The accuracy of a term is important, especially when defining a class of information.
With domains, the term “premium letters” has been defined as a subset of the Latin alphabet, typically excluding the following letters:
Q,Y,J,K,Z,X,C,V
Although some premium domain keywords rely on non-premium letters – SEX.com comes to mind – the idea is that when thrown together without any particular meaning, the premium letters stand in a class of their own.
The inverse, that non-premium letters typically form non-premium domain keywords is also true.
I’ve seen the term “Chinese premium letters” being (ab)used in discussions involving domain availability.
It’s important to remember that while the letters listed above are pronounceable in the Chinese Pinyin – all except for ‘V’ – that fact alone does not make them “premium” by definition.
Domain misnomers such as this often stick around for a long time, confusing investors – old and new – about the value of particular letter combinations, and the validity of terms.
On a similar note, it has been a week since I received any spam originating in China for my premium letter LLLL .com domains – that is, combinations of W,E,R,T,U,I,O,P,A,S,D,F,G,H,L,B,N, and M. 😉
DQ.com = Dairy Queen
EY.com = Ernst & Young
JJ.com = Johnson & Johnson
Who said non-premium letters?
Each letter is good if it sells. Just because some are not very frequent in English dictionary, it doesn’t mean they will sell cheap.
In regards to Chinese pinyins, W,J,Z,Q,… are really very frequent.
Investors buy names regardless of language they speak.
Mike – That’s great. Now find me an acronym for:
QJKV
ZXXQ
JJVC
Etc. Two letter domains aren’t what we’re discussing here.
Acro, I’m sure there are many pinyin combinations of actual meaning that fit your examples. You would need to ask someone who speaks Chinese, not me 😉. My point is that even in English speaking market, no letter is non-premium just because other letters are more frequently used.
Mike – You’ve missed the point of this post completely. It’s about random non-premium letters pertaining to be “premium” in another language. If XYXY means ‘water lilly’ in Chinese, the letters are still not premium.
Acro, I wish I own(-ed) ultra non-premium letter Z.com 😉
This is a very informative post. The name Yunqi is common in China and (If I’m correct) means something along the lines of “fortunate lady” and I would think would be very valuable in China if one owned Yunqi.com but it contains both the letters Q and Y. Just another reason for us westerners to be confused when it comes to these names just as we’ve all been told the number “4” isn’t a good number in the Chinese culture and the name of the top Chinese domain brokerage 4.cn.
Is C a non-premium letter in the English context?
How about W? Some people see W as a non-premium in English context.
Anyone can clarify? Thanks!
Choo Jen-Sin – The only non-premium letters are QJXZ, especially when there’s more than one of them in a LLLL combination.
@Mike,
“who said non premium letters”
There are exceptions, your right.
But the point is you should be shooting at a general target.
So in general those letters are not used by many business;s/people
You are more likely to find a business with more often used letters.
These are good for example, like “bbc, or afi, because these are very commonly used letters.
If possible I’d stay away from “Q,Y,J,K,Z,X,C,V, U,
Although starting with “Q” is good because so many people use “quality” in their name. But never at the end.
The more common your letters are used the more likely your domain will find an end user.