NP Community about the Premium letters: please VOTE!

[italiandragon]

I heard the "call" from newbies and not only newbies so I think we have to challenge the definition of Premium letters (for acronyms like 3 or 4 letters)

We had some surveys here and not only here and there are many things to discuss.

First off all, the mentioned Premium letters have been decided by 1 U.S. website which then many U.S. domainers referred to.

This website did not take into consideration other relevant info that found that LLLL.com starting in W or U were among the first 5 letters.

Then many languages do not have the 26 letters of the English alphabet.
For example in Italian there are only 21 letters. There are no: J-K-X-W-Y

Always in Italian V is a very well used letter. Italians would hate the J-K and X more than any other.

In German the letter Z is a great letter.

Chinese love the Q and X but they don`t have the V.

A recent Poll here found that the letter U is considered by a majority of NP member to be Premium.

More info about the letter U:

- 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% (also here you can that the W was second!)
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.

I suppose that who wrote originally the 3 char price guide has done this little mistake and since that all domainers followed that mistake. Why do we need to follow something that is incorrect?

As you can see, it`s totally difficult to establish only what was considered reliable several years ago when internet users were mainly from the USA.

So please, in the interest of all of us , post your 4 lists so at the end , we`ll be able to have our say based on our community, the NamePros Domainers

I will start so that everybody can understand what I mean... it `s simple but sometimes my English is not totally clear

I really think we need to split the bad ones in 2 semi categories: Low quality and really the worst ones where I`m listing 2 but you can put as many as you like in each category as long as you put at least 1 letter in each category.
At the end, hopefully after a couple of hundreds of votes, we`ll have simply to get the results.

Ok, here is my vote:

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-U-W

Medium quality: H-V-Y

Low quality: J-K-Z

Worst ones: Q-X

[Steve]

Nice guide. I think it's close to accurate, but I wouldn't list W with premium letters.

[mvl]

I definitely agree on U being a premium.
I wouldn't say W is bad, but not a premium imo.

[italiandragon]

Hi Etab and Leonardo, while I thank you for your reply, I invite you to write your FULL lists otherwise......what I did is useless

Thanks

[-REECE-]

Agree 100% with Lorenzo's analysis. I'm glad to see someone finally not pretending J is semi-premium

Here's mine:

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-K-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-U-W

Medium quality: V-Y

Low quality: J-K-Z

Worst ones: Q-X

[italiandragon]

Originally Posted by Reece

Agree 100% with Lorenzo's analysis. I'm glad to see someone finally not pretending J is semi-premium

Here's mine:

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-K-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-U-W

Medium quality: V-Y

Low quality: J-K-Z

Worst ones: Q-X

and where is the H in your lists?

[Steve]

Originally Posted by italiandragon

Hi Etab and Leonardo, while I thank you for your reply, I invite you to write your FULL lists otherwise......what I did is useless

Thanks

Here it is.

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-U-V

Medium quality: H-W-Y

Low quality: J-K-Z

Worst ones: Q-X

I moved V up to premium. Maybe that's just my opinion, but I think it's a nice consonant. I have a lot of nice-sounding names beginning with V.

[-REECE-]

Originally Posted by italiandragon

and where is the H in your lists?

Good eye mate, I consider H a bad premium -- like F, but still in the upper category. I think it will only get stronger in years to come as health/wellness becomes a more and more popular topic of dicussion.

[jido]

Without taking into account position of letter and V/C pattern,

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-U

Medium quality: H-W-Y-F-K-V

Low quality: J-Z-X

Worst ones: Q

[Alex]

Here is my:

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T

Medium quality: H-W-U-K-V

Low quality: J-Z-Y

Worst ones: Q-X

K, W and U are undervalued at this stage. Many good words start with these letters.

[xman]

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T

Medium quality: K-U-V-W-Y

Low quality: J-X-Z

Worst ones: Q

[Ergo]

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-V-W

Medium quality: K-U-H

Low quality: J-X-Z

Worst ones: Q-Y

I don't like Y because there are no good words starting with it. Its almost worthless unless in NY combination. We are talking about acronyms. In pronouncables Y will be very good at the end (Fesy) or at the start (Yuma) but will be bad in the middle (ORYK).

