Registration Data for Very Long Letter Domains (Update)

Registration for very long letter domains continues to increase.  Surprisingly, 5L domains is the only length that has seen a decrease in registrations since April of 2019.  Here are the numbers:

Volume and Price in the 3C Market

In this post we take a look at volume in the 3C.com market.  On average, 84 3-character .com domains sold each month since January, 2017, or 0.02% of the total supply of these domains.  Volume was much higher in 2017 (and in two months in mid-2018), but since then has been relatively stable.

Month     # of 4L.com Sales

May-20	47
Apr-20	40
Mar-20	60
Feb-20	51
Jan-20	48
Dec-19	20
Nov-19	28
Oct-19	25
Sep-19	24
Aug-19	35
Jul-19	44
Jun-19	35
May-19	54
Apr-19	42
Mar-19	45
Feb-19	49
Jan-19	47
Dec-18	55
Nov-18	36
Oct-18	45
Sep-18	343
Aug-18	213
Jul-18	41
Jun-18	57
May-18	42
Apr-18	67
Mar-18	81
Feb-18	86
Jan-18	94
Dec-17	87
Nov-17	45
Oct-17	50
Sep-17	156
Aug-17	123
Jul-17	109
Jun-17	354
May-17	291
Apr-17	119
Mar-17	116
Feb-17	79
Jan-17	89

Volume and Price in the 4L Market

Following up on our post on 5N.com volume, we took a look at volume in the 4L.com market.  Here is the list of 4L domains sold each month in the past few years, according to Shortnames.  The average is 788 domains sold/month.  Volume and price has been relatively stable in this market compared to the 5N market, with floor price declining to (and staying) around $100 since the beginning of 2018.  Worth noting that sale volume was also higher in 2017 while the market was in the process of bottoming.  As a percentage of the total supply, only 0.17% of the 4L market turns over every month, as compared with 0.32% for 5N.com's. 

Month     # of 4L.com Sales

May-20	369
Apr-20	672
Mar-20	523
Feb-20	425
Jan-20	391
Dec-19	429
Nov-19	750
Oct-19	515
Sep-19	461
Aug-19	396
Jul-19	403
Jun-19	607
May-19	835
Apr-19	631
Mar-19	589
Feb-19	579
Jan-19	648
Dec-18	591
Nov-18	656
Oct-18	588
Sep-18	655
Aug-18	521
Jul-18	536
Jun-18	910
May-18	962
Apr-18	992
Mar-18	1,127
Feb-18	734
Jan-18	1,111
Dec-17	1,597
Nov-17	1,502
Oct-17	1,191
Sep-17	813
Aug-17	634
Jul-17	831
Jun-17	1,489
May-17	1,185
Apr-17	1,115
Mar-17	1,352
Feb-17	1,298
Jan-17	704

Volume and Price in the 5N Market

Thought it would be interesting to look at the volume of 5N.com sales.  Here is the list of 5N domains sold each month in the past few years, according to Shortnames.  The average is 325 domains sold/month, and early this year it was running well behind the average.  In April sales picked up a bit, and May seems to be on track for a normal month as well.

Month     # of 5n.com Sales

May-20	283
Apr-20	310
Mar-20	172
Feb-20	171
Jan-20	125
Dec-19	128
Nov-19	286
Oct-19	357
Sep-19	441
Aug-19	523
Jul-19	537
Jun-19	616
May-19	343
Apr-19	435
Mar-19	374
Feb-19	247
Jan-19	299
Dec-18	345
Nov-18	287
Oct-18	367
Sep-18	354
Aug-18	453
Jul-18	336
Jun-18	400
May-18	411
Apr-18	508
Mar-18	410
Feb-18	155
Jan-18	321
Dec-17	157
Nov-17	323
Oct-17	245
Sep-17	192
Aug-17	246
Jul-17	295
Jun-17	269
May-17	321
Apr-17	351
Mar-17	333
Feb-17	278
Jan-17	189

While volume picked back up last month, price has seemed to fall off.  Floor price according to Shortnames is now under $300, and looking on Ename, 5n's are being offered for sale at even lower buy-it-now prices (e.g., 36430 for 1,528 CNY, or $215 USD, and 14684 for 1,700 CNY, or $237 USD).

