Despite being a short domain investor, I’ve never completely understood the attraction many domainers have to 1 letter domains in exotic ccTLDs. I can think of a few logical uses, such as URL shortening or perhaps a web hosting company offering hosting on subdomains of their main domain, but why would someone pay thousands for a short domain in some exotic ccTLD that even most domainers haven’t heard of? Who remembers what the .la registry did not so long ago to owners of their short domains? That’s one of the main reasons I don’t like these registries — there is no accountability. If VeriSign told owners of 2 letter .coms or of generics that they were taking their domains away (eg. that they wouldn’t be allowed to renew them), all hell would break loose, and rightfully so. But with a ccTLD like .la, they can pretty much do as they please — I sure as heck wouldn’t be placing my domain dollars anywhere near there. I’m a big fan of ccTLDs — real ccTLDs like .ca, .co.uk, .de — not garbage like .ws, .la, .etc.

Besides the lack of accountability, another shocker are the very steep renewal fees these domains have — it’s not uncommon for the renewal fee to be $500, $1000, or even more per year for one letter domains. At $1000 per year, you’ve spent $10,000 on this one letter domain, plus whatever you paid to acquire it in the first place after 10 years. You can get a pretty good domain for $10,000… If you have your mind set on a short domain, why not go with a good LLL.com or if you want something shorter still, why not go for a 2 letter domain in a popular ccTLD such as the ones I mentioned above (provided you meet the ccTLD ownership requirements of course)? I just don’t see the rationale behind these 1 letter domains..

The reason a 4 letter .com sells for less than a 3 letter .com is twofold. One is of course the fact that there are 26 times more LLLL.coms, however the much bigger reason isn’t the amount available (afterall, even 456,976 domains isn’t that large of a number when you think of how many businesses are out there) but rather the fact that there are far more businesses with 3 letter acronyms than 4 letter acronyms. The same can be said about 2 letter domains — type in 2 random letters and chances are a few potential end users jump right out. There are practically no limits on how a good LL.com can be branded…

So let’s move on to one letter domains now… What do one letter domains have going for them?

You can’t buy 1 letter domains in any decent TLD/ccTLD — the few one letter domains which are registered are owned by people who aren’t going to be selling anytime soon unless you’re prepared to fork over one heck of a lot of money. As for rarity, I’ll give one letter domains that.. But how the heck do you brand a one letter domain? There are a few ways I can think of, however nowhere near the amount of ways I can think of branding a good 2 letter domain. If you had a one letter domain in .com, then yes, I can see the value — as we shift more and more towards a wireless and mobile society, many companies such as Google (who owns G.cn) will no doubt want shorter domains. The thing is, we’re not talking about short domains in “end user” friendly extensions here, we’re talking about exotic ccTLDs which even the PhDs at Google have probably never heard of.

I ask — what is the value of a domain which end users don’t want and which is very difficult to brand? When you can get a 2 letter domain in many of these same extensions for $40 per year or so, does it really make sense to spend all that extra money for a one letter domain? I certainly don’t think so.

Related posts:

1. Other Short Domain Name Markets: dotCA
2. Short Domains: Letter quality < End User Potential
3. Short Domain Name Liquidity and Saving for Renewals