I like V. Because V=Video, Visual, Virtual, Venture a lot of good premium words.
I like X. Because its eXtreme and eXchange and XXX.

[3par]

Premium will always be premium, voting or not.

[Pred]

Originally Posted by Ergo

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-I-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T-V-W

Medium quality: K-U-H

Low quality: J-X-Z

Worst ones: Q-Y

I don't like Y because there are no good words starting with it. Its almost worthless unless in NY combination. We are talking about acronyms. In pronouncables Y will be very good at the end (Fesy) or at the start (Yuma) but will be bad in the middle (ORYK).

I like V. Because V=Video, Visual, Virtual, Venture a lot of good premium words.
I like X. Because its eXtreme and eXchange and XXX.

I agree with most of your analysis.
Like i said earlier , those saying 'w' is not premium in a domain with all the connotations of 'w' is laughable.
Got any cheap LLL or LLLL with a nonpremium 'w' in, point my way!

World Wide Web

Such a great and useful letter for any web based acronym, work, world etc hundreds of words

Also, i like your take on 'V'
A brilliant letter in this business. I like as first letter.

The only one i dont agree on is H.
I see this as premium as perfect for end letter too.
'Holdings' , many other useful words.

I agree with what you say on Y.
If you're going to have, have as the start leytter, than can be very useful, especially for Geo acronyms. Think countries, states, counties.
Think of all the businesses just in the county of Yorkshire alone in UK. Then think Global.

My least favourite has always been X. Good for adult and exchnage etc, but in general i dont like.

[dnb8]

Originally Posted by italiandragon

In German the letter Z is a great letter.

German language is crazy, did You ever tried to spell words like Frontscheinwerferwechsel or Leuchtweitenregulierung

[smashfactory]

lorenzo- the work you put into these LLLL threads is amazing- i agree- one site decided to say what is premium and what is not, and the whole world follows it, whether their research is correct or not.
kudos to you for working to make things make sense

[skylineleong]

I think letters depend country choose

It also Premium Domain Name.
Q = china most popular (example: QQ.com)

U = (example: utube.com or uwants.com)

X = like adult name.

Z = like s (example: domainz.com)

[accentnepal]

I suspect the traditional breakdown of J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z as non-premium letters was in place long before 3character.com said anything about it. I have not paid much attention to first letters, so what I say here is about all four letters, in LLLL.coms, in particular, but I imagine it more or less applies to all acronymn domains.

LLLL.coms sorted themselves based on the worst letter in the domain. I noticed this in mid 2005 when I first got interested in the area. I found only three available LLLL.com domains that did not have any J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z and while I did not check all of the ~80,000 availables, I checked most of them. All had 2 H's or an F and an H.

Not counting short-lived drops all LLLL.com domains available had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z until early this year. I noted on January 28 that DYYO listed 21 with W as the worst letter. Soon after that time the last K as worst letter and then W as worst letter were taken. U followed a bit later.

So for a year and a half, while LLLL.coms were decreasingly available, all the traditional all-premium letter domains were taken (and rarely offered for sale) and three premium letter names with one traditionally non-premium letter of your choice were easily available. In my mind this shows a psychological barrier of great strength between the traditional premium and non-premium letters in the worldwide LLLL.com marketplace.

This is the market place, the totality of the factors of the international domain buying public.

So based on marketplace experience in LLLL.coms, for all four letters (first letter is a different question), and realizing that this is only my opinion, which I have changed before and will again, here is how I rate the letters for value - all in order, first to last:

Top tier: S,A,C
High Premium: T,M,E,B,P,D
Low Premium: N,R,I,G,O,L,F,H
Non-Premium: K,W,U,J,Y,V
Lowest Tier: Z,X,Q

But everybody is welcome to their opinion.