Registration Update - Short Domains (4C, 5L, 6N)

It is often useful to check and see how close the "next" short domain type is to being bought out, and how the domain type is trending.

4 character (4C or CCCC.com's) are hot right now, and are being registered at a steady pace.  There are approximately 1.2 million 4 character domains in total.  They are still far from being all bought out (another 5-7 years perhaps), but here are some recent data points to give an idea of how popular they are:

April 16, 2018: 614,877 registered
August 19, 2019: 664,451 registered

6 number (6N or NNNNNN.com domains) are also being registered at a strong pace.  There are 1 million total, and these are the closest to being bought out (again), perhaps only a couple years until the 6N buyout:

April 16, 2018: 771,128 registered
August 19, 2019: 796,854 registered

As for five letter domains (5L or LLLLL.com's), these are far from being bought out.  There are 11,881,376 total of these domains, and we only have a couple data points here:

April 16, 2019: 3,257,718 registered
August 19, 2019: 3,156,254 registered

Registration's for 5L's actually declined in the last few months which was surprising.  We will keep a closer eye on these domains.  There is not much chance there will be a buyout of 5L's for decades (if ever), but it is still interesting to see the numbers as a bell-weather for short domain, and letter registrations, in general.

Where Did the Volume Go?

Although there are a couple days left in the 1st quarter of 2019, it is pretty obvious that there is going to be a significant decrease in trading volume among almost all categories of short domains.  We say "almost all" because there is one category of short domains that is doing fine on volume, and may even surpass Q1 2018 when all is said and done.  Can you guess which one it is???

Here are the numbers (from ShortNames):

CCC.com sales declined from 257 in Q1 2018 to 129 in Q1 2019.  

LLL.com sales declined from 33 sales in Q1 2018 to 18 sales in Q1 2019.

LLLL.com sales declined from 2,917 sales in Q1 2018 to 1,679 sales in Q1 2019.

NNNN.com sales declined from 11 in Q1 2018 to 8 in Q1 2019.

And....

NNNNN.com sales stayed almost perfectly steady, there were 886 sales in Q1 2018, and 867 have been reported in Q1 2019.  Almost no change at all.

It is not surprising to see the decline in sales volumes across the board, the market is still recovering from the last parabolic rise and fall in short domain prices.  Look at what Bitcoin is doing recently.  But what is intriguing is that NNNNN.com domains seem to be largely unaffected by the decline in volume.  This might be a good sign for NNNNN.com domains, or it could just reflect that these domains are less likely to be developed than the other types noted above, and instead are more likely to be traded.  Will be interesting to track volume the rest of the year, and see how the various pieces of the short domain market adjust to the new realities.

LLL Traffic Statistics

We looked at 1,000 random 3 letter .com domains, to see what traffic statistics looked like.  Here's what we discovered.  138 domains had top country traffic rankings (13.8%).  Of these, here is how they broke down:

84 were in the US
8 in China
4 in Russia
3 in Saudi Arabia
3 in India
3 in Germany
2 in the UK
2 in Nepal2 in Myanmar
2 in Iran
2 in Egypt2 in Bangladesh
2 in Australia
2 in Canada
1 each in Botswana, Brazil, Czech Republic, Greece, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Israel, Japan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Uzbekistan.

So the vast majority were in the United States, and remarkably few in China.

