal stats on letter frequencies of available 4 letter domains before that report came out that showed similar results.

The definition of a "premium letter" is usually in relation to the probability of a letter being used for an acronym. While looking at stats on letter frequencies on words might show some information, you have to understand that:
a - Frequency of letters fluctuates based on the position within a word and acronyms are usually only related to the front letter within a word.
b - Some words are more frequently used than others in acronyms and hence the letters are more frequently in acronyms. (e.g. University, Church, Mortgage, Consulting, American, Sex, Real Estate, etc...)

Personally, I think that the yafla stats are great as they are looking at what letters are at the start of 10's of millions of domain names and the letter "U" only has around 600,000 domains in the analysis registered when most letters have over twice that.

At the end of the day, the definition of a Premium Letter is always going to be controversial.

uhm....maybe it`s my English and if so I apologies but the purpose of this thread is to define if the letter U is premium when it comes to ACRONYMS not words. This would be useful for both LLL and LLLL

Thanks

Nsane Domain · 11-03-2007, 09:21 AM

It fits well when used for an acronym because there are many longer words that that are easily shortened by using just "U" and for the purpose of shortening the word "you".

One example of a long word that nobody has mentioned yet is University. Would you rather own SouthDakotaStateUniversity.com or SDSU.com? How about UniversityofCaliforniaatSantaBarbara.com or UCSB.com? It is a no brainer in my opinion.

University
Unlimited
Ultimate
Universal

If it is not considered "premium" it has to be the "next best" letter IMHO.

I like it!

Nsane

View Poll Results: How do consider the letter U ?
Premium	19	54.29%
Average	15	42.86%
Bad	1	2.86%
Voters: 35. You may not vote on this poll

11-02-2007, 12:04 AM	#1 (permalink)
italiandragon NamePros Expert Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: AUSTRALIA Posts: 5,734 140.00 NP$ (Donate)	The letter U : Premium or not ? I disagree about the letter U being non-premium. Why? - it`s one of the 5 vowels. - according to this survey: http://www.mcgees.org/fourletterdomains.html the letter U has been the 4th preferred letter as starting letter: Registration rate for domains beginning with a certain letter: Most popular: a: 72.7% w: 70.4% t: 68.0% u: 66.4% i: 66.3% - and according to these statistics : http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=914452 the letter U in English is used more than letters like M , C and F and is right in the middle of the list (same in the italian language). If we analise the stats regarding French and German , then the U is used even more. So based on all of this , from now I personally will judge the letter U as premium and I suppose that who wrote originally the 3 char price guide has done this little mistake and since that all domainers followed that mistake. But certainly since I am not perfect either , I`d love to hear all opinions about this. Let`s find out what NP members think about the letter U once for all! Thank yoU __________________ Great quality LLLL.coms : OPPB.com / MMCP.com / IFUV.com 100+ great LLLL.com for CHEAP SALE, make your offer NOW! >>CLICK HERE<<

11-02-2007, 12:07 AM	#3 (permalink)
mellowmasher mellowmasher.com Forum Moderator Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: UK Posts: 12,362 865.03 NP$ (Donate)	I like it __________________ Hot New NP Live Auctions! I RECOMMEND HIVE DESIGNS FOR HIGH QUALITY WEB DESIGNS Mellowmasher.com

11-02-2007, 12:22 AM	#7 (permalink)
KingDon NamePros Regular Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sunny Florida Posts: 975 8,133.01 NP$ (Donate)	Let me look my LLLL's over before I weigh in __________________ I'm going for personal success rather than the lottery; the odds are MUCH better. Concrete Polishing - Mold Removal - Marble Floor Polishing - Grout Cleaning

11-02-2007, 12:46 AM	#8 (permalink)
Charley Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: In a 3 Bedroom Flat © Posts: 3,669 1,989.70 NP$ (Donate)	U is a non premium as well premium letter. Consider words like sun, fun, gun, nun, number, etc, the "u" in it phrases the word. But words like cyu, tyi, etc don't mean anything so that's non premium. __________________ † Did We Know That There Aren't Really Thousands Of Bands Who Might Be Interesting, We Will Get To Deleting All Bands That Aren't In Flames, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Deicide †

11-02-2007, 12:05 AM	#2 (permalink)
Silhouette Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 1,040 31.50 NP$ (Donate)	I like U and "U"

11-02-2007, 12:11 AM	#4 (permalink)
VURG VURG Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 2,527 39.50 NP$ (Donate)	With 17 out of 26 letter,I think that the premium category has too many letters already.

11-02-2007, 12:12 AM	#5 (permalink)
Gult NamePros Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 154 16.30 NP$ (Donate)	It's a premium letter imo. I like it

11-02-2007, 01:05 AM	#10 (permalink)
ginge133 NamePros Regular Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 311 4.75 NP$ (Donate)	You dont really need to split them into anything. With LLL's or even LLLL's just treat them individually and search through google and other places for potential uses and end-user's for the letters. If the domain has lots of potential uses but has less preferable letters, you can usually pick up a bargain. I can see where it comes from but imo there is way too much valuing on 'letter quality' when the real thing should be looking at potential for the domain because Ive seen a lot of 'All Premium' LLL.coms that look really nice, but when you delve a bit deeper, there not that good.

