I have a small collection of LLLL.com domains I need to part with due to a recent situation that forced me to move my family. This situation ended up emptying my bank account and now I’m forced to sell off some of the domains I was going to use for future sites. This is a sacrifice sale as I really need the money, so I’m willing to part with these domains for a very reasonable price.

Keep in mind that there are no more LLLL.com (4 letter .com) domains available. Even prior to the sale of the final LLLL.com domains, the domains listed below were estimated at similar values with no traffic, no active site and no monetization.

Back in August, I had the domains valuated again using the Domain Tops automated valuation service. I’ve done a little research and Domain Tops seems to have a good conservative value on these domains, but I trust no automated valuations. Therefore, I went to one of the most respected domainer forums in the domaining industry, NamePros, to get a valuation from the community there. The valuation provided there was more conservative than what Domain Tops listed due to current market factors.

Most of these domains have some branding potential, but I’m not going to fool myself into thinking they’re worth a mint.

LLLL.COM Domain: bwhu.com
Potential Branding Example: Best Web Hosting Upstarts

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain BWHU.COM to be worth around… $93 USD

NamePros Valuation

BWHU.com- Mid to high $XX, probably closer to mid $XX

LLLL.COM Domain: cjhx.com
Potential Branding Example: CJ Hit eXchange

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain CJHX.COM to be worth around… $91 USD

NamePros Valuation

CJHX.com- Low to mid $XX, probably around $30

LLLL.COM Domain: cywm.com
Potential Branding Example: CY Window Manager

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain CYWM.COM to be worth around… $91 USD

NamePros Valuation

CYWM.com- Mid to high $XX, around $65 maybe…

LLLL.COM Domain: osqc.com
Potential Branding Example: Open Source Quality Control

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain OSQC.COM to be worth around… $119 USD

NamePros Valuation

OSQC.com- Around $25-40 right now

LLLL.COM Domain: qsvn.com
Potential Branding Example: Q [Quality] SVN

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain QSVN.COM to be worth around… $67 USD

NamePros Valuation

QSVN.com- Around $30

LLLL.COM Domain: svxw.com
Potential Branding Example: SVX [Subaru SVX] World

Based by its characters, DomainTops estimates the domain SVXW.COM to be worth around… $87 USD

NamePros Valuation

SVXW.com- Around $20-30

Since this is a sacrifice sale, I’m not going to set any hard numbers on these domains. Instead, I’m willing to entertain reasonable offers that are around the value that was given from the NamePros community. Of course, higher offers are always welcome.

In addition to the above domains, I have the following brandable domains that I am willing to part with, for the right price. If you would like to make an offer on any of the following domains, please contact me directly with your offer. Also, if you are a professional domainer, I am willing to entertain a bulk buyout price for much less than the sum of the individual domains. All serious offers will be considered!

• badboygeek.com
• citprogram.net
• drsmokegood.com
• imgdl.com
• realworldfitness.info (.net & .org Included!)
• topshophop.com (.net & .org Included!)
• toxicvalley.com (.net & .org Included!)

I really hate to do this as it means swallowing my pride, but things are a rough until finances settle down again. If you are not interested in purchasing a domain, but you want to say “Thank You” for the information I’ve provided on this blog, please consider making a donation.

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As part of my job as a consultant, I help my clients establish their brand online. A significant part of this process is purchasing domain names that accurately reflect my client’s business. With the proliferation of professional domainers and cyber-squatters, this is not always an easy task. Factor in the SEO and memorability aspects of selecting just the right domain and this process becomes exponentially more difficult. Yet, with all this time and effort invested in finding just the right domain name, it is surprising how many people, even some big names, simply don’t know the importance of protecting their brand by registering the most popular TLD variations of their domain (i.e.: .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, etc.).

After spending a few years following the domain industry, purchasing the top TLDs seems like simple common sense. Apparently this is not the case. I recently did some checking around on some big name domains and I was quite surprised how many companies (including professional bloggers) who did not register the top variations of their domains and now those variations are either sitting unregistered (very rare), or are owned and monetized or for sale by someone else. What is frustrating about this situation is that the owner of the original domain could have spent a few minutes and a few extra dollars to purchase this additional TLD and thereby protect their brand.

Why is it so important to purchase the top TLDs?

There are several reasons why I recommend to clients that they purchase the top TLD variations of their domains. The first and most important reason is to protect their brand image. Whether your brand is your product, your company name, or your name (in the case of bloggers), you must protect your brand. Let’s look at the following scenario to see why this is so important.

Let’s say that Bob owns Bob’s Widgets. Bob just started his online business earlier this year, but within 10 months has already began to make a serious impact on his competitor’s market share. Let’s say his competitor, Will’s Widgets, has noticed this and Will is an unethical man. Will gets it in his mind to start a campaign to ruin Bob’s image before Bob takes over the market for widgets.

Will goes to his registrar and purchases all the top TLD variations of Bob’s domain that Bob didn’t buy, including the .net, .org, .info, .biz, and .us variations. Will then erects some pages on these domains that promotes Bob’s Widgets, all with a link back to Bob’s original domain, but does so in a way that is unethical and against the terms of the top search engines.

Within three months, the search engines take notice of these unethical sites and blacklists these domains that Will owns and decreases the rank of Bob’s original domain as well. Beyond the impact of having a reduced ranking in the search engines, Bob’s widget’s has also gained a reputation as an unethical business. A reputation that was spread by those who came across the domains that Will purchased. Perhaps Will even paid a few people off to start some negative buzz about Bob.

Do you think this scenario is a bit far fetched? Perhaps it is, but then again, perhaps it is not. I’ve consulted with customers before who had some bad press published about them online and I’ve had to help them get their rankings above this bad press. I can assure you, such scenarios are not so far fetched. By owning the top TLD variations of your domain, you can help diminish such harmful attacks against your brand.

Another reason for purchasing the top TLD variations of your domain is protection against cyber-squatters, including unethical hosting companies and domain registrars. Whether you realize it or not, cyber-squatting is big business. There are literally thousands of scripts and services out there that enable someone to simply register a domain name