As for overall traffic, 108 domains (10.8%) had traffic rankings in the top 1 million of sites worldwide.  As one might expect, the top 10 had very strong traffic numbers:

1.  BBC.com  (#94)
2.  MLB.com  (#1,903)
3.  BBT.com  (#4,163)
4.  MTB.com  (#9,281)
5.  ISD.com  (#15,682)
6.  BTC.com  (#16,093)
7.  VSP.com  (#16,489)
8.  TCM.com  (#19,606)
9.  RIL.com  (#24,502)
10.  TOM.com  (#25,403)

Deep Dive into CCC's (Part I) - LNN.com Domains

We have been focusing on short domain traffic statistics, to see if this gives any insight into different short domain types.  So far, we have looked at NN.com's, LL.com's, CC.com's, and NNN.com's.  We wanted to look at CCC.com's (character, character, character), but this market seems quite fragmented.  There is a big difference between 11A.com and j0i.com, for instance.  So one way to break these down is into Number-Letter patterns.

The first pattern we looked at was LNN.com's.  These are letter-number-number, and we expected that their traffic statistics would be one of the stronger of the CCC.com's.  Here's what we found.

In a random sample of 1,000 LNN.com's, we found 17 (1.7%) with country traffic rankings on Alexa.  Of these:

10 were in the United States
3 in China
2 in Russia
1 each in Hong Kong and Japan

As for the top 10 LNN.com's we surveyed, here is the list:

1. U77.com (#28,760)
2. U51.com (#69,328)
3. D23.com (#104,929)
4. L99.com (#157,338)
5. A67.com (#270,636)
6. Z57.com (#304,674)
7. E87.com (#307,343)
8. K11.com (#432,469)
9. M18.com (#495,138)
10. C64.com (#561,990)

Not great.  Not one LNN finished in the top 10,000 and only 13 total domains (1.3%) had traffic ranks in the top 1 million of sites worldwide.  One thing that seemed noteworthy is that of the top 4 sites, 3 have country ranks in China, which is in fact all the sites with China rankings.  So to the extent there is a "future" for these domains, it seems almost certain to be in China.

Next we will look at NLL.com's, and see if the results are similar. 

Traffic Stats for NNN.com Domains

We looked at three digit .com numeric domains, numbered 100 through 999.  The traffic results were as follows:

51 domains (5.67%) had country ranks on Alexa's traffic rankings:

21 were in China
12 were in the United States
2 in the United Kingdom
2 in Malaysia
2 in India
2 in Hong Kong
1 each of Taiwan, UAE, Slovenia, Russia, Japan, Isle of Man, Egypt, Costa Rica, Cambodia, and Brazil.

47 domains (5.22%) had traffic in the top 1 million on Alexa's rankings.  Here are the top 10 NNN.com domains, by traffic rank on Alexa:

163 .com	(#95)
178 .com	(#841)
360 .com	(#2,213)
258 .com	(#4,075)
115 .com	(#5,589)
500 .com	(#7,589)
110 .com	(#10,238)
265 .com	(#12,481)
233 .com	(#16,905)
160 .com	(#19,959)

Long Numerics - How Many Are Registered?

The domain community focuses a great deal on "short" domains.  And for good reason.  Certainly, the shorter the better is a good general rule when you are looking to acquire a domain name.

But just as some longer letter domains have uses, so too do longer numeric domains.   We thought it would be interesting to take a look at registration of longer numeric domains, and see how popular some of these types of domains are compared to the shorter versions.

Here are the results:

1N (N.com) - 10 total domains, all registered
2N (NN.com) - 100 total domains, all registered
3N (NNN.com) - 1,000 total domains, all registered
4N (NNNN.com) - 10,000 total domains, all registered
5N (NNNNN.com) - 100,000 total domains, all registered
6N (NNNNNN.com) - 1,000,000 total domains, 752,878 registered (75.29%)
7N (NNNNNNN.com) - 10,000,000 total domains, 426,076 registered (4.26%)
8N (NNNNNNNN.com) - 100,000,000 total domains, 168,938 registered (0.17%)
9N (NNNNNNNNN.com) - 1,000,000,000 total domains, 31,934 registered
10N (NNNNNNNNNN.com) - 10,000,000,000 total domains, 30,141 registered
11N (NNNNNNNNNNN.com) - 100,000,000,000 total domains, 33,033 registered
12N (NNNNNNNNNNNN.com) - 1,000,000,000,000 total domains, 1,587 registered
13N (NNNNNNNNNNNNN.com) - 10,000,000,000,000 total domains, 594 registered
14N (NNNNNNNNNNNNNN.com) - 100,000,000,000,000 total domains, 193 registered
15N (NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.com) - 1,000,000,000,000,000 total domains, 105 registered

