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Interesting Facts About Domain Names - Analysis
yafla.com — Analysis of all 3.5GB of the .COM TLD zone file
- 1598 diggs
- digg it
- Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5excellent read. it's always neat to see the actual numbers of what's taken/available :)
- apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Pretty crazy stuff
- forgetfulca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Dugg for esoteric, arcane coolness. I'm off to browse webwebwebwebweb(adnauseum).com
- monkeymad2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2http://www.zut.com/ anyone? (random 3 letters)
- deut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1zut.com was taken four years ago!
Registrant:
DNNet.net
The Domain Name Network (enames@lycos.co.kr)
DNNet.net
Domain Name: zut.com
Administrative, Technical, Billing Contact:
DNNet.net
The Domain Name Network (enames@lycos.co.kr)
DNNet.net
--
gwangmyeong, kyunggi-do 403-841
KR
82-2-2619-4414
Record created on Jun 9 2002.
Record expires on Jun 9 2006.
Domain servers:
ns1.mws.net
ns2.mws.net
ns3.mws.net
Domain Service Provider:
DNNet.net
- deut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1zut.com was taken four years ago!
- pigsbladder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2that was really interesting
- Sparklehorse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Great article. Now I am off to put a bid in for http://didyouknowthatyoucanonlyhavesixty-threecharactersinadomain-name.com/
- rodball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"If you're dying to acquire great domains like 8VZ.com or Q6X.com, they'll free up within a month... they won't go without a fight."
Makes me think of the 'land rushes' in America's westward expansion. Of course, those were less bloody.- dfsiii, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14It's like manifest destiny. The name 8VZ.com is there, inspiring us to explore it. There may already be someone there, but that's OK, we can export them to, say, 8VZreservationz.net and then everything will be alright. That is, until the buffalo die off.
- haroldp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, it is just like a land rush, except that that scarcity of this land is artificially created by the land owners (ICANN) in order to keep the price high.
People would not have to buy stupid unmemorable domains, or pay insane fees to domain scalpers if ICANN would authorize ANY three letter TLD to any registrar who can show that they have a reliable root.
- mjaleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been hunting for a low-character domain name that makes sense for some time now.
They're just really hard to come across without the cash.- automagically, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I bought a 4 letter domain on Afternic's Bazaar for 25 bucks. amoo.org ... still trying to figure out what to do with it, but it kinda spells a word! It could be cow themed. For now I just use it as a testing ground for my other web sites.
- kingkong118, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2lol, crazy stuff, just read the bit about google having over 8000 domains with google in it.. lol
- buba69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2rtfa - does not say google owns them all - beggars and hangers on have them trying to capitalize on the google name.
- Tomnibus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Holy Crap! My company actually owns WEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEBWEB.com! LOL. We purchased it several years ago.
- nene7070, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lol... i just tried to go there and firefox had a scroll bar under the name so i could see the whole thing (as opposed to just continuing it on the next line, as i expected). I didnt know that would have been built into firefox...
- lfrandom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What has pissed me off to no end for about a year is that I used to own the domain lifeisrandom.com. I let it expire because I never used it for anything, and two weeks later the iPod Shuffle comes out. The shuffle's tagline is, of course, 'life is random'.
- Feyr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i guess that means i got really lucky to snatch feyr.com 2 years ago.
- jknight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3yeah, really lucky
- hkarpf6045, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Definitely a very cool article, lots of interesting facts, completely useless but interesting.
- sidhighwind, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Great Read.
- jcharles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1does anyone know where he got his data from or where I could find a list of registered domain names?
- chrisl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1He says why and how he got it in the sidebar on the right of the article...from the .COM TLD zone file. He had to go the "requisition process". *edit* see jordan314's comment below.
- admanimal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I wonder if s would still be the most common first letter if all the domains that begin with the word 'sex' were not counted.
- kingkong118, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Probably not
- bronto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2S is the most frequent first letter in English because so many letters, including multiple consonants, can follow it. Here are the numbers from the dictionary file that came with MacOS: S 25030; P 24411; C 19860; A 17060; U 16386; T 12908; M 12530; B 11026; D 10842; R 9595; H 8983; I 8786; E 8715; O 7834; F 6853; G 6835; N 6747; L 6232; W 3926; V 3410; K 2219; J 1570; Q 1151; Z 948; Y 670; X 384. (I'm amazed that P is so high.)
- SpacemanSpiff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think the most extreme example of domain-squatting was that guy that chose something like 10 possible names for Pope Benedict to take and registered them all. Pope Benedict was one of the ones he registered.
- buba69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3not all that extreme really - the dictionary word squaters are far worse
- Tomnibus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the misspelled word squatters are pretty darn bad.
- baidez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Interesting... funny.
- FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'd like to see the ratio of squatters vs real websites.
- jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> does anyone know where he got his data from or where I could find a list of registered domain names?
yeah, it's in his comments: he aquired a 45 million row .COM TLD file from verisign. Looks like you can apply to get it here:
http://www.verisign.com/information-services/naming-services/com-net-registry/page_001052.html
This site led me to find abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com, and aquire the awesome email jordan314 at abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com. The FAQ from this site is awesome:
"Some Webforms do not work with your email! Some Email Software Cannot be configured! People Cannot Remember your email address! Companies think that your email address is fake!" (the stock photography that goes along with it is hillarious.) It's ad supported but still a cool idea.- Greeger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well then, I am now the proud owner of ImNotOverCompensatingForAnything at abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com
I don't think I will make anyone actually use it though. Can't imagine typing that in all the time. - Zonkzor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That site would be cool but it loses its humor with all the advertising.
