LLLL.com COUNTDOWN!

[VURG]

COUNTDOWN COMPLETE!

NO MORE 4 LETTER DOMAIN AVAILABLE TO REGISTER! ​

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Since early 2005, I have been investing/trading with 4 letter domain names. I started this thread due to the large variation in opinions on how many four letter domains there are available. When I started, I heard a range on viewpoints ranging from 200,000 down to nothing. What I learned that most people did not know how many were available.

Sources of Error for the estimates in number of available 4 letter domains include:

Traffic Testers: These are people who buy thousands of domains at a time to see if the domains are being visited and only keep the small percentage of domains that have regular visitors and cancel their orders for the domains that don't have a regular flow of visitors.

Inefficient ways of making estimates: There are over 450 thousand possible 4-Letter domains. There are short cuts that people can take in estimating the number that been registered that don't include all domains. One short cut that is often taken is for somebody to search through a list of previously available 4 letter names that they purchased (or got for free) and assume that all the names that are not on that list are registered.

People quoting old information:The variation in the number available changes all the time. Estimates that are months old are very different than up to date estimates.

People manipulating information for a sale:It definately is true that incorrect information on the available number of 4-letter domains can intensionally be manipulated to sell 4-letter domains at a higher price. Typically the lack of supply tends to motivate people to pay higher prices.

As a 4-letter domain trader, I believe that the information of how many 4-letter domains there are is extremely valuable for two main reasons. Firstly, my pricing of my names is subject to the amount of work it requires for customer to find for similar name. Secondly, if I want to increase my stock of 4-letter names than the information of how many there are at reg fee prices is essential.

I decided to update this thread when the number of available 4-letter domains dropped to the following levels:
22% Remaining - 25th January 2006
19% Remaining - 31st March 2006
16% Remaining - 29th June 2006
13% Remaining - 1st August 2006
10% Remaining - 15th February 2007 (crossed without traffic testing early April)
9% Remaining - 26th February 2007 (crossed without traffic testing early May)
8% Remaining - 2nd March 2007 (crossed without traffic testing in June)
7% Remaining - 21st March 2007 (crossed without traffic testing early July)
6% Remaining - 3rd July 2007(crossed without traffic testing some time in July)
5% Remaining - 1st August 2007(crossed without traffic testing August 11)
4% Remaining - 14th August 2007(crossed late August)
3% Remaining - 15th September 2007(crossed In September)
2% Remaining - 14th October 2007
1% Remaining - 31st October 2007
0% Remaining - 2nd November - COUNTDOWN COMPLETE!

Although, the number of available domains does sometime rise straight after it drops due to traffic testing and people dropping their domains, I don't consider it worth mentioning unless the rise is as significant as a 3% rise in the number of available domains.

Types of Four Letter Domains that have run out include:
- ALL OF THEM!

Since I started this thread important event about four letter domains that are worth mentioning happenned:

1: Late March/Early April 2006 there was a significant shift in the market for brandable (fake words) 4-letter domains and they started selling at significantly higher prices and the market for the names has been a lot more active ever since.

2: In July 2006, a namepros member 3par launched DYYO.com as a site committed to educating people about 4 letter domains. This is an excellent resource for those who are interested in 4 letter domain names.

3: In early February 2007. All the 4 letter domains starting with the letter A ran out.

4: wasistdas won QQNQ.COM, PCZV.COM & IQKE.COM for the competition for predicting when the 4 Letter domains would run out
_______________________________________________________________
Initial Post
Less than 23% of the 4 letter domain names are unregistered. I thought I'd try to keep this thread updated every time I discover another 1% reduction. I am now routinely checking the percentage of unregisted 4 letter domains.

 

[floatingworld]

...well its 43k now so it looks as if the vampire tasters are taking a rest....nothing without qyujzxvkw so all else guaranteed at premium. Letter Q will be Davy Crocket at The Alamo supported by his trusted allies X and Z.

 

[accent]

.....nothing without qyujzxvkw.....

K and W have bitten the dust .. several others are barely standing.
You can get all the Q you want. Same problem Captain Jean-Luc Picard had.

 

[dnb8]

eh only $300000 to take them all

 

[floatingworld]

K and W have bitten the dust .. several others are barely standing.
You can get all the Q you want. Same problem Captain Jean-Luc Picard had.

re qyujzxvkw................
J only seems to look nice in Japan. I have cooked up some meals with XYZ but the ingredients are quite difficult. I am still messing with K and W and have had several flings with V. Q can occasionally look quite smart if dressed as a K, but most of all I hate U.....

 

[Markith]

well, now only 38,6xx LLLL.com's left.

I think we have over a year left until they are gone.

some of the XQZJ names are just UGLY....i wish they didn't exsist

 

[italiandragon]

I keep buying and s toring them, in a year no one will sell any for less than $100 in my opinion

 

[Shorty]

I keep buying and s toring them, in a year no one will sell any for less than $100 in my opinion

I'm guessing $100 is slightly too ambitious, to be honest.