Don't know why anyone would need a 15 digit domain, but there you go.  In any case, it was very surprising to see how many 9, 10, and 11 digit domains are registered.

There doesn't seem to be a real drop-off until 12 digits.   All in all, there are over 1.5 million registered pure numeric .com's.  And for all the focus on "short" domains, the vast majority of registered pure numeric .com's are 6 digits or greater.  There are only 111,110 registered pure numerics that are 5 digits or less.  Viewed another way, there are almost as many numeric domains 9 digits or longer registered as there are 5 digits or fewer!  And in a few years there almost surely will be more registered.

This exercise perhaps shows the power of numeric domains, even for longer strings.  But it also serves to highlight the importance of shorter strings.  They aren't making any more domains that are 5 digits or fewer, and if you want to register a pure numeric .com domain, you now must look in the longer strings.  We'll keep track on these numbers, it will be interesting to see how the market develops for longer numerics.

More Evidence of Year-End Spike in Numeric Domains

Last week we noted that two NNNN.com's were set for nice sales on GoDaddy.  4337 and 0480 have now closed, and both sales were strong given that each number has a "4" in it.  4337.com sold for $26,250, and 0480.com sold for $30,500.  We suggested that the numerics market may be experiencing a year-end bump in demand.

There's a bit of additional evidence for this in recent NNNNN.com sales.  The floor price for five digit domains, as reported on ShortNames.com, has risen from around $200 to $400 in recent weeks.  Now there are certainly not a lot of data points here, so take this with a grain of salt.  And it's quite possible the domains selling at auctions have simply been of higher quality in recent weeks.  But the domains in the bottom 5th percentile have shown some movement, so it's worth keeping an eye on this to see if it is a sustained shift.  It is also worth pointing out that while the bottom 5th has moved, the bottom 10th percentile has remained steady at around $400/$425.  So it may just be reflecting a temporary pause in auctions for the absolute worst of the five digit domains. 

So perhaps there is an end-of-year spike in demand for numeric domains.  But even if this is the case, the spike is certainly not showing up in character domains.  CCC.com minimum prices continue to fall, and seem set to close out the year below $200 (both at the bottom 5th and 10th).  Same with LLLL.com prices, which might close out the year below $100, having started 2018 at over $150.  Is this a portent of things to come in 2019?  We'll have to wait and see.

NNNN.com Sales to Close 2018 on High Note

There are two NNNN.com domains currently on auction at GoDaddy right now, 4337 and 0480.  Both have "4"s which are bad, but both also have repeating digits.  And both are currently set to close over $20,000.  I have also been receiving a number of offers for my NNNN.com's recently.  So something could be up.

Maybe it is just a year end bump, and 2019 will see a continued softening of the numeric domains market.  After all, NNNN.coms have already appreciated almost 100x in the last decade.  How much further can they go?

We will have to see.  With the stock market possibly continuing to struggle in 2019, it will be worth noting how alternative asset classes perform.  Numeric domains may be a "safe haven" of sorts, or they could fall along with the broader market.  It is worth noting that the last financial bubble bursting was in 2008-2009, which also saw a domain market bubble bursting in the aftermath of the LLLL.com and NNNNN.com buyouts. 

Will 2019 be a repeat of 2009?  Only time will tell.  But these recent strong numerics auctions for domains with "4"s suggests the domain market isn't ready to give in just yet.

What Are the Best Starting Numbers?

