All of us invested in the short domain world spend a lot of time talking about letter quality. What is letter quality anyway? Does a short domain having an ‘X’ in it automatically make it less valuable than a short domain having an ‘F’ ? Of course not — that’s just silly. Letter quality is nothing more than something people writing short domain price guides use to suggest which letters are better on average.

If you’re completely new to the short domain world, you can rest assured (so long as the short domain price guide is accurate) that buying at the minimum wholesale a certain letter pattern goes for won’t result in an immediate loss on your investment. That’s all it means and that’s all it’s ever meant. Rather than buying short domains based on how many premium letters a short domain has, domain name investors should be looking at what end user potential the domain has. Traffic, revenue, and a lot of the other metrics one would use with longer domains can pretty much be thrown out the window here, as very few short domains are valued for their performance in these metrics..

So what gives a short domain a better chance of fiding an end user? On average, it would be having stronger letters, however, we’re not talking about averages here, we’re talking about how you should determine whether a single short domain is worth buying or not worth buying. One easy thing you can do right from the start is a google sarch on the letters in the domain. Do several companies use the same acronym as you short domain’s letters? How about company products? Using AcronymFinder.com or another acronym listing website of your choice, what can you say abou the probability that a future end user might be out there for your domain? If the domain’s letter pattern isn’t English-friendly, would it be desirable in another country? Is there anything special about this short domain which might make other domainers more interested in it for themselves (such as having a rare letter pattern)? Even though most short domains make receive little traffic and make little revenue, you might as well ask the question — I had a single premium LLLL.com which made me $25 parked last year (more than I paid for the domain), so while unusual, some short domains do receive traffic and make money.

And when I write this post, I’m not simply referring to avoiding short domains with bad letters because they might actually be good — I’m implying the converse as well that some ‘premium’ short domains really aren’t so premium when you start thinking of who could be a potential end user for your short domain. It’s not all that uncommon to see a double premium or triple premium with more end user potential than a weak quad — why would you want to pay 10 times more for an inferior domain, all because you just took the domain at leter value? Every quad premium LLLLcom is most certainly not a better domain than every triple premium, double premium, etc LLLL.com — same goes for LLL.coms. Just like the minimum wholesale, letter quality should be nothing more than a guide — something useful to use when considering which short domain to buy, but absolutely not a deal maker or breaker.

They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover - you most certainly can’t judge a short domain by it’s letters.

Related posts:

1. Mid-February LLLL.com Price Guide
2. April 2008 LLLL.com Price Guide
3. Short Domain Name Guide