Friday, June 24, 2011

NNNN.org Domains

This is something that has not been discussed in a while.  NNNN.org (four digit .org) domains are currently about 90% registered.  As of today, 1,035 remain to be registered out of a total of 10,000 domains.  We previously looked at what types of NNNNN.com's remain to be registered, and it is interesting to compare the two types of domains by registration statistics.

For the NNNN.org's, here is the number and percentage remaining by starting digit, and compared with the percentage of NNNNN.com's with the same starting digit that remain available to be registered.

0NNN = 91 Remaining (9.1%, compared with .61% for 0NNNN.com's)
1NNN = 0 Remaining (0%, compared with 0% for 1NNNN.com's)
2NNN = 0 Remaining (0%, compared with .56% for 2NNNN.com's)
3NNN = 0 Remanining (0%, compared with .37% for 3NNNN.com's)
4NNN = 0 Remaining (0%, compared with 3.11% for 4NNNN.com's)
5NNN = 1 Remaining (0.1%, compared with 0.03% for 5NNNN.com's)
6NNN = 0 Remaining (0%, compared with 0.4% for 6NNNN.com's)
7NNN = 283 Remaining (28.3%, compared with .97% for 7NNNN.com's)
8NNN = 338 Remaining (33.8%, compared with .14% for 8NNNN.com's))
9NNN = 332 Remaining (32.2%, compared with 0.43% for 9NNNN.com's)


A lot of interesting things jump out when you look at these numbers.  First, NNNN.org's are registered based on how low the numbers are, and apparently not much else.  While I did check and find few nice Chinese number patterns among the available NNNN.org's, suggesting that at least someone went through and registered these, it appears that most registration of NNNN.org's is simply based on how low the number is.  This is probably because the lower the number, the more meanings/uses it would have to an end user.  And ".org's" are more geared to end users, as they do not receive much type in traffic or have much cachet among domainers.

Another related point is that domains that start with a "4" are not despised in NNNN.org format, probably because all that matters is how low the number is.  On the flipside, domains that start with an "8" are actually the most unpopular, a virtual opposite of the situation with the NNNNN.com's, where "4" being an unlucky number in China and "8" being a lucky number is reflected in the registration statistics. 

The one area where there is an interesting symmetry is with the domains that start with "0".  In both cases, 10% of the domains available to be registered start with a "0", suggesting that these are indeed the most average domains, or the ambivalence of domainers regarding these names, as on the one hand they start with a "0" and most numbers do not, while on the other hand they are the "lowest" numbers of their type in some sense, and therefore may have more potential uses, if someone didn't mind sticking a "0" in front of the number they wanted. 

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