NNNNN.com Domains (Anyone Remember These?)

[rkbdomain]

Who here remembers the buyout of NNNNN.com domains in 2008? It didn't go as great as many of us had hoped, there was some initial interest in these but then with the fallout of the LLLL.com price collapse interest waned and many people let their domains expire.

It's been a while since I've paid any attention to domains seriously, still holding some numerics, but for old-times sakes I went and scanned available NNNNN.com domains and, 3 years after the buyout, only about 1-2% of these are unregistered. Looks like anything without a "4" in it is gone. Kind of crazy, no?

Definitely NOT suggesting anyone go and buy out the remainder, since it seems that nobody is interested in those as they all have a "4" in them and are not US Zip Codes. But it is pretty interesting, looks like the buyout was just ahead of its time. All the predictions about the rising Chinese presence on the internet and what that means for numerics looks like they came true, just several years down the road. If you are still holding any NNNNN.com's, or have any thoughts on the current state of the field, let's hear from you.

 

[WORDSWORTH]

I still have one:

28382.com

It's a US Zip Code with detailed city-data.com stats, a palindrome, and I like the repeat lucky 8's.

 

[tritrain]

If for no other reason to love a domain. It's a palindrome! Love it. :D

 

[WORDSWORTH]

If for no other reason to love a domain. It's a palindrome! Love it. :D

I sold a few other NNNNN.com palindromes for quick profits during the buyout. I noticed that domains with unlucky 4's didn't do as well as those without. I wonder if any of the 1-2% of currently available names are palindromes but probably wouldn't register any in current market conditions unless they had additional attributes.

 

[DNabc]

I have several NNNNN domains but I only buy those with good number combinations or that are easy to remember.

 

[rkbdomain]

Some new posts on the NNNNN blog people might be interested in:

Bitcoins, Gold, and Short Domains. Link

Frisco, TX gets a new Zip Code, Who owns the NNNNN.com? Link

43,000 NNNNN.pro registered?! Link

All NNNNN.com dropping from 5/16 - 5/19 get picked up Link

 

[rkbdomain]

At 4.cn, the following numerics sold in the past few days:

1 RMB is about $0.15 USD.

7905.com sold for 6,703 RMB.
7906.com sold for 7,800 RMB.
6478.com sold for 4,400 RMB.
9642.com sold for 4,200 RMB.
4376.com sold for 4,500 RMB.
838.com sold for 353,000 RMB.
5465.com sold for 5,600 RMB.
1485.com sold for 7,100 RMB.
7946.com sold for 4,500 RMB.
8959.net sold for 390 RMB.
8089.net sold for 390 RMB.
6899.net sold for 530 RMB.
6813.net sold for 320 RMB.
6681.net sold for 420 RMB.
8806.net sold for 520 RMB.
6955.net sold for 400 RMB.
8399.net sold for 500 RMB.
5619.net sold for 380 RMB.
0116.com sold for 8,700 RMB.
2923.com sold for 10,805 RMB.
0841.com sold for 4,302 RMB.
3425.com sold for 4,400 RMB.
2222222222.com sold for 200 RMB.
5818.com sold for 88,000 RMB.
7547.com sold for 4,600 RMB.
00050.com sold for 620 RMB.
3819.com sold for 7,834 RMB.
3463.com sold for 4,800 RMB.
7858.com sold for 29,055 RMB.
754.com sold for 79,000 RMB.
1351.com sold for 40,199 RMB.
55999.com sold for 2,502 RMB.

The big sales to note in here are obviously 838.com for 353,000 RMB, about $55,000 USD. Also of note is 5818.com, which sold for 88,000 RMB, about $13,500 USD. Interestingly, this went for even more than the other NNN.com that sold, 754.com, which sold for 79,000 RMB, or about $12,000 USD. Also, a nice NNNNN.com, 55999.com, sold for 2,502, almost $400 USD.

Also, DNJournal reported some strong sales as well, 33.com sold for $358,000 to a Chinese buyer through DomainAdvisors, and 01.org sold for $25,000 through DNStore.

These latest sales show continued strong demand for numeric domains.

 

[maxeaus]

I admit i bought a few NNNNNN.com back then and let 7 or 8 drop, about 15 in all and resold about 7 or 8 of them at a small loss.

Without truly knowing what drives the Chinese in their choice of auspicious number combos people such as myself were always speculating without a clue.

Being that i have worked in the casino industry i was probably aware more than most of the Chinese love of the number 8 and its combos which i managed to snag in a number of NLL and LLN CCC.com which ironically i am selling today.