[italiandragon]

Originally Posted by smashfactory

lorenzo- the work you put into these LLLL threads is amazing- i agree- one site decided to say what is premium and what is not, and the whole world follows it, whether their research is correct or not.
kudos to you for working to make things make sense

Thank you for your words. I`m the kind of person that likes to understand how things work if those things are of interest to me.

I hope that many NP member will express their view so that we can really make a better price-guide on the LLL and LLLL.com

Originally Posted by accentnepal

I suspect the traditional breakdown of J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z as non-premium letters was in place long before 3character.com said anything about it. I have not paid much attention to first letters, so what I say here is about all four letters, in LLLL.coms, in particular, but I imagine it more or less applies to all acronymn domains.

LLLL.coms sorted themselves based on the worst letter in the domain. I noticed this in mid 2005 when I first got interested in the area. I found only three available LLLL.com domains that did not have any J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z and while I did not check all of the ~80,000 availables, I checked most of them. All had 2 H's or an F and an H.

Not counting short-lived drops all LLLL.com domains available had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z until early this year. I noted on January 28 that DYYO listed 21 with W as the worst letter. Soon after that time the last K as worst letter and then W as worst letter were taken. U followed a bit later.

So for a year and a half, while LLLL.coms were decreasingly available, all the traditional all-premium letter domains were taken (and rarely offered for sale) and three premium letter names with one traditionally non-premium letter of your choice were easily available. In my mind this shows a psychological barrier of great strength between the traditional premium and non-premium letters in the worldwide LLLL.com marketplace.

This is the market place, the totality of the factors of the international domain buying public.

So based on marketplace experience in LLLL.coms, for all four letters (first letter is a different question), and realizing that this is only my opinion, which I have changed before and will again, here is how I rate the letters for value - all in order, first to last:

Top tier: S,A,C
High Premium: T,M,E,B,P,D
Low Premium: N,R,I,G,O,L,F,H
Non-Premium: K,W,U,J,Y,V
Lowest Tier: Z,X,Q

But everybody is welcome to their opinion.

well I was not aware of those definitions (Premium or not) till I read that website. Is it not possible that 3character.com or someone else before conditioned people in registerering names without real datas?
This is what I`m wondering.
I`m not trying to make the letter U or the W Premium ones only because I have some of them but I want to know how they have been not listed as Premium while many datas showed from years a strong use of those 2 letters.
I`m here to compare these datas, I`d like to know where those definitions came from.

[tristanperry]

Premium quality: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-K-L-M-N-O-P-R-S-T

Medium quality: W-U

Low quality: J-Y-Z

Worst ones: Q-X-V

Although I'd agree with:

Top tier: S,A,C
High Premium: T,M,E,B,P,D
Low Premium: N,R,I,G,O,L,F,H
Non-Premium: K,W,U,J,Y,V
Lowest Tier: Z,X,Q

as well

I think that 3Character's price guide has got it pretty close - I do view J, K, U, V, W, Q, X, Y, Z as 'lower quality' letters. I did before I got into domaining (and so before I seen the price guide).

Although I personally love K (although I accept many don't see it as premium), however I've never liked U... it just seems the ugliest vowel

[filter]

"Premium" depends so much on context.

Much to be said for accentnepal's "empirical" analysis of the order in which LLLL.com with various letters were regged or left available (until only the "anti-premium" dregs remained to be disposed of in the willy-nilly buyout feeding frenzy!) ... I imagine this is also the basis for 3par's informed perspective.

Originally Posted by accentnepal

This is the market place, the totality of the factors of the international domain buying public.

And that's the bottom line for resellers, so "premium" is what it is - or at least it was what it was for the market in the time frame that all the available LLLL were gradually picked up by end-users and speculators alike. Now with the increased aftermarket activity, there is a bit more empirical data to look at in support of ideas of how LLLL.com sales prices may be affected by presence or absence of certain letters.

Should just add these caveats - the market is a (often very slowly) moving target (google for "stationarity" and "reflexivity" for some thought-provoking / mind-bending reading) - and sometimes a bit of money can be made by identifying assets that may be currently under-valued by the mass market for whatever reason.