One way to determine what the best numbers are is to look at registration data for 6n.com's.  Varyemez at Namepros recently posted a list of all 6n.com domains available (236,258 in total as of December 3rd).  Looking through the list, we can see how many of each starting number are still available.  The results are striking:

Domains Starting with "0" - 23,233 Available
Domains Starting with "1" - 16,139 Available
Domains Starting with "2" - 24,020 Available
Domains Starting with "3" - 22,838 Available
Domains Starting with "4" - 50,748 Available
Domains Starting with "5" - 21,991 Available
Domains Starting with "6" - 20,650 Available
Domains Starting with "7" - 25,434 Available
Domains Starting with "8" - 13,436 Available
Domains Starting with "9" - 17,769 Available

Everyone knows that "4" is the worst number in Chinese culture.  But at the same time, it is surprising to see just how significant the taboo on this number is.  Domains that start with a "4" are 2x more likely to be available for registration than even the next "worst" option, domains that start with a "7".

On the other hand, domains that start with an "8" are the least likely to be available for registration.  This is not surprising either, as "8" is the luckiest number in Chinese culture.  However, what is somewhat surprising is that the difference between domains that start with an "8" and the next best option, domains that start with a "1", is just a few thousand registrations.  There is a preference for domains that begin with an "8", but it isn't as stark as the distaste for domains that start with a "4".

Verisign Q3 2018 Report on .Com Registration

Verisign's Q3 2018 report is final, and shows another quarter of strong .com domain registration.  Total .com domains now registered is 137.6 million.

Here are the updated totals for the last several years (in millions), showing the percentage increases (or decreases) for each quarter:

137.6  Q3 2018  1.46%
135.6  Q2 2018  1.27%
133.9  Q1 2018  1.52%
131.9  Q4 2017  0.84%
130.8  Q3 2017  1.24%
129.2  Q2 2017  0.62%
128.4  Q1 2017  1.18%
126.9  Q4 2016  -1.17%
128.4  Q3 2016  0.71%
127.5  Q2 2016  0.71%
126.6  Q1 2016  2.10%
124     Q4 2015  3.25%
120.1  Q3 2015  1.35%
118.5  Q2 2015  0.59%
117.8  Q1 2015  1.90%
115.6  Q4 2014  0.61%
114.9  Q3 2014  1.06%
113.7  Q2 2014  0.44%
113.2  Q1 2014  1.07%
112     Q4 2013

So, we saw another quarter of very strong .com registration, and we are zeroing in on 140 million.  Should be at 150 million not too long after that if the trend holds up.

On the other hand, .net domain registration continues to weaken.  Total registration of .net domains is at 14.1 million, whereas it was around 16 million just a couple years ago.

Is There a Gold-Silver Ratio for Short Letter Domains?

The ratio of gold to silver in the earth's crust is around 1:17.5.  Gold is harder to find, and accordingly goes for a higher price.  Notably, over time the price difference between gold and silver has often come close to the scarcity ratio.  Right now the gold/silver ratio is higher than it has been for some time, with silver significantly under-performing.  

This got us thinking.  Is there a similar ratio underlying the price difference between short domains?  If LLLL.com domains are 26x less scarce than LLL.com domains, should they go for 1/26th the price?

Here are some quick graphs of LLL.com and LLLL.com prices over the last decade.  The LLLL.com graph I made using a trailing median price for non-premium (western or Chinese) domains.  It doesn't track the "floor" prices, which the ShortNames.com graph below it does for LLL.com's.  But it seems to track reasonable prices for run-of-the-mill LLLL.com domains, and you can see the hype building in 2015 for both types of domains.

