Short domain names tend to have a high value attached to them, mainly due to their rarity. Two-letter .COM’s for example, have seen exponential growth that has made seven-figure sales an almost regular occurrence.
One category of domain names that is even more exclusive is one-letter domain names. There have been many examples of single character sales in new domain extensions, but one-letter .COM’s and .NET’s remain scarce thanks to the reservation of all but five domain names.
Below, we profile the five single-letter .COM and .NET domain names that are available to see how they are being used right now.
Q.com
The first name is owned by Qwest Communications, who were acquired by CenturyLink in 2010 in a stock-for-stock deal that was worth $12 billion. The acquisition of Qwest meant that rights to the Q.com domain name were transferred over to CenturyLink. Since 2010, Q.com has been forwarded to CenturyLink.com. Unsurprisingly, the domain receives many visitors each month and has a worldwide Alexa ranking of just over 40,000, with a US ranking of around 7,000.
Since CenturyLink is a company with assets totalling $47 billion, it’s highly unlikely that the name will ever leave their possession. However, if the domain was put up for sale, there would be many interested parties including Qualcomm, Quintiles, and Tencent’s QQ network that uses the domain QQ.com.
Z.com
For many years, Z.com was owned by Japanese automotive giant Nissan, who used the name since the early 2000’s to promote their Z series sports cars. That was until 2014 when the first ever one-letter .COM domain sale was publicly recorded. GMO Internet, one of Japan’s largest ISP operators, bought the domain name for 800 million Japanese Yen, which equated to $6,784,000 at the time of the sale.
Today, the domain name is used as a global forex trading platform. According to the website, the z.com service currently has over 450,000 users and makes up an incredible 20% of the global forex market share. The domain name has a global Alexa rank of just over 46,000, with the service apparently most popular in Vietnam, where the domain has an Alexa ranking of under 900.
This is the only one-letter .com domain name that we have sales data for, and it is the only one that is fully developed.
X.com
X.com has had an illustrious history but lays dormant as of writing. The name was originally registered by a company called Weinstein & DePaolis and was the homepage of a Netscape employee called Robert Walker for some time during the 90’s.
That is until 1999 when current Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquired the domain name for an online financial services platform. After the company merged with Confinity in 2000, the X.com brand was scrapped as the company focused on their new service, PayPal.
PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, of which Elon Musk received $165 million. X.com has been used in many guises by PayPal since then, but the domain doesn’t resolve as of writing. Should PayPal ever look to sell the domain name, there would be many companies lining up to bid on the name.
Google’s Moonshot Factory is currently branded as “X” and uses the domain x.company. Another possibility for the domain would be for PayPal to reunite Elon Musk with X.com for his SpaceX project, currently using spacex.com.
Q.net
The first of our single-letter .NET domains is Q.net. This name was owned by Bradley Allen of Q Networks until 2016 when the domain name was sold. The sale was handled by domain brokerage firm Media options, with the buyer revealed as Mike Gleissner, a domain name investor with a vast portfolio of short domain names. Q.net was on sale with a buy-now price of $1.2 million, but the final sales price has never been publicly revealed.
As with the majority of Mr Gleissner’s portfolio, the domain displays a coming soon page for a generic social media service.
I.net
There are only two single-letter .NET domain names in existence and they are both in the hands of domain name investors. In this case, I.net is under the ownership of Future Media Architects, a company that owns an incredible portfolio of over 100,000 domain names including FM.com, media.com and oxide.com. I.net was originally used by Future Media Architect’s owner Thunayan Al-Ghanim as an ICANN approved internet registry, but now the name isn't active.
One category of domain names that is even more exclusive is one-letter domain names. There have been many examples of single character sales in new domain extensions, but one-letter .COM’s and .NET’s remain scarce thanks to the reservation of all but five domain names.
Below, we profile the five single-letter .COM and .NET domain names that are available to see how they are being used right now.
Q.com
The first name is owned by Qwest Communications, who were acquired by CenturyLink in 2010 in a stock-for-stock deal that was worth $12 billion. The acquisition of Qwest meant that rights to the Q.com domain name were transferred over to CenturyLink. Since 2010, Q.com has been forwarded to CenturyLink.com. Unsurprisingly, the domain receives many visitors each month and has a worldwide Alexa ranking of just over 40,000, with a US ranking of around 7,000.
Since CenturyLink is a company with assets totalling $47 billion, it’s highly unlikely that the name will ever leave their possession. However, if the domain was put up for sale, there would be many interested parties including Qualcomm, Quintiles, and Tencent’s QQ network that uses the domain QQ.com.
For many years, Z.com was owned by Japanese automotive giant Nissan, who used the name since the early 2000’s to promote their Z series sports cars. That was until 2014 when the first ever one-letter .COM domain sale was publicly recorded. GMO Internet, one of Japan’s largest ISP operators, bought the domain name for 800 million Japanese Yen, which equated to $6,784,000 at the time of the sale.
Today, the domain name is used as a global forex trading platform. According to the website, the z.com service currently has over 450,000 users and makes up an incredible 20% of the global forex market share. The domain name has a global Alexa rank of just over 46,000, with the service apparently most popular in Vietnam, where the domain has an Alexa ranking of under 900.
This is the only one-letter .com domain name that we have sales data for, and it is the only one that is fully developed.
X.com
X.com has had an illustrious history but lays dormant as of writing. The name was originally registered by a company called Weinstein & DePaolis and was the homepage of a Netscape employee called Robert Walker for some time during the 90’s.
That is until 1999 when current Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquired the domain name for an online financial services platform. After the company merged with Confinity in 2000, the X.com brand was scrapped as the company focused on their new service, PayPal.
PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, of which Elon Musk received $165 million. X.com has been used in many guises by PayPal since then, but the domain doesn’t resolve as of writing. Should PayPal ever look to sell the domain name, there would be many companies lining up to bid on the name.
Google’s Moonshot Factory is currently branded as “X” and uses the domain x.company. Another possibility for the domain would be for PayPal to reunite Elon Musk with X.com for his SpaceX project, currently using spacex.com.
Q.net
The first of our single-letter .NET domains is Q.net. This name was owned by Bradley Allen of Q Networks until 2016 when the domain name was sold. The sale was handled by domain brokerage firm Media options, with the buyer revealed as Mike Gleissner, a domain name investor with a vast portfolio of short domain names. Q.net was on sale with a buy-now price of $1.2 million, but the final sales price has never been publicly revealed.
As with the majority of Mr Gleissner’s portfolio, the domain displays a coming soon page for a generic social media service.
I.net
There are only two single-letter .NET domain names in existence and they are both in the hands of domain name investors. In this case, I.net is under the ownership of Future Media Architects, a company that owns an incredible portfolio of over 100,000 domain names including FM.com, media.com and oxide.com. I.net was originally used by Future Media Architect’s owner Thunayan Al-Ghanim as an ICANN approved internet registry, but now the name isn't active.
