I’ve read Giuseppe Graziano’s NUMERIC DOMAINS 2.0 – THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE which’s a very good article. And in this article, it shares some knowledge you probably didn't know about Numeric Domains from a veteran CN domainer.
Numeric domains in CN market have high & stable price as everyone knows. I summarize factors that make numeric domains so popular and different in CN market. However, as Michael Cyger noticed no CN unicorn 2018 chooses numeric domains as the brand and website, I would agree as well numeric domains are not that brandable, most of them in the market are 3N, 4N, 5N, not at the top of the pyramid that a unicorn company would choose from. They’re mostly used in online gambling or gaming platform. Even a CN gaming unicorn spends millions of dollars in acquiring a 2N domain, it still does a bad job in branding - far worse than pinyin domains.
First of all, let’s see some Special Numbers.
8 - stands for fortune, the most valuable
9 - stands for permanence
6 - stands for luck
4 - stands for death, considered an unlucky number
0 - stands for nil if it’s at the beginning of a number, considered unpopular & low value
17 - sounds like ‘一起’ usually stands for ‘going somewhere or doing sth together’
It’s also nearly homophonous to ‘要去’, stands for ‘going somewhere’
51 - sounds like ‘无忧’ usually stands for ‘carefree’
It’s also nearly homophonous to ‘我要’, stands for ‘I want’
52 - sounds like ‘我爱’ usually stands for ‘I love’
57 - sounds like ‘我去’ usually stands for ‘I go somewhere or to do sth’
91 - sounds like ‘就要’ usually stands for ‘want or wanna’
92 - sounds like ‘就爱’ usually stands for ‘love sth or doing sth’
95 - stands for ‘ the Emperor’
97 - sounds like ‘就去’ usually stands for ‘going somewhere or to do sth’
123 - usually included in 4N or 5N domains to build Navigation Websites
365, 500 - two patterns frequently included in numeric domains
520 - sounds like ‘我爱你’, stands for ‘I love you’
666 - new internet slang, used to describe someone did a good job in sth, showed high skill or did a fabulous performance particularly in e-sports. Seeing more numeric domains contain 666
126, 163, 360 - frequently included in 4N or 5N domains due to the famous enterprises NetEase and Qihoo360
1314 - nearly homophonous to ‘一生一世’, stands for ‘in all one’s life, forever’
1314.com was sold for a sky-high price in 2013.
Some factors that affect price
*I would like to mention the rules listed below apply to most investing & pricing scenarios. Still some individual transactions may not follow the rules.
In the following examples, I use ‘>’ to represent better than, or having higher value than:
1.Shorter is better, as everyone know.
2.Starting with the number 1, is better.
For example, 13256.com > 53256.com
3.Ending with 8 or 9, is better.
For example, 32569.com > 32561.com
4.Ascending order is better.
For example, 23568.com > 32568.com
5.Ending with 0 is better than starting with 0
For example, 32560.com > 03256.com
[3N]
AAA > BCD > ABB > BBA > ABA > DCB
For example, 666.com > 567.com > 566.com > 665.com > 565.com > 654.com
This is a general rule, however we can get exceptions like:
* 123.com > 444.com
* 122.com > 234.com
And sometimes AAB can be quite confusingly similar to ABB, like 115.com vs 155.com. So yes, understand it as a general rule and accept that exceptions exist.
3Ns can also be dial codes of CN cities
For example, Beijing 010, Shanghai 021
[4N]
AAAA > ABCD > AABB > ABBB > AAAB > ABCC > AABC > ABBC
For example, 6666.com > 3456.com > 1133.com > 1333.com > 1113.com > 3577.com > 7735.com > 3775.com
Still it’s a general rule, we got exceptions like:
* 1788.com > 1777.com
As 8 is the most valuable number, while 7 is bit of unwanted.
4Ns can also be dial codes of CN cities
For example, Xiamen 0592, Quanzhou 0595
[5N]
5Ns can be business phone number of CN enterprises, for example:
10XXX
11XXX
12XXX
95XXX
96XXX
[6N]
6Ns can be postcodes, however postcode domains become less valuable as less people use postal services now.
6Ns can also be stock codes in CN, for example:
000XXX
002XXX
031XXX
080XXX
200XXX
300XXX
500XXX
600XXX
601XXX
700XXX
730XXX
900XXX
6Ns can also be business phone number of CN enterprises, for example:
952XXX
954XXX
956XXX
These kinds of business-phone-number or stock-code domains do not have much value unless they belong to big and famous enterprises.
And at last, for any numeric domain longer than 6N, like 7N, 8N or more, it has to have superb pattern like 8888888.com or 123456789.com, otherwise it would be worthless.