So what is the price ratio between LLL.com and LLLL.com domains?  Is it stable over time?  The data we're using is not perfect, and it might benefit from closer study.  But on a very rough basis, the LLL/LLLL ratio has been the following at various times:

2010: LLLL.com: $25-$40 LLL.com: $3,750-$5,000.  Ratio: 1/125-1/150
2016: LLLL.com: $250-$350 LLL.com: $17,500-$25,000.  Ratio: 1/70
2018: LLLL.com: $100-$150 LLL.com: $12,500-$15,000.  Ratio: 1/100-1/150

So it's definitely not 1/26.  And the ratio does seem to fluctuate a bit over time.  The ratio does seem to be noticeable worse than 1/26, suggesting that adding another letter does not only decrease the scarcity of a domain, but materially worsens its marketability.  If we could quantify that, it seems as though the adding of a fourth letter reduces the price further by a factor of about 3x-5x, compared to just the scarcity factor. 

A Look at 6n.com Registration For Numbers 100,000-999,999

In order to get a better sense of the available 6n.com domains remaining, we ran some searches that only looked at domains between 100000.com and 999999.com.  Excluding domains that begin with zero, we should be able to learn more about how many 6n.com domains are registered. 

We were surprised to see that the numbers are not that far off from the total percentage of registered 6n.com domains.  After running 15 random bulk searches of 500 domains, we found that approximately 76.79% of 6n.com domains between 100000.com and 999999.com are already registered.  Or in other words, there are only about 23.21% of 6n.com domains in this range that are still available for registration.

We expected to see a much higher percentage of registered domains in this format.  Indeed, when we checked all available 6n.com domains (including domains that begin with zero), we actually got a slightly higher percentage of registered domains (77.5% vs. 76.9%).  It's definitely within the margin of error, so perhaps there is no preference for domains that begin with zero.  But still, it is surprising that there may be no material difference in preference between domains that begin with zero and domains that don't.  Hard to imagine, but that's what the numbers appear to suggest. 

There could be other factors at play here.  Perhaps domain expiration dates are playing a role, and some greater percentage of 6n's that start with zero will be dropped in the next year or so.  Or something else explains the difference.  Regardless, it's pretty interesting to see no clear preference for domains that start with numbers other than zero in the registration rates.  Will keep an eye on this as we monitor registration trends for 6n.com domains.

Last Two Weeks Numeric Domains Auctions at 4cn

Here are the last two weeks of auction results for numeric domains at 4.cn, the premier Chinese domain auction site.

Interestingly, despite several strong sales of NNNN.com's, the prize goes to a nice sequential NNNNNN.cn, 234567.cn, which sold for around USD$2,402.

Auction results of NNNN.com's are looking very strong as well.  No auctions below $1,000 despite some domains that don't look special (9420 going for over $2,000?). 

234567.cn     ￥15,200.00    $2,402      
9420.com     ￥13,200.00    $2,086      
0058.com     ￥13,000.00    $2,054      
2796.com     ￥7,407.00    $1,170      
2853.com     ￥7,300.00    $1,153      
5381.com     ￥7,209.00    $1,139      
3790.com     ￥7,199.00    $1,137      
77771.com     ￥3,900.00    $616      
77.net.cn     ￥2,000.00    $316      
03037.com     ￥520.00    $82      
9697.net     ￥421.00    $67      
2585.net     ￥360.00    $57      
6555.cc     ￥300.00    $47      
75955.com     ￥300.00    $47      
76787.com     ￥230.00    $36      
2872.com.cn     ￥200.00    $32      
507507.com     ￥200.00    $32      
225511.com     ￥90.00    $14   

As Markets Crash, Numeric Domains Disappear

Anyone watching the markets these days ($SPY $QQQ $IWM) can see that things are bad, and probably going to get a lot worse.  With bonds, precious metals, commodities, and stocks all looking like bad investments at these levels, there seems to be very few places worth putting money.  $SPY looks poised to break $110 for a trip down to $100 and then possibly much lower.  Bonds ($TLT) are doing well but how much further do they have to go?  Europe is falling apart, and precious metals provide some hedge against currency debasement and global unrest ($SLV $GLD) but are very expensive at these levels and prone to mass liquidations like we saw over the last few weeks.  Are there any alternative investments that make sense right now?