For those of you who have read this far, here is a window into some of my own thoughts on how the different contexts in which "premium" qualities of letters might be interpreted in less obvious but potentially more useful ways going forward ...

Just focusing on "English language" market to simplify things - there are still several complications to consider:

1) "pronounceability" depends on relative position of consonants and vowels, thus often boosting the value of J and X and U and Y in certain positions (and almost always severely reducing the (already low) value of Q ... IMO).

2) for acronyms - it's easy to be mislead by the easily found raw letter frequency statistics (ie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequencies ) ... These are most useful for cryptoanalysis but really not so much for estimating potential for finding acronyms, given that acronyms depend on initial letter frequencies. And the statistics for initial letter frequencies are less easy to find online, though can be generated if you have access to a word database and are handy with regular expressions.

As with pronounceables, also again with acronyms - some letters can be "more premium" in certain positions - such as a terminal I, A, C, or G (for Inc., Associates., Corp., or Group) - well, these letters are all uber-premium anyway, but it may be worthwhile to reflect on this general concept for less obvious cases as well. Here I'd rather have a 'Q' at the beginning of an LLLL rather than at the end (though still neither combo would be "premium").

3) Now ... this is a big one ... consider the very special class of acronyms which is often seen as "the" target end-user for LLL / L-L-L / and possibly also many LLLL -> names of companies which are formed by the last names of several of the founders or partners etc. For example, firms such as KPMG (Klynveld + Peat + Marwick + Goerdeler) or SLK (Spear, Leeds & Kellogg) and so many others may come to mind ...

So, even if you have sussed out the "initial letter" frequency gotcha - here is another opportunity to catch potentially under-valued "premium" letter combinations in this very specific context. And that is the frequency of initial letters for last names - which is varies quite a bit from the frequency of initial letters for English words in general!

Here is a useful source of info along those lines -> http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/names_files.html

I hacked together a little script to sum up frequncies of initial letters for the 88,799 most commonly occuring last names from the 1990 US census data (referenced in the link above) ... (Haven't double checked this but really should since the results sum up to well less than 100% - assuming this is from round-off error, but I may have missed something more significant - beware!)

M: 7.756
S: 7.389
B: 7.329
C: 6.286
H: 6.178
W: 5.355
R: 4.632
G: 4.227
P: 3.901
L: 3.701
D: 3.486
J: 2.874
T: 2.844
F: 2.728
A: 2.669
K: 2.112
E: 1.48
N: 1.351
O: 1.086
V: 0.997
Y: 0.454
I: 0.253
Z: 0.211
Q: 0.151
U: 0.13
X: 0.01

Well - at least seems safe to say from the above that odds of finding many interested end-users for something like MSBC are orders of magnitude greater than for something like ZQUX ...

So ... to sum this all up in one great LLLL acronym -> "YMMV" ...!

Happy hunting!

[italiandragon]

In 4 days only 8 members expressed their vote.

This is depressing. I wonder if it`s lazyness or lack of time or what?

[accentnepal]

Originally Posted by italiandragon

In 4 days only 8 members expressed their vote.

This is depressing. I wonder if it`s lazyness or lack of time or what?

Two reasons (although 8 responses is not so bad):
Most people into LLLL.com"s are entranced, blinded even, by pronouncables and particularly by CVCV's
Many of the rest buy by intuition, with little thought to letter quality. Or they choose obscure acronyms that are not likely to have anyone wanting a website on them.

[italiandragon]

Originally Posted by accentnepal

Two reasons (although 8 responses is not so bad):
Most into LLLL.com"s are entranced, bliunded even by pronouncables and particularly by CVCV's
Many of the rest buy by intuition, with little thought to letter quality. Or they choose obscure acronyms that are not likely to have anyone wanting a website on them.

but the survey is not only for LLLL.com but also LLL of any ext.

[xrvel]

I agree that "U" is a premium, because it can be spelled as "You" too