information Not all CHIPS are equal. Buy and sell better

[betthelot]

As in all languages the frequency of letter use, especially Initials offers better opportunities to sell more often at higher prices.
Having studied Chinese/PinYin for 2 years, it was always apparent to me, some letters are used way more often than others.
I looked at the 1000 most used words and worked out the initial letter frequency.
This is my summary which correlates with my experience of having worked in China for 2 years. Ofcourse I will defer to any Chinese person who knows the nuances of the language but from the raw data I think its accurate and useful if investing in CHIPS. Also those letters which are considered both premium in English and Chinese must be where the smart money is.

Premium ZYXSJHDB
Semi Premium WQTNMLKGC
Non Premium RPFEA

Yes there is E and A Notably Ai is Love and Er is the number 2

Also explains why we see some outliners. RPF are not worth as much as ZYX

 

[krx]

Very interesting post. Reminds me of the early days of 4L.com, when we were all busy figuring out the best letters and arguing about what was premium, semi-premium, not-so-good - and outright crap.

Turns out the worst crap was by far the best bet.

 

[Kassey Lee]

@betthelot Thanks for the hard work helping folks to understand Chinese domain names. I caution folks not to become too rigid in applying rules but to judge each domain name on its merits. There are always exceptions. Buyers of the following domain names had no problem paying the money and then turning the domain names into operating sites/businesses.

aiaini.com.cn (爱你网)
emao.com (一猫汽车网)
iheima.com(i黑马网)
om.cn (欧模网)
uuo.cn(优悠科技)

 

[Sterling]

I invested in Radio call letter 4 letter domains. Little did I know, most of them are Chinese Premiums!!!! I have haters. People telling me my names worth $300 at the most. My Paypal account says different.

But I deserve it. I made it through New.net, Nameslinger, and Registerfly. For only the real old schoolers will know my struggle.

I still have a few left. But now, I can hang on to them as long as I want.

 

[betthelot]

Very interesting post. Reminds me of the early days of 4L.com, when we were all busy figuring out the best letters and arguing about what was premium, semi-premium, not-so-good - and outright crap.

Turns out the worst crap was by far the best bet.

LOL youre so right. But not everyone was saying they were outright crap. I argued on here back in early 2009 that XYZ were premium in Chinese and that domainers are blinkered to the English language. In fact I stopped coming on Namepros, as it started to get personal with snoop (anyone remember him). Heres a link

But you are missing the fact there are hundreds of thousands with the names like Zhang Xu and Ye
It is the same sort of demand for these names but in a different territory. I think those low quality combo's will be "eroded" by development, because of the reason that in some languages they are premium letters and people will continue to collect them, all the while reducing the pool; significantly in my view within 10 years.

In conclusion the factor that will have most effect on these names is the uptake from China will significantly increase the turnover of LLL.coms.

---------- Post added at 09:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:12 AM ----------

Lets all dance on a pin head about premium letters.

Italian Dragon is simply right, in the long term as the internet penetrates those countries that have a higher frequency of different letters, than those used in the English language, the notion of premium letters will become defunct. And it is coming:- and here is concrete proof of that - first those so called lowest quality LLL.coms QXWXYZ - I predict their minimum values will increase significantly (20 - 30%) within the next few months
Some time ago some argued that parking revenues are the driver for values of low quality LLL.coms and to watch that like a hawk; in the hope parking values will fall and so follow LLL.coms but as I said then and now its going to be China that drives values of LLL.coms in the medium term as they flatten out the notion of premium and non premium letters.

Long post but a signifiacant move in the LLL.com market.