11-02-2007, 01:11 AM	#11 (permalink)
VURG VURG Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 2,527 39.50 NP$ (Donate)	http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/Interes...t_Domain_Names

11-02-2007, 01:28 AM	#12 (permalink)
accentnepal Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 2,114 365.00 NP$ (Donate)	I got one of the very last LLLL.coms with "H" as the worst letter in August, 2005. From that time every domain available (other than short-lived drops) had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z . That situation continued until early this year when the "K" and ""W" were bought out, followed by U, J, V, and Y in that order, if I remember correctly. So for a year and a half the all-premium letter names were unavailable while names containing at least one non-premium were easy to find. I gobbled a lot of W and K, thinking those with other good letters were better than all-premium with the lesser letters. But that was how the market saw things, and it was not just 3character.com. __________________ Domains for sale For List Of Country Code Domains Jewelry of Tibet and Nepal Jewellery Store at Ebay Tibetan Symbols Om Pyramids Ancient Egyptian Secrets Ancient Mystery Eden Shakti

11-02-2007, 02:41 AM	#14 (permalink)
Pred Account Closed Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 6,725 0.56 NP$ (Donate)	I love 'U' but it rates as average though imo. If a company wants for their acronym then becomes premium to them. Obviously more popular acronym letters sell for more as there is more competition for those letters, and more type in usually. Many great applications obviously though , Universal, Ultimate blah blah country names; Ukraine United States United Kingdom Uganda Uzbekistan Uruguay UAE etc Most importantly of all though & this applies to LLL, LLLL, L-L-L is if a company wants a certain set of letters, whatever they are, they are premium to them, whether RSC, XYZ, UWZ Get my drift? So what we think, matters not

11-02-2007, 03:01 AM	#15 (permalink)
GreenGambler Visit -- NameManor.com Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Missouri--USA Posts: 3,072 5.60 NP$ (Donate)	IMO the letter u is a premium letter. IMO all vowels are premium letters. __________________ Buy Domain Names for Sale -- -- -- --LIVE DOMAIN NAME CHAT -- -- -- --CHAT LIVE NOW 4L.coms HERE Natural Disaster Videos - ¦ - FREE : Domain Name : Sales Board : Sell for Free! ¦ -

11-02-2007, 01:29 PM	#18 (permalink)
sashas Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Jaipur, India Posts: 3,061 501.00 NP$ (Donate)	I think that J needs to be added to the premium list...the most popular first names in the western world start with J (John, Jack, Jennifer, Jeremy, etc.) __________________ Rappers

11-02-2007, 01:56 PM	#19 (permalink)
owntype Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 2,817 472.40 NP$ (Donate)	When the first letter is U, it works __________________ ABCDE.COM - Even your grandmother can remember!

11-02-2007, 05:29 PM	#21 (permalink)
DNK.it Domain Name Key Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: ITALY Posts: 1,190 123.25 NP$ (Donate)	This is almost all sale of LLLL.com with U in it... hope this is useful http://www.tdvr.com/domain.php?search_fd1=%25u%25 __________________ Full developed site: MonteCarlo.me for sale!

11-02-2007, 06:54 PM	#22 (permalink)
Alex Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Oradea Posts: 3,099 198.71 NP$ (Donate)	I myself consider U and K good letters. How would I split them: Premium letters A, B, C, D, S, T M, N, P, E, I, O, L These are all very strong ones. I agree that E is better than P for example, but all are exceptional letters. Good letters F, G, U, K, W, H Average letters Y, J, V, (V being the best here) bad letters: Z, X, Q (Z being the best here IMO) Anyway, this was a guesstimate, and I do not base my selection on any criteria. But certainly the letters can be grouped in many categories. We must pay attention to two things: 1. Languages: X may be premium in one language and may be the worst letter in another. H is not premium for example in French, while U is very popular in Germany, X is popular in China, Y is not popular in many European languages etc. The premium/non premium letters are classified in the English language (where the most prospective domain buyers might come from). 2. When judging a letter for being premium or non premium we have to look at its acronym potential. So it does not matter how often it is used in the middle of the words, but how often does a word start with that letter and how used that word is. Considering this Q doesn't look that bad at all. Q is bad because it is not that brandable. I once started making a list of all potential acronyms for some letters, if you say so, I might do a list to help us forming acronyms etc. I like U __________________ Lake Titicaca Neuschwanstein Castle Sedlec Ossuary

11-03-2007, 09:21 AM	#25 (permalink)
Nsane Domain NamePros Regular Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Nebraska-USA Posts: 458 2.00 NP$ (Donate)	It fits well when used for an acronym because there are many longer words that that are easily shortened by using just "U" and for the purpose of shortening the word "you". One example of a long word that nobody has mentioned yet is University. Would you rather own SouthDakotaStateUniversity.com or SDSU.com? How about UniversityofCaliforniaatSantaBarbara.com or UCSB.com? It is a no brainer in my opinion. University Unlimited Ultimate Universal If it is not considered "premium" it has to be the "next best" letter IMHO. I like it! Nsane

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