Just like that they're all gone

Sometime before 7:00AM EST (roughly noon GMT) all the NNNNN.com domains were registered not including drops. I take no shame to admit that I was part of this virtual land rush, purchasing a few of these domains over the past few weeks.

What’s an “NNNNN.com” domain you ask? It is a reference to a domain that only consists of 5-numbers, for example 12345.com. In the domaining world, there are pseudo-acronyms like this. CCCCC.com is a domain consisting of 5 alpha-numeric characters (1A4RXC.com), LLLL.com is a domain consisting of 4-letters (ABCD.com) and CCVV.com is a domain consisting of two constantans followed by two vowels (BBAA.com).

Big deal some people say. To some, it is a very big deal.

First of all, everyone who was lucky enough to register a NNNN.com should expect a sharp increase in their values. Why? No, NNNNN.com domains will sell for about what NNNN.com domains sold when they sold out. Since the NNNNN.com domains are now selling for higher prices, NNNN.com domains will jump in price (the fewer characters, the more valuable the domain is). I’ve seen a couple people trying to get into the post-action quickly (and cheaply) by offering minimum $15-$25 for these NNNNN.com domains (not bad for an investment that cost between $6 and $10 a few days to a week ago).

Who cares about 5-number domains. They can’t be used for anything!

Wrong! Think about zip codes (all the zip code domains have been registered for years and are considered extremely valuable now). This includes zip codes outside the US (some were still available last night!). Some say dates, I don’t like that idea. Eh, I’ll pass on the date, I don’t see many people typing in 10108 for January 1, 2008, we can keep these for the NNNNNN.com domains). What else? Addresses? MainStreet.15000.com has a nice ring to it (not the best, but not bad either).

A lot of cultures use numbers as a part of their beliefs (numerology). A good combination of numbers might be worth a lot to them. You can have a PhD in mysticism but still not even know a fraction of these cultures. Research and find good ones that might still be available.

Why are numeric domains so valuable? I thought it was all about letters.

Letters are good, and many LLLLL.com domains are available, but they are far more common than number domains. Consider this:

LL.com domains – 676 combinations

NN.com domains – 100 combinations

6:1 Ratio

LLL.com domains – 17,576 combinations

NNN.com domains – 1,000 combinations

17:1 Ratio

LLLL.com domains – 456,976 combinations

NNNN.com domains – 10,000 combinations

45:1 Ratio

LLLLL.com domains – 11,881,376 combinations

NNNNN.com domains – 100,000 combinations

118:1 ratio

See where this is going? The more characters, the rarer the numbered domains become and this ratio grows exponentially as there are more characters added. IN any economy, the rarer something is the more valuable it becomes.

What’s next?

Some people will sell their NNNNN.com domains for a quick profit; others will sit on them for a while to see where the market goes. Some are now looking at NNNNN.net, NNNNN.org and other TLDs (top level domains, like .com, .org, .info etc...). Others will take a step back and seriously look at CCCC.com domains (still plenty of these available), CCC.net, CCC.org (plenty of these available, too). I have my plans on what to do next.

There are many doors that are wide open that may be closed by the end of this year. Don’t go crazy and go broke doing this, but with some research, time, and patience, you might find a little nugget of gold that will be very valuable someday for as little as $10.

I’ll see you at the next milestone party and I’ll bring the sandwiches.