The flowing guide should be helpful in navigating the domain investment world's terminology. Although versions of this guide are found all over the place, making sure you are working form a recent a relevant version is important. NamePros, the domain investment hub, is where this guide is adopted from and we want to credit the NamePros.com community for: "The guide to domain terminology
LL – Acronym meaning “Letter Letter” used to describe two letter domains
LLL – Acronym meaning “Letter Letter Letter” used to describe three letter domains
LLLL – Acronym meaning “Letter Letter Letter Letter” used to describe four letter domains
NN – Acronym meaning “Number Number” used to describe two Number domains
NNN – Acronym meaning “Number Number Number” used to describe three Number domains
NNNN – Acronym meaning “Number Number Number Number” used to describe Four Number domains
You will also see the above used in the following formats to describe Letter/Number combos LLNN
- NNLL
- LNNN
- NLLL
- LLLN
- NLNL
- LNLN
BIN – Acronym meaning “Buy It Now”, commonly used on domain forums and marketing to identify the price the seller is willing to sell for.
CHIP – Mix of the words Chinese and Premium, used to identify domain names that do not contain the following characters:
- AEIOU or V – Volwels and the letter V are consider non-premium in Chinese
- The numbers “0” or “4” – The number 4 means death to Chinese and the number zero is considered unlucky unless at end.
- Read more about what numbers mean in Chinese here.
C – The letter C is used to describe Consonant. Commonly used in short domains to identify patterns of acronyms (ex. CCC)
V – The letter V is used to describe Vowel. Commonly used in short domains to identify patterns of acronyms (ex. VVV)
CVCV – Would indicate that a domain contains the following pattern (Consonant/Vowel/Consonant/Vowel) example (DUNE.com)
Hand Reg (Hand Register) – A term used to indicate that a domain was purchased by registering it. It was unregistered and time of purchase and was not purchased from another individual.
Grace Delete – After registering a domain most domain registrars offer a period of time which you can have that domain deleted, usually 7 days. Usually having the domain deleted within the grace delete period will result in a refund for your purchase from the registrar.
Registrar – The website/organization you used to register your domain name. Some of the most common registrar’s used by domainers are. Godaddy, Dynadot, UniRegistry, Namecheap, Name.com and domain.com
End User(s) – Domainers often indicate that they have sold or are selling to “end users” or are looking for “end user prices”. Basically an end user is a buyer of your domain name who plans to develop the name into a business or plans to use it to better their already established business. End users are unlikely to ever resell the domain name.
Domain Parking – domain parking is a quick method of pointing your domain name to a landing page or pages of an automated template website. The pages are usually filled with advertisements, if clicked the domain owner will receive a CPC commission for the lead.
Push – A domain push is when a domain name is sent from one users account at a specific domain registrar to another users account at the same domain registrar. Some registrars may refer to this as an account transfer or user transfer but the common term used in the domain industry is PUSH.
Transfer – The term transfer refers to the transfer of a domain name from one user to another. Unlike a push, a transfer is usually done from one registrar to another. The term transfer may also refer to the transfer of funds.
Reseller – In the domain industry a reseller is a domain investor who purchases domain names with the intent of reselling them either to another reseller or to an end user. Resellers may also purchase domain names with the intent to park them for recurring monthly income or to test the traffic that is coming to a domain name, in the end the reseller is likely to, at some point, sell the domain name.
Traffic – This term refers to the visitors that are coming to a domain or website. It is more commonly used when discussing parking or websites but is common with domains.
TLD – Top Level Domain. This refers to the extension of a domain name. TLD’s are broken down into 4 different categories, these categories include; Original Top Level Domain, Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD), Infrastructure Top Level Domains and Internationalized Country Code Top Level Domain (IDN). You can read more on TLD’s here.
ccTLD – Country Code Top Level Domain. Refers to the domain extension used to represent a country. Some of the more common ccTLD domain extensions are:
- .de – The ccTLD used for Germany
- .co.uk – The ccTLD used for the United Kingdom
- .ca – The ccTLD used for Canada
- .us – The ccTLD used for the United States of America
x | xx | xxx | x,xxx – The standard method of denoting a dollar figure amount, most commonly used in negotiations or make offer sales.
- x – $1 – $9
- xx – $10 – $99
- xxx – $100 – $999
- x,xxx – $1000 – $9,999
- and so on
Name server – A code used to manipulate where a domain name is directed. Name server changes can be made with your domain registrar and are used to direct a domain to a different path or website. Most commonly name servers are changed to direct a domain to a parking page or to a domain marketplace. Name server codes are available from the host to which you are trying to direct your domain to.
WHOIS – “who is the owner”. Whois information is updated and can be manipulated where the domain was registered. It identifies the name/organization that owns the domain, the email address for that owner and other contact information including address and telephone number.
Privacy – If you want to make your WHOIS information private and not publicly available, you can purchase privacy through your domain registrar. As a reseller I personally do not buy privacy for my domains as many inquiries to purchase my domains comes from buyers who are contacting me through the domain WHOIS. Some of the most common WHOIS services include whois.com and domaintools.com."
