Wednesday, January 2, 2019

What Percentage of Short Domains are Listed for Sale?

We often look at sale prices, sale volume, registration numbers, and other criteria to get a better sense of the domain market.  Today we wanted to look at a less-used metric, but one which is nevertheless pretty interesting.  We looked at ShortNames and Ename to get a record of which domains are listed for sale, and to see how the various short domains stack up against one another.

Percentage of Available Domains Listed as "Make Offer" on ShortNames

CC.com - 3.08%
CCC.com - 6.29%

LL.com - 2.22%
LLL.com - 4.43%
LLLL.com - 11.20%

NN.com - 1.00%
NNN.com - 1.40%
NNNN.com - 0.84%
NNNNN.com - 20.65%

Percentage of Available Domains Listed as Buy-It-Now on Ename

CC.com - 2.50%
CCC.com - 13.77%

LL.com - 0.30%
LLL.com - 1.19%
LLLL.com - 8.06%

NN.com - 0%
NNN.com - 0.90%
NNNN.com - 5.92%
NNNNN.com - 8.50%

These lists are revealing, both in terms of which domains are more likely to be geared towards re-sales, and also in terms of where domains are listed.  While fewer numeric domains are listed on Ename, there are way more CCC.com's listed on Ename than on other platforms.  Also, it was notable that NNNNN.com's are much more likely to be listed for sale as compared to LLLL.com's.  This may just be a reflection of very low prices for LLLL.com's at the moment, and sellers are holding.  Or it could be an indication that these domains are more likely to be put to actual use as compared to NNNNN.com's, rather than primarily hold for resale.

This way of looking at the market is not perfect, because it doesn't take into account domains listed for sale on other platforms, and someone listing a domain as "make offer" may not mean much.  Still, it's worthwhile to look at the short domain market from different angles, and this is one that doesn't get discussed very often.