The letter U : Premium or not ?

[italiandragon]

I disagree about the letter U being non-premium.

Why?

- 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%
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.

So based on all of this , from now I personally will judge the letter U as premium and I suppose that who wrote originally the 3 char price guide has done this little mistake and since that all domainers followed that mistake.

But certainly since I am not perfect either , I`d love to hear all opinions about this.


Let`s find out what NP members think about the letter U once for all!

Thank yoU

 

[Silhouette]

I like U and "U"

 

[Michelle]

:tu: I like it

 

[VURG]

With 17 out of 26 letter,I think that the premium category has too many letters already.

 

[Gult]

It's a premium letter imo. I like it

 

[italiandragon]

With 17 out of 26 letter,I think that the premium category has too many letters already.

So, what are you saying? Should we split all the alphabet in 4 categories and not 3?

I see from those stats a CLEAR picture.

U and W should be premium while Y should be average.

The "bad" ones or let`s say less used would be just X - Z - Q which are 3 of the 4 less used in the stats page.

 

[KingDon]

Let me look my LLLL's over before I weigh in

 

[Charley]

U is a non premium as well premium letter. Consider words like sun, fun, gun, nun, number, etc, the "u" in it phrases the word.

But words like cyu, tyi, etc don't mean anything so that's non premium.

 

[VURG]

So, what are you saying? Should we split all the alphabet in 4 categories and not 3?

I see from those stats a CLEAR picture.

U and W should be premium while Y should be average.

The "bad" ones or let`s say less used would be just X - Z - Q which are 3 of the 4 less used in the stats page.

I'm saying that I'd sooner consider kicking out letters like F,G,H,L and R than consider adding another letter to the category. It may be better to split the domains into two groups of 13 than one group of 17 and one group of 9.

One thing to consider is that premium status is in relation to acronyms not words. Hence I don't think much of the 1st stats ref.

Also, I don't think that Mcgees stats is very relevant either. I wouldn't use either references to justify "U" being premium. There are more useful online reports to consider. I'll try to find one when I have the time.

Love our pedantic conversations Italian!

 

[ginge133]

You dont really need to split them into anything.

With LLL's or even LLLL's just treat them individually and search through google and other places for potential uses and end-user's for the letters. If the domain has lots of potential uses but has less preferable letters, you can usually pick up a bargain.

I can see where it comes from but imo there is way too much valuing on 'letter quality' when the real thing should be looking at potential for the domain because Ive seen a lot of 'All Premium' LLL.coms that look really nice, but when you delve a bit deeper, there not that good.

 

[VURG]

http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/Interesting_Facts_About_Domain_Names

 

[accent]

I got one of the very last LLLL.coms with "H" as the worst letter in August, 2005. From that time every domain available (other than short-lived drops) had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z .

That situation continued until early this year when the "K" and ""W" were bought out, followed by U, J, V, and Y in that order, if I remember correctly.

So for a year and a half the all-premium letter names were unavailable while names containing at least one non-premium were easy to find. I gobbled a lot of W and K, thinking those with other good letters were better than all-premium with the lesser letters. But that was how the market saw things, and it was not just 3character.com.

 

[italiandragon]

I'm saying that I'd sooner consider kicking out letters like F,G,H,L and R than consider adding another letter to the category. It may be better to split the domains into two groups of 13 than one group of 17 and one group of 9.

One thing to consider is that premium status is in relation to acronyms not words. Hence I don't think much of the 1st stats ref.

Also, I don't think that Mcgees stats is very relevant either. I wouldn't use either references to justify "U" being premium. There are more useful online reports to consider. I'll try to find one when I have the time.

Love our pedantic conversations Italian!

What does mean "pedantic" ?

I`d love to read more reports!

http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/Interesting_Facts_About_Domain_Names

that report shows the number of ALL domains so it`s not good as we`re talking here only about 4 letter domains.

I got one of the very last LLLL.coms with "H" as the worst letter in August, 2005. From that time every domain available (other than short-lived drops) had at least one J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z .

That situation continued until early this year when the "K" and ""W" were bought out, followed by U, J, V, and Y in that order, if I remember correctly.

So for a year and a half the all-premium letter names were unavailable while names containing at least one non-premium were easy to find. I gobbled a lot of W and K, thinking those with other good letters were better than all-premium with the lesser letters. But that was how the market saw things, and it was not just 3character.com.

Y ran out few hours ago while few U and V are still there.

 

[Pred]

I love 'U' but it rates as average though imo.
If a company wants for their acronym then becomes premium to them.

Obviously more popular acronym letters sell for more as there is more competition for those letters, and more type in usually.

Many great applications obviously though
, Universal, Ultimate blah blah

country names;

Ukraine
United States
United Kingdom
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Uruguay
UAE

etc


Most importantly of all though & this applies to LLL, LLLL, L-L-L is if a company wants a certain set of letters, whatever they are, they are premium to them,
whether RSC, XYZ, UWZ

Get my drift?
So what we think, matters not

 

[GreenGambler]

IMO the letter u is a premium letter. IMO all vowels are premium letters.

 

[accent]

Y ran out few hours ago while few U and V are still there.

That is correct - as the first letter of a LLLL.com. I was speaking in my post about the worst letter of the four - another way some people categorize LLLLs, for example the term "all-premium" means (conventially) none of the four letters are non-premium. There certainally are many different ways to cut the pie -- which is good because this way we are not always going after the same domain.

 

[hawkeye]

But words like cyu, tyi, etc don't mean anything so that's non premium.

Not really sure why you'd call these words. Miscellaneous lll combos with a 'u', don't compare in anyway with Fun, nun, etc. which are actual words, so I don't get your analogy on this.

 

[sashas]

I think that J needs to be added to the premium list...the most popular first names in the western world start with J (John, Jack, Jennifer, Jeremy, etc.)

 

[owntype]

When the first letter is U, it works

 

[NameBaby]

IMO the letter u is a premium letter. IMO all vowels are premium letters.

i aggree with it, even i go to register domains with "U"
not let them go