- Greeger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well then, I am now the proud owner of ImNotOverCompensatingForAnything at abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com
- dereisbaer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FishyJoe - The internet is not all about web sites. You never know what purposes people have for domain names. I managed to take over the registration of duh.com from a friend back in '96. My website blows, but I'm using it for hosting a mud, email, and other crap.
- jknight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3DELETED DOMAINS. That is the key to great domains, at least in my experience. That way you get to sort of depend on the domain choosing skills of others.
I used to use http://www.deleteddomains.com but they moved to a fee structure. Lame.
I found a site via someones comment on Digg once, called http://www.justdropped.com . Excellent research tool. Of course it requires a bit of creativity but overall, it's great. They do have some funky java-script exceptions or something on certain pages and it can be a bit slow if your search is too broad. Worth the wait though. - irate, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1I have a 4 character domain.
- doktorrocket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wonder if having a simple, short domain name is really that important. I can understand if you're trying to build traffic with T-shirts or billboards, I guess. But it seems like what you really need to do is just get your site linked to, and get it in people's bookmarks. Once that happens it doesn't matter much how easy the name is to remember (or type). Witness slashdot or del.icio.us.
- thechao, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2del.icio.us *is* a four-letter domain name
- volcompimp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I thought ALL 3 letter ".com" domain names had been taken and not just most.
- ucg1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They are, hence the "100%"
- phill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I have a three letter domain name.
- madeingermany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2268,971 domains containing SEX and 143,683 with LOVE - that tells you what the web is all about, or not about ;)
- opti, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2International suffix puns are the next land grab.
What self-respecting geek named John Smith would not want the Thai domain name "smi.th"? (This allows the email address john@smi.th)
For a complete list:
http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html- kimzor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nice link. :)
- ohnnyj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey, that's my name and I am a self-respecting geek. Wonder if its still available...
- kimzor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nice link. :)
- opti, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Heh. If Mongolian names are publicly available, then someone can get da.mn.
- gd007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1looks like i need to put it in my web site : http://www.funnydomainnames.com/
- tharealmegaman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I own two domains and both fit around the average of 11 characters. I'm lucky enough to have my name and what I thought was a creative name for a blog - nothingexpert.com.
If any of you own a domain that seems the slightest bit usable, it seems worth the $6 to re-register it every year given how few are still available. - tablatronix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How the hell do companies afford to buy up everything and then just sit on them indefinetly.
- jczer68, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Interesting and useless. digg.
- utdiscant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well... glad to have a domain of 12 characters, thats almost the optimal :P
www.dyberemening.dk - serra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Domain names that make no sense (mostly the 3 letter ones) are so stupid. I can't believe that people even want them. They're just random letters, in most cases. How is anyone supposed to stand out with some random three letter domain name?
- mikebeauchamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder if DIGG.COM was free when it got registered for this site.. anyone know?
- deut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It was first registered in 2000. I very much doubt Rose thought of it then. Hard to tell since it was brokered through a 3rd party. Most likely that they bought it. I wonder how much they paid? Anyone?
Domain Name: DIGG.COM
Created on: 20-FEB-00
Expires on: 20-FEB-07
Last Updated on: 11-JAN-06 - ipearx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember hearing an interview, he said dig.com was way too expensive, but digg.com wasn't nearly as bad. My guess is it cost a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand.
- deut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It was first registered in 2000. I very much doubt Rose thought of it then. Hard to tell since it was brokered through a 3rd party. Most likely that they bought it. I wonder how much they paid? Anyone?
- Marshy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1check the internet archive.
for example, myspace.com used to be consulting, weezer.com used to be a fan site.
and we have...
http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184324/http://www.digg.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20000819012648/http://www.digg.com/
apparently the domain was open when it was registered though - mathie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.123finder.com/ is another place for domain name research
- ipearx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm selling http://bla.st/ if anyone wants a really short, cool domain. Details at the site.
- phill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1digged.net is available at this time.
- zyko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good luck finding a nice sounding, memorable, easy to spell dot com domain. Look at all the web2.0 sites and you can see that most have abstract names or homophones like digg and flickr. Nearly half of dot com domains are owned by brokers or ad networks. Expect to pay thousands for a decent dot com domain. Fortunately we are getting to the point where nondotcom's can do well, but dot coms will always be more prestigious. If you get a domain for .us and there is a site on dot com, then there can be a major conflict. Good luck taking an expiring domain as these are jumped on super fast by ad networks to milk leftover traffic. Be sure to use a registrar that locks your domain and does not offer it the first day you forget to renew.
- riskable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article is very, very cool... But in my opinion, it gives too much weight to .coms. For instance, I own ykw.cn and there's zillions of other non-.com short domains available. These days most people are aware that there's more than just ".com" so the value of having that particular TLD doesn't matter as much.
Why did I get ykw.cn? It is short for YouKnowWhat.com (which I also own). It comes in super-handy when I'm filling out forms by hand that ask for my email address. r@ykw.cn is a hell of a lot quicker to write than YouKnowWho@YouknowWhat.com =)
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
"I have a license to kill -9"
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