Yes.  My personal preference is numeric domain names, because China is driving the demand for these pieces of internet real estate.  As we have profiled before, Chinese registrars are booming, and numeric domains which are popular in China are in the early stages of a huge bull market.  There simply aren't that many of these domains available, only 10,000 four digit .com domains exist and only 100,000 5 digit domains, all of which are registered as of this morning.  There are a million six digit .com combinations, and there seem to be more than 100,000 of these domains registered already as well, with the nicer ones commanding high prices every day in auctions at 4.cn, the premier Chinese domain auction site.

This is a tiny market, and supply is drying up.  Five digit .com domains have been teetering near a buyout for months, and are currently bought out as of today.  If the buyout sticks, prices will likely rise, and six digit domains will be the next battlefield for registrations.  With total .com domain registrations approaching 100 million, it is very likely that over the next decade these domains will all disappear as well.  While everything else in the market may be crashing, numeric domains look likely to significantly outperform over the next several years.

97 Million .com Domains Registered!

As we keep the countdown flame going on the way to 100 million .com domains, yet another milestone has been reached.  As it currently stands, 97,086,942 domains are currently registered.  This represents an average registration increase of 16,675 per day since we last checked on August 29th.

Where is the continued growth coming from?  A lot of it is from China.

Here is a graph showing .com domain registration at two of China's top registrars, xinnetdns.com and hichina.com, over the last eight years:


Graph maker

Internet penetration is still in its early stages in China, so there is a lot more room for growth in  Chinese .com registration, and especially in numeric domains, which are very popular in China.  The current near-buyout of five-digit .com domains (NNNNN.com's) and fast-increasing prices for four digit domains, which now fetch around $700-$1,000 per domain as a minimum, are an indication of what the future holds.

For those that have made investments or are considering investments in Chinese real estate ($TAO, $EJ, $CHLN, $XIN), you might consider an investment in "virtual" Chinese real estate to augment your portfolio.   Numeric domains rank high in the Alexa top Chinese websites, and Chinese internet users often prefer numbers to letters because of their cultural significance and their unfamiliarity with western characters.  And numeric domains are in short supply.  There are only 10,000 four digit .com domains, which are all registered, 100,000 five digit .com domains, which are more than 99.9% registered, and a million six digit .com domains, which, surprisingly enough, a significant chunk of are registered and some already sell for inflated prices.  This is the future of domain investing.

NNNN.org Domains - In Depth Look

As of today there are 735 NNNN.org domains available for register, or 7.35% of the 10,000 total domains that exist. Recently there seems to have been an uptick in registration interest in these domains, as nearly 300 have been registered in the last few months.  The registration rate appears to be around 4/day on average, which suggests that in 6 months, if current trends continue, these domains may be all registered. 

Previously, we have shown that prices for numeric .org domains significantly trail prices for .com and .net, and the disparity is much greater than for letter domains like LLL.net or LLLL.com.  This suggests that even if there is a buyout, there may not be much impact on prices. 

Today we look at who owns NNNN.org domains and how long they have been registered for.  We looked at a small sample size of 50 random registered NNNN.org domains to get a sense of how long these domains have been registered.  Here are the results for years registered (between creation date and expiration date):


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This was very interesting, more than half of the registered NNNN.org domains we looked at were registered 8 years ago, and most of these were done by a company called Future Media Architects.  Future media, according to Wikipedia, is known for (1) its large portfolio of domain names, which is estimated to exceed 120,000, and (2) for its policy of never selling its domains.  FMA apparently registered a huge chunk of NNNN.org domains in the 1000-7500 number range, and apparently stopped there. 

Now for who owns NNNN.org domains, here were the results with the same data set:


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A lot of the Asian buyers (primarily Chinese) of NNNN.org domains have registered them in the last four years, and they make up nearly all of the recent registrants.  It is possible that they are buying these domains to complement a NNNN.com or .net domain they own, or perhaps are looking to buy a higher quality number in a .org extension when the .com version costs $1,000 if not much more.