I'll be pleased to sell my modest collection for $20 each before they expire, i'd rather renew them all and wait a year for a better return than sell for less. Due to the vast amount of four letter combinations, the growth will be slower than what we saw with the three letters, so expect to have to play a longer waiting game this time around.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Humm.... I am getting more revenue in one year then it would get if I sell my 4 letter .coms

And I know this might be the situation with many webmasters who just regged it as a 4 letter .com and then developed it and it worked out.

 

[Markith]

wow...I wish I was making more revenue on my LLLL.com's than what I paid for them...heck breaking even would be nice.

35,6xx LLLL.com's LEFT!!

 

[Spade]

wow...I wish I was making more revenue on my LLLL.com's than what I paid for them...heck breaking even would be nice.

35,6xx LLLL.com's LEFT!!

Wow, in 2 days, that many LLLL.com's have been regged? wowser. Talk about a closing window.

 

[Lasher]

Wow, in 2 days, that many LLLL.com's have been regged? wowser. Talk about a closing window.

I wonder if there was a time when people were registering LLL.coms (mid-late 1990s?) and others would come along and say "But there's 17,000+ of these things and most of them don't mean anything, you're crazy, they'll never be worth much?". Now Z/X/Q names go for 5k on Sedo.

I wonder if the people who registered them anyway truly believed in the value, or if it was more of a "dont want to miss the boat just in case?". I don't mean when they were already at 100/200 bucks, I mean when they could still be had for regfee or little more.

I wonder if, in 10 years time, those of us still around here will look back and say "Wow? Remember when you could register a 4 letter .COM for 7 bucks?!".

I wonder if in 10 years time, those of us still around here will look back and say "Remember the great domain bubble of 07/08? Those were the good times huh?".

So many questions....

Btw, I monitor zone files and see ALL LLLL.com drops, including those tasted and dropped, not just regular deletions. There were virtually zero LLLL.coms with 'premium letters' dropped in the last 3 months. Those that come up in regular delete schedules are bid on at pool/snapnames/etc meaning the minimum value for those is a well established 60 bucks, imho. The occasional V/W/U name with other letters 'premium' still comes up, but even those are getting rare.

 

[Shorty]

Wow, in 2 days, that many LLLL.com's have been regged? wowser. Talk about a closing window.

The amount of LLLLs increased by 3,000 in the last 2 days according to Markith, but the amount that were actually registered is probably a lot higher - dont forget there are still LLLLs dropping.

Thats at least 1,500 a day...at that rate, if Markith is correct, they'll be gone this time next month...

 

[Lord_Punani]

some llll.coms hard to sell if they dont mean anything.. i can tell that :P

 

[Markith]

Yes it fluctuates, usually anywhere 5 and 50 LLLL.com's are dropped on a daily basis.

This is the biggest move I have seen in awhile though, I watch closely.

Its going to come down to the last 10,000 or so names with all the dreaded letters.

I hope someday we can say "wow remember when LLLL.com's went for $7", in fact im investing on it

 

[fonzie_007]

I just ran a full scan of LLLL.coms. I'm impressed to see there are well less than 40k llll.coms left.

 

[cache]

just wondering how you monitor the tasted and dropped?

I wonder if there was a time when people were registering LLL.coms (mid-late 1990s?) and others would come along and say "But there's 17,000+ of these things and most of them don't mean anything, you're crazy, they'll never be worth much?". Now Z/X/Q names go for 5k on Sedo.

I wonder if the people who registered them anyway truly believed in the value, or if it was more of a "dont want to miss the boat just in case?". I don't mean when they were already at 100/200 bucks, I mean when they could still be had for regfee or little more.

I wonder if, in 10 years time, those of us still around here will look back and say "Wow? Remember when you could register a 4 letter .COM for 7 bucks?!".

I wonder if in 10 years time, those of us still around here will look back and say "Remember the great domain bubble of 07/08? Those were the good times huh?".

So many questions....

Btw, I monitor zone files and see ALL LLLL.com drops, including those tasted and dropped, not just regular deletions. There were virtually zero LLLL.coms with 'premium letters' dropped in the last 3 months. Those that come up in regular delete schedules are bid on at pool/snapnames/etc meaning the minimum value for those is a well established 60 bucks, imho. The occasional V/W/U name with other letters 'premium' still comes up, but even those are getting rare.

 

[Archangel]

This thread is far too long for me to read in its entirety but I think from the first page, I have the general gist of it.

I've long believed that grammatically pronounceable LLLL's are good investments. If a domain requires imagination, then it's of lower quality unless it has good acronyms. BUZR.com ("It sounds like buzzer!") doesn't cut it. I've seen VORY.com sell for over $1,000 not long ago. I have YERX.com (for those who aren't fluent with English: X is pronounced --ks by grammatical law, thus YERX is 100% in every possible way pronouncable to the native English speaking person. lol I can't stand those who say "Well, YER and X is as random as YES and R!" Go back to school, ppl) and I think it was a good investment for how much it cost me.

I should add that OSMP.com sold for 3,500 pounds recently.

 

[Malaysia]

Should hold on to my good LLLL.coms n then reap from the harvest say maybe few years later hopefully..

 

[Markith]

Im showing 37,7xx LLLL.com's left

some of the recent actual pronounceable sales have been high $ amounts.

 

[nikzh]

Any news?