Now Im having the same argument with @Acro and @Joseph Peterson both clearly very clever guys but just blinkered all the same. I was arguing with Acro on DNW.com he had got it wrong with CHIPS and this is back in June 2015 when LLL.com chips were $25k. Now they are at $60k and they are still saying they are junk and its a bubble. Well nothing increases in value in a straight line, there are always ups and downs but its the trend which is important. No doubt Acro will claim great insight when they drop from $60K to say $48K, of course if you keep saying they will go down at some point they will but you get nothing from me when you said it at $25k. Its all about trends and the fundamentals I spoke of in 2009, when they were $3k - $4 in the above Namepros thread, still holds. They are going up from here All LETTERS but not in a straight line, they will continue to trend up, simply due to reduce supply and increased demand.

While Im on a bit of a rant against the so called domain experts "naysayers"; in mid 2000 when Afternic was the only aftermarket LLL.coms they were going for $200 - $250 but keywords generics were hitting the heights just before the crash of the Dot Com bubble. Since then LLL.coms have increased by 100 times on the wholesale market. Keywords have not, by a hell of a distance, generously I will say 2 - 3 times. Over the last 15 years, I have heard the same from domainers, on the sidelines of LLL.coms market, wanting a crash because they are watching the ship sail by as we are waving back at them!

 

[betthelot]

RPFEA are pointed out as "non-premium".Please elaborate on this, because it suggests not registerring these letters, that it are BAD letters (is that so ?)
My Question is => Are these letters to be avoided, or are they simply "normal intrest" ?

I was looking at CHIPS regarding LL.com LLL.com LLLL.com and therefore the frequency of Initials in Chinese words.
There are some words which start with RPFEA but only very few, its similar in frequency as ZXQ in English.
E and A initials in Chinese being very little, only found one A and 2 Es in the top 1,000 used words. There is no V or IOU initials. I think the general opinion is that V and Vowels should be avoided and I think this still holds

 

[betthelot]

How much more is Chinese Premium Premium worth compared to average Chinese Premium?

Do you know @dordmai at the moment CHIPS values are not dictated by letter quality but by patterns. ABB ABA etc. However there is no doubt in my mind the smart money will go into the premium Letters above because in the long term value will be dictated by end user sales and these premium letters will have more chance of selling. Once sold to an end user its very unlikly to be available again and drive up the prices of premiums, similar to whats happened with English premiums. Just a question of time

 

[theSun]

Any Chips that beings with CN, followed by any chips that begins with BJ/SH, followed by any chips that begins with SZ/GZ sells higher and better.

 

[betthelot]

@Recons.Com Quiet happy to put W up to premium, its the most frequency letter in the semi premiums and given your research on Chaomi - B has a high frequency and notably Beijing and D is even higher than B so I will leave those. Q is mid frequency within the semi premium set, so will I stay with that.


Premium ZYXSJHDBW
Semi Premium QTNMLKGC
Non Premium RPFEA

 

[Recons.Com]

It suggests that to Chinese RPFP.com chip might be similar to JWKW.com to Westerners, as those are "semi-premiums". "Non-Premium" should be re-defined though, because the real non-premiums so far are V,O,U,E,A (from worse to better order)...

 

[betthelot]

Any Chips that beings with CN, followed by any chips that begins with BJ/SH, followed by any chips that begins with SZ/GZ sells higher and better.

I understand CN BJ SH China Beijing Shanghai Is SZ ShenZhen and GZ GuangZhou. Makes a lot of sense as they are 4 of the 5 main commercial cities in China. The other being TianJin TJ. More relevant to 4L.coms: good point

 

[betthelot]

What I learned from readin pinyin threads is that 84 means - forever prosperous. And ygx makes it 'cloud based supplies and marketing".

As you probably know its when you say a number it sounds similar to a word in Chinese. Now 8 sounds like Fa (wealth or fortune) and 4 sounds like Si (death). Actually 8 is Ba but people think it sounds like Fa. Now if you say BaSi 84 it means, wire drawing or candy floss. There is no FaSi. Im not Chinese but what I say here is the most common use for 8 and 4 in Chinese. Now YGX as an acronym will have many meanings and cloud based marketing could well be one of them.
Hope this helps, there is a good Chinese person on this forum Kassy Lee ask her.
https://www.namepros.com/members/kassey-lee.171654

 

[dordomai]

thanks. I looked at sales on the reseller market and had the impression that (non-repetition)patterns still don't matter that much when it comes to chinese premium.

