Shorter is better is something my parents have always told me growing up. While this may hold true in terms of height, it is not always the case when it comes to some domain names.
Over the years, I have owned several three letter .com domain names (NLC, MYV, SHS, KJP, RER, PJP, RSN, and probably a few I have forgotten about). LLL.com domain names tend to be in high demand, and they can sell for amounts that range from five figures to seven figures, depending on the letters and demand for them. While the 3 letter .com domain name market is quite liquid, not all 3 letter domain names are investment-grade.
Someone shared the tweet below from Shifang Yuan from Yuming.com. The tweet came in response to someone else’s question about the value of two types of .IO domain names:
I invested in 2,000 https://t.co/65bXadXOyE domains from 2018 to 2020 and they didn’t sell well. In 2020, we gave up domain name renewals at a loss of about $100,000.
— Shifang Yuan (@hishifang) June 1, 2021
For the last few years, .IO domain names have become quite popular. NameBio shows quite a few substantial .IO domain name sales in the last three years. Commonly used one word .IO domain names are in demand with startups, and they have become an investment grade class of domain names.
While there are a few 3 letter .IO domain names amongst the top sales in NameBio, the most frequent of those sales are also one word .IO domain names (like Sun.IO, Mad.IO, Kid.IO, ACE.IO, and several others). Apparently, the market for other 3 letter .IO domain names is not as strong.
I do not know what 3 letter .IO domain names were bought by Shifang Yuan, so I can’t really offer insight on the names that were purchased. However, the idea that investing in 3 letter non-.com domain names just because they are short, might not be a good one.