The moral of the story is if you know what you are doing in this number niche then i think its still a long term winner for the investor.

 

[scithe]

I've seen some 5N domains expiring and I'd google to see if they were zipcodes and then didn't bother since they were just 5 numbers. I really couldn't understand the value.

I'm not sure what value the Chinese see in them either. Even if 8's are lucky. What's so great about 8168.com? I suppose it's a cultural thing. They probably wonder why any of us would want to "can has cheeseburger."

 

[rkbdomain]

I've seen some 5N domains expiring and I'd google to see if they were zipcodes and then didn't bother since they were just 5 numbers. I really couldn't understand the value.

I'm not sure what value the Chinese see in them either. Even if 8's are lucky. What's so great about 8168.com? I suppose it's a cultural thing. They probably wonder why any of us would want to "can has cheeseburger."

It's a short, easy to remember domain. And for a Chinese internet user, english characters are not as familiar as numbers, and numbers represent words/ideas in Chinese in addition to being letters.

Plus, aside from the Chinese market, 8168 comes with millions of different meanings, 82.2 million google hits give a hint at this. Numbers represent postal codes, area codes, addresses, products, the lower the number, the more things it represents and potential uses it has as a domain.

 

[scithe]

Thank you for the insight.

---------- Post added at 11:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 PM ----------

I was just browsing expiring domains on name.com and I saw 90341.com and 96341.com both had 3-4 days on them.

 

[rkbdomain]

Registration Update for NNNNN.com Domains

On June 1, there were 776 NNNNN.com (5 digit .com domains) available to be registered.
On June 20, there were 611 available to be registered (a decrease of about 9/day)
On June 29, there were 545 available to be registered (a decrease of about 7/day).

So it appears that registration continues, drops continue to be picked up at a healthy pace, and the overall number of available NNNNN.com domains continues to drop. The pace of registration continues to slow a bit as the remaining domains are of lower quality. Here is the updated totals for registration by starting number (the comparisons are with the numbers from June 1:

There was a 16% decrease in domains starting with a "0" (65 to 56)
There was a 200% decrease in domains starting with a "1" (3 to 1)
There was a 50% decrease in domains starting with a "2" (66 to 44)
There was a 75% decrease in domains starting with a "3" (49 to 28)
There was a 27% decrease in domains starting with a "4" (311 to 244)
There was a 0% decrease in domains starting with a "5" (9 to 9)
There was a 80% decrease in domains starting with a "6" (63 to 35)
There was a 72% decrease in domains starting with a "7" (136 to 79)
There was a 125% decrease in domains starting with a "8" (27 to 12)
There was a 27% decrease in domains starting with a "9" (47 to 37)

 

[DomainName1]

The buyout will take place...it's just a matter of when.

 

[rkbdomain]

The buyout will take place...it's just a matter of when.

Wow, sooner than I thought. Over the last two days nearly 500 have been registered. I haven't gone over the exact numbers but it appears there are less than 100 left. Wonder who bought all of these and why.

 

[rkbdomain]

46 NNNNN.com's were available after yesterday's drop. 31 were available yesterday morning, and 39 dropped yesterday, so >60% of drops were picked up quickly. I will run the numbers and see how many are left before today's drop (Chinese domainers often reg the drops in the middle of the night US time).

 

[rkbdomain]

53 NNNNN.com domains are available for register as of this morning. So no buyout yet, still hovering at over 99% registered.

 

[rkbdomain]

NNNNN.com's still hovering near 0, today there are 32 available. In the meantime, NNNN.org's are seeing serious registration. On June 24th I checked and there were 1,035 available, today there are 601. And the most heavily registered in the last few weeks? Not surprisingly, domains that start with the letter "8". Looks like Chinese domainers are so desparate for good numbers they are even looking at .org domains now.

 

[rkbdomain]

Some mind-boggling results from my surveys of random NNNNNN.com's. After looking at 5,000 of these, it seems that on average 8.4% are registered. This means that while NNNNN.com's are almost 100% registered, almost the same number of NNNNNN.com's are registered (100,000 v. 84,000). I had no idea so many six-digit .com's had already been registered. I discuss this more in depth on my blog.

 

[rkbdomain]

NNNNN.com are all registered (all 100,000) as of this morning.

 

[rkbdomain]

6 NNNNN.com available as of this morning. 46944.com 63614.com 64994.com 08407.com 08461.com 08462.com.