

The secret to 4 letter domains: include one (and only one) digit - nerfhammer
http://semmyfun.blogspot.com/2010/09/get-that-4-letter-domain-youve-always.html

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icey
If you decide to do this, save yourself some headaches by also registering the
spelled out version of the number as well (if it's going to be pronounced as a
number).

This doesn't matter for domains like al3x.net, but it does matter for domains
like ftw1.com. There will inevitably be users that try to go to ftwone.com
(and possibly ftwwon.com as well).

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drenei
_"The results surprised me. Apparently the optimal number of digits to include
is 1, and the more digits you have the more likely it is to be registered. In
fact, it appears that someone has registered every dot-com combination of 4
digits."_

It shouldn't be completely surprising. The more characters (c) than digits (d)
in a name, the more options available. 3c1d has more options
(26x26x26x10=175760) than 4d (10x10x10x10=10000).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial>

EDIT: And also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_theory>

~~~
dododo
for 3c1d i think a better count is four times higher: you can have aaa1, aa1a,
a1aa and 1aaa, which your count of 26x26x26x10 only includes one of these
options.

i don't think factorial is relevant here: combinatorially, factorial
represents the process of sampling without replacement: so if you were to be
able to only use each letter once in each domain, then you would get 26!/4!26!
possibilities for 4c.

this is combinatorics: the art of advanced counting, not probability, really.

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lucisferre
Ugh domain squatting is possibly the most morally bankrupt web-based business
practice I can think of.

~~~
icey
How does it differ from real-estate speculation in your mind? Do you develop
every domain name you purchase?

~~~
DrJokepu
There's quite a lot of difference between buying a domain with the intention
or prospect of putting something of value it and buying up a large array of
domains without any intention whatsoever to ever put any content on it or make
any use of it besides squatting. The second is a blatant waste of preciously
limited resources and should not be allowed in my opinion.

~~~
icey
What would you propose? Require an essay declaring your intentions for every
domain prior to purchase?

How is it less valuable if the purchaser wants to make $100 from selling the
domain versus making $100 on it selling trinkets?

I own a lot of domains that I may or may not do something with in the future.
What should the cutoff point be? Should I be penalized after my 10th domain?
30th? 100th?

(I don't like squatters in general, but that doesn't mean I think they should
be outlawed.)

~~~
DrJokepu
In my opinion, the difference between trinkets and domain names is that you
can manufacture an unlimited number of trinkets, however, there is a very
limited number of useful domain names. Normally, very limited resources (such
as radio frequencies) are regulated so this is not an entirely new concept.

Obviously it's hard to come up with a definition of what should and what
shouldn't be allowed because chances are that it would be either unfair,
easily circumvented or both. None the less, I believe there should be some way
to take away domains from obvious squatters.

~~~
icey
Some of the newer TLDs seem to have reduced the prominence of squatters by
increasing prices enough to make squatting prohibitively expensive. I guess
that would be one solution to the "squatting problem" for the more mainstream
TLDs... Although, I don't think there will ever be a fair system to take
domain names away from one entity and give them to another.

------
niyazpk
Probably other than some URL shortening service what are the reasons to be so
desperate for a 4 letter domain name?

Fancy URLs for personal use can be reason I suppose. <http://al3x.net/> comes
to mind.

~~~
X-Istence
I own my nickname (0x58) as a .com and .org. I forgot to register .net when I
registered .com and I have regretted it ever since.

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pjhyett
If you really want a 4-letter .com, plenty of people sell them for relatively
little money. I own dufz.com, ikxr.com, izkc.com, liwk.com, puzd.com and I
don't remember paying more than $10 for each. I also own vjot.com, a more
readable name, which I think I paid around $100 for, but this was a couple of
years ago.

~~~
hcurtiss
I'm interested in a couple domains that appear to be unused, but I'm having
trouble contacting the owner. How do you go about making the offer? I've
emailed a couple contacts now obtained off of whois and it seems they never
reply.

~~~
qjz
As a domain owner and frequent recipient of such requests, here are a few
tips:

First of all, don't assume the domains are unused. You have no way of knowing
this. I have domains that are critical to my infrastructure but don't
necessarily have a web site (or even public DNS records). I'll never sell
them. I have others that are look-alike domains that aren't activated in order
to prevent conflict with my other domains. I'm unlikely to sell these, either.

Secondly, and this is _really_ important, make your offer as professional and
informative as possible. I never reply to offers from freemail addresses that
amount to something like, "Hey, I'm interested in buying a domain that you
don't appear to be using for an awesome project I'm working on. Please reply
ASAP. George". You don't have to divulge your business model, but at least
include the name of the domain you're interested in, your FULL name, a phone
number, and preferably a company name and/or related URL. Consider including
your offer in the email, since it's more likely to get a response if it's at
all worth considering. Serious offers are much more likely to get a reply,
even if it's to say, "Sorry, not interested."

If you call and leave a message, include the same information. But keep in
mind that I probably won't return a long distance call, so consider saying
that you'll call back at a certain time, and _do it_. This will help to show
that you're seriously interested.

Whatever you do, don't file a complaint with the registrar or try to initiate
an unauthorized transfer. This will only annoy the domain owner and could
destroy your credibility.

Finally, understand that the domain owner has no obligation to respond to your
offer in any way. If you really want a response, follow up a couple of weeks
later, and be prepared to make a serious offer. If you don't want to be
considered a pest, stop after 3 attempts and give it a reasonable long rest
before trying again (6 months to a year).

~~~
Poiesis
_First of all, don't assume the domains are unused. You have no way of knowing
this. I have domains that are critical to my infrastructure but don't
necessarily have a web site (or even public DNS records). I'll never sell
them._

How does this work? I'm not following you. It would seem that the less
people/systems that know about a name, the less critical it is.

~~~
billybob
My question is: if there are no public DNS records, how is the domain name
being used? Not doubting, I just don't get it.

~~~
niels_olson
He could be using a public-facing DNS server that only responds to queries
from certain hosts.

------
Revisor
Read my short guide to a good domain elsewhere on HN and for your own sake
avoid domains with digits.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659674>

~~~
jamesbritt
Unless the digit actually plays into the name.

I put up the Web 2.0 Validator site: web2.0validator.com (now on vacation
until I get around to updating some code).

Interestingly, someone wrote to me asking how I managed to get such a domain;
I pointed out the domain is simply 0validator.com, nothing magical.

Which of, course, means I can plan on web3.0validator.com :)

~~~
Revisor
Domain hacks are funny but counterproductive and problematic in the long run.
Domain hacks involving digits are a marketing problem squared.

See the reasoning behind the switch from del.icio.us to Delicious.com:

 _So why did we switch to delicious.com? We’ve seen a zillion different
confusions and misspellings of “del.icio.us” over the years (for example,
“de.licio.us”, “del.icio.us.com”, and “del.licio.us”), so moving to
delicious.com will make it easier for people to find the site and share it
with their friends._

<http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/07/oh-happy-day.html>

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Also known as "We wanted delicious.com from the beginning, but couldn't afford
it. Now we are big enough to pay for it." ;)

I always liked the hack (I still us it; it's shorter), but I'm obviously not
an average user. You are completely right that being "clever" in your domain
(or really anything regarding your product) is often not a great plan.

~~~
joshu
Actually, we'd bought the domain in 2005. It seemed like the right thing to do
later on.

Remember that nobody had really done domain names like that (maybe cr.yp.to? i
also have had burri.to for 15 years...) in a big way before, so it wasn't
clear that it was a bad idea at the time.

Some of the other domains, like <http://delicio.us/> worked correctly too. I
wonder if Yahoo! kept them all.

~~~
Revisor
Hi Joshua, thank you for chiming in. Can you estimate how much users/visitors
you lost due to the complicated domain name?

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jasonjei
This tactic surprisingly works very well with Chinese websites. Most Chinese
firms have reached the conclusion that a short domain name with letters and
numbers work even better than a cute, clever wordplay. Those names don't work
in Chinese anyway as Chinese is based off ideographs. Short combinations of
letters and numbers (especially with 8s) work well.

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DotSauce
Give me an example of a 4 character domain with a digit in it and I will
suggest a much better alternative. If you want to have a respectable web
presence, use keywords or find a quality brand on the aftermarket.

If you must, the real secret to 4 letter domains is backordering as they
expire or making an offer to existing owners.

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dangrossman
There always seem to be unregistered 4-letter .com domains when I look. When I
bought awio.com it was simply unregistered. Taking a sample of 500 names and
then saying all of the hundreds of thousands of other names must be registered
is just wrong.

~~~
nerfhammer
I tried it with much larger samples for that character distribution and have
yet to find a single unregistered name. You can't say with certainty that it
must be that 100% are registered but I think that extrapolating from large
random samples is a pretty good way of making inferences.

~~~
ohashi
Faster to just scan the zonefiles. You run into a black swan problem with this
technique. However, that said, all of them WERE registered, TWICE throughout
history. Once way back and again more recently (someone wrote 2007, sounds
about right). People have realized the cost of holding them is higher than the
potential sales in many cases, especially at the bottom of the quality barrel.
They weren't kept because they sucked but domain investors like all people
like patterns and herding and get sucked into poor investments.

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mrcharles
Another trick is to use .org or something. I got my four letter domain name a
few years back, and it's even pronounceable! And it was pretty close to the
kind of thing I wanted.

bluh.org, a great website name for pointless nonsense!

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ljf
loads of good true 4 letter domains around if you don't won't a .com just
bought we.gd om.gd and whi.im all at standard price and none been regd before.
try iwantmyname.com to find and reg 2 letter names but other registrars often
sell them cheaper. I used modone.gd and domainmonster.com

(and before I get accused of squatting... we good is the name of an company
I'll be opening after my current employment, thought om.gd will be perfect of
url shortening with a twist... wait and see. whi.im is for 'things to do
suggestions that poll your friends' ... lots of ideas planned at the moment
just not got names for the others.

~~~
ljf
also eurodns.com sell .com.es for just $5 a year, not bad for doing hacks like
here.xyz.com.es for(here xyz comes) hard to spell out but cheap enough not to
care...

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terra_t
Here's an old report on how 3 letter domains got snapped up at the height of
the .com bubble...

<http://www.honeylocust.com/trigraphs/>

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ohashi
How to register the least valued domains algorithmically :)

I suspect where the 1 digit is makes a big difference LLLD being a decent
combo or DLLL but LDLL or LLDL are probably almost all garbage.

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jjcm
The real secret is to just register a .org name.

jjcm.org

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obiefernandez
Thanks for the awesome advice. Just registered ob1e.com :)

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marknutter
Awesome post! I just bought 4RE4.com for my little web shop, areastudios.com.
I think I may actually use the 4 letter version from now on :)

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bond
As far as i know 4 letter .com were all registered in 2007...

What you see now is people who didn't renew their 4 letter .com domains...

And for those who are down voting me, here's the proof:

[http://www.namepros.com/short-domain-
discussion/161235-llll-...](http://www.namepros.com/short-domain-
discussion/161235-llll-com-countdown.html)

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emehrkay
Mine is 8trk.com //we'll (re)launch later this year and I'll do a "rate my
startup" post :)

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thomasb
Just registered ftw1.com... I like this idea. I think there could be a few
interesting applications.

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kilomanamolik
what are your favorite domain checker tools?

