According to a press release tonight the two letter .com domain name ZY.com has hit the auction block.
The auction is already started at Sedo.com with an high bid of $25K (reserve is higher)
The PR indicates that this is the first time that this domain has been up for sale at an auction.
Here is the PR:
After nearly 20 years, the domain name of ZY.COM is up for auction.
Two letter dot com (.com) domains were sold out in 1994, and have become a much sought-after commodity. They are rarely for sale out on the market. ZY is one of only 676 two letter .com domain names in existence. Not only is it an extremely rare domain name, but it is pronounceable as well.
Two letter domain names are incredibly easy to remember. ZY is also pronounceable in both Chinese and English making it far more valuable than combinations such as XH and FJ.
Recently sold domains are ts.com for $186,000, hx.com for $125,000, ay.com for $101,000 and FB.com which sold for $8.5M.
ZY.com is arguably better than any of these unpronounceable domains. Who knows how much it will be worth in the future as premium domain name values continue to increase. This domain name could be used as an abbreviation for many things. There are 149,000,000 results for the search term “ZY” in Google, and hundreds or even thousands of corporations, companies, and businesses worldwide that ZY could be an acronym for. It is even an acronym for the town of Zhong Yuan in China.
Despite the introduction of other top level domains, such as .info and .tv and .mobi, the two letter .com domains remain the most prestigious and valuable.
Over the past two years very few two-letter domain names have come up on the market. Those that have include:
FB.com – $8,500,000 (sold to Facebook)
LI.com – $500,000
TS.com – $186,000
CR.com – $150,000
HX.com – $125,000 (purchased by a Chinese company)
Companies worldwide have pursued the ZY.COM domain over the years. Most recently, offers have come from the USA and China.
There is a lot of BS in that press release, they’d probably be better off putting it up for auction and saying nothing.
Ya, here goes the hype train again, should have sold it two-three years ago.
Short domains are always in great demand.
And presently there is no greater value than
LLL.Co
FSO.Co recently sold for $31K by Owen Frager.
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/2011/07/we-are-plus-31k-happier-today-from-co.html
Hypist; clearly.
@ Robert Cline
What?
How in the hell did you bring this into .CO?
Two different subjects here.
This topic is a two letter .COM and what your bringing up is a three letter .CO.
Not the same thing.
Cheers
I would say in terms of value.. Short Letter with Good traffic #1 would be extremely valuable. According to Google Traffic Tools it ZY has 18,100 Exact searches.
But my main question is “what” are 18,100 people searching for when they search ZY ?
So, hmm, I would rather go with a term that would suggest a good guess of what they are looking for which obviously would result in sales everyday.
Take SongsCom.com with 22,100 Google Exact searches. It means you know that 21,000 searchers are Looking for “songs”.
“Take SongsCom.com with 22,100 Google Exact searches. It means you know that 21,000 searchers are Looking for “songs”.”
//////////////////
“songs com” does not have 22,100 searchs, Google has just given it the same sore as “songs.com”. Adding a superfluous word to a common term does not make it a good name.
@Robert Cline
Robert, do you think that trying to mention .co in every thread you can is going to help the extension? Talk about desperate.
This topic is all about
SHORT domains
and since
.Co and .com are now on the same footing
it matters even more
in fact
.Co being shorter than .com
you can make the argument that .Co is superior when it comes to the attribute of shortness.
Robert the topic is,
“Two Letter Domain ZY.com Hits The Auction Block “After Nearly 20 Years”,
Only in your mind does that mean a discussion about .co, if the topic was “What is your favourite Chinese restaurant?” you’d probably make an argument that that is about .co as well.
Obsession + desperation = not a good mix.
AED.us
sold this past week for $20,000 as reported by SEDO
UDG.de
also sold this past week for $21,750 on SEDO as well.
are you happy now.
as I have said I am an equal opportunity type of guy.
Short is in.
Short is in especially in a mobile age.
“Only in your mind does that mean a discussion about .co, if the topic was “What is your favourite Chinese restaurant?” you’d probably make an argument that that is about .co as well.
Obsession + desperation = not a good mix.”
