I think of domain name searching much like treasure hunting. Right now, as I type this, there are thousands and millions
of valuable domain names that have yet to be acquired.
Think of the web as a physical space. That space contains all the domain names that could possibly be created. In forming a domain name, the alphanumeric characters 0-9 and a-z may be used along with a dash (-). That makes for 37 characters which can be combined to form:
50,653 3-character domain names
1,874,161 4-character domain names
69,343,957 5-character domain names
You see where I’m going with this? Three letter domains sell for about $10,000 each. Four letter domain names sell for about $800, and there are exceptions to the general rule.
While all domains having one to four letters have been acquired, there are still many five and oh so many six letter domains. Here’s where it gets even more interesting.
ExampleSpace: I’ll ExampleIt for you in a few ways, and by doing so I’ll also ExampleMy process a bit. It’s a creative process, so I ought to be able to give a CreativeExample! That ought to do it I think. Some might immediately think that what I’m doing Aintuitive at all, to which I reply….You’re Right!!!
I have a great tool that does much of the intuiting for me. Yes, it’s free. I’m going to tell you the name, right after I type nowPLEASEthis. You can experiment and explore at BustAName.com. Use a few five letter words and a few three letter words. Throw in a single letter and see what happens!
It’s like panning for gold, only this is intellectual gold. Bet you’ll find a domain or two that you’ll want to acquire for yourself. Given the price of about $7, what do you have to lose? Right, seven dollars.
Let me know what you find and feel free to post a “comment” with your criticisms, clarifications, or questions. Because I value your creative thoughts and because I think that such ought to be compensated, I grant to each of you so “commenting” a perpetual non-exclusive royalty-free license in and to the copyright for the present essay.
Summum Bonum,
Copyright 2008 Kenneth L. Stein
All Rights Reserved under U.S. Copyright Law
and all other applicable U.S. and foreign laws.
Sadly, most 5-letter or 6-letter domains that are still available are unintelligible or unpronounceable, usually both. Also, they’re frequently stuffed with figures.
Things like zgwo93.com are indeed around, but I honestly doubt anyone would want to host a business on such a thing. :)
It might be a better bet to purchase longer domain names, named after the top alumni from business schools and law schools. If a guy called, say, Barack Obama, is heavily involved in his university’s political life and is very charismatic, one may want to fetch barackobama.com before he does, in the event he looks into politics.
Also, keep in mind that domain names are not to stay. They’re already tremendously less useful than they were n 1995. The idea that there can only be one JohnSmith.name in the world is absurd.
At some point or another, we’ll be switching to straightforward searches to find sites and people, e.g. John Smith Santa Barbara — and begone with the actual domain name. We already do, to a large extent.
D.