Had the impression that patterns are even less important in LLLL.net

but i agree with the opinions here and i think that patterns and quality will be more important in the future. At the moment reseller prices are still very mechanic and simplistic: Either it is premium or it is not, i find it hard to believe that this reflects real world value.

In my opinion for chinese premium LLLL.com the price should be determined by a floor price or letter popularity + additional value for what the domain can stand for.

 

[Eckhart]

What I learned from readin pinyin threads is that 84 means - forever prosperous. And ygx makes it 'cloud based supplies and marketing".

The meaning "forever prosperous" could come more from Cantonese rather than Mandarin. As @betthelot was saying, 84 in Mandarin leads to meanings such as "wire drawing or candy floss". But in Cantonese 84 can be translated more like "so rich that you die" according to this video:

 

[artstar]

A bit more data on numerics.

168= prosperous or pathway to prosperity
1314= forever or always
510= I want you
666=easy, smooth life, obviously very lucky triple
3399= together for long time
58= I am prosperous, very wealthy
72 & 78= certainly easy, prosperous for sure
84= forever prosperous

 

[DNScholar]

Very well explained though I think a couple of letters maybe need interchange from premium and semi premium.

 

[DNScholar]

Which ones?

WQ up
DB down

 

[Name Trader]

WQ up
DB down

Thanks. I wouldn't argue (for or against) with that too much.

 

[premkumar]

Great info. look like we domainers become experts in mandarin than average chinese

 

[doubleU]

Very interesting post. Reminds me of the early days of 4L.com, when we were all busy figuring out the best letters and arguing about what was premium, semi-premium, not-so-good - and outright crap.

Turns out the worst crap was by far the best bet.

One of the funniest reply's I have read on namepros, I nearly fell of my chair lol

 

[artstar]

Super thread!

Sure wish I was as farsighted as some of you on here but what the heck.

I agree w is a premium letter as I've researched this topic a lot and try to reg shortest letter domains possible now with x,z,w,s,t mainly.

Now to figure out what extensions are left to go after!

 

[artstar]

Any Chips that beings with CN, followed by any chips that begins with BJ/SH, followed by any chips that begins with SZ/GZ sells higher and better.

Great to see !

I had regged:

Bjzgu.com​

At least its close to chip but the u fits in to the guo and all that was available when I found it.

Zg maybe more premium since China is zhong guo.

 

[STUART MALOFF]

Coming from the top brokers dealing with China, W is at the top with X and Y. I have also heard that N is weaker than most consonants from a Chinese broker at Namescon.

 

[artstar]

As you probably know its when you say a number it sounds similar to a word in Chinese. Now 8 sounds like Fa (wealth or fortune) and 4 sounds like Si (death). Actually 8 is Ba but people think it sounds like Fa. Now if you say BaSi 84 it means, wire drawing or candy floss. There is no FaSi. Im not Chinese but what I say here is the most common use for 8 and 4 in Chinese. Now YGX as an acronym will have many meanings and cloud based marketing could well be one of them.
Hope this helps, there is a good Chinese person on this forum Kassy Lee ask her.
https://www.namepros.com/members/kassey-lee.171654

Correct and that's why I have:

Ba88.co = 888​

Great info keep it up!

 

[dordomai]

Why a LLLL with vowels and meaning is considered less valuable than a LLLL chip with no meaning?
Only some percent from the LLLL chips will turn to mean something.

I don't see LLLL chips losing their value as they carry potential sense, but isn't logical for the ones with verified meaning to worth more even if they contain vowels?

Makes sense. there are many pinyin domains with vowels that sold for tons of money. So even for the Chinese vowels can't be that bad. Lian.com sold for over $200k on Dropcatch.