LOL.co
@Robert Cline who wrote:
“you can make the argument that .Co is superior when it comes to the attribute of shortness.”
—
Sure, you can make that argument. But the fact remains that .com was the first widely accepted extension, and while there are exceptions (due to bad management of poor funding) it’s next to impossible to unseat the “first” in any industry. Give the vast majority of sensible people the choice, and they would take the .com version of a name over the .co version, any day. There’s just no contest.
“it’s next to impossible to unseat the “first” in any industry”
I dont know about that phrase. The top of any industry is consistently being knocked off and replaced with small/bigger (depending on what we are talking about) faster, more streamline, better technology versions of what ever industry you are in.
VHS took out reel to reel
DVD took out VHS
Blu Ray has nearly taken out DVD
and now Digital copy is taking out both.
Nintendo took out Atari
Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo took out regular Nintendo
Next came 64, Play Station,Xbox,
then xbox 360, PS2, cube, … ect
Now we are at PS3, xbox/kinect, wii, a range of portable gaming systems.
I have no idea what came before My Space but that was taken out by Facebook.
Now Google + may take out Facebook (who knows really).
We can do the same topic about phones, computers, cars, music, and more.
The #1 spots are always being toppled. Its just a matter of time.
One day .COM will no longer be the first thing that comes to mind when we speak of web address. Who knows… maybe there will no longer be extensions one day.
Either which way, the “first” of any industry are always being replaced especially in today’s environment. They are being replaced at an accelerated rate and it will only get faster.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers
Jack
That was a very good comment
Jack, I meant along the lines of businesses in the same industry. Such as McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Xerox, Kleenex, FedEx, and so on and so on. You’re talking about different technologies taking the place of existing ones. Totally different.
And I did say there are exceptions to the rule, which you pointed out with Nintendo and Atari. But Atari was too arrogant, saying they could put sh@t in a box and sell it. Plus selling inferior consoles like the Atari 5200 with its very defective joysticks. (I remember waiting in line to return mine… soured me on Atari after that… plus ET and so many terrible games.)
.COM and .CO are in the same industry. And there is no way in the world .CO will ever beat out .COM. People just don’t change their preferences like that, after getting used to having .COM be the first and most attractive extension that comes to mind when thinking of a domain name.
@Alex
Hahahahahah
you got schooled by Jack.
Jack is right.
There was Yahoo, then came Google
there was MySpace, then came facefart
there was .com, now comes .Co
do not live your future looking in the rear view mirror.
craps, my boss says I can’t …
@Alex
you knuckle head
don’t you get it.
.Co is .com shortened
plus more actually.
It stands in addition company, corporation, commerce and much more than .com can ever stand for.
Disagree with jack and mhb. .com is more akin to real estate not products that were mentioned. Manhatten, beverly hills, etc have always gone up dispropotionately to other real estate and will not be replaced by another piece of real estate barring natural disaster.
Jack is waaaaay off here
Surprised mhb supports jacks erroneous analogy
Robert Cline, I’ll forgive your ignorance, since it’s clear that you must be pretty young by the tone of your posts. Yes, there are exceptions, especially in the early years of any industry. But then along comes a strong brand that becomes #1 and is next to impossible, if not impossible, to topple. (Try and topple Amazon.) Altavista is another search engine that you left out that failed. Even after Google, there were many other search engines that proudly came along and hyped up their brand with the intent of becoming #1… and even though those new companies got a lot of publicity at the time, most people would have trouble even remembering their names now. (Cuil, anyone?)
Anyway, good luck with your .cos. Some of them are bringing in nice sales. But the same (good) name with the .com extension will bring in a lot bigger sale. A lot bigger. So, why is that? Are people just stupid? And when they become enlightened as you seem to be, will we see things turn around and .cos will be the big winners in all this, and .coms will be avoided like the plague?
It’s a nice dream. But it’s only a dream.
I agree that short .com always have good price.
I am looking for the symbol zy that is carved on my chinese stone dragons it is also underlined . there are other symbols below that one . this site is as close as I came to the zy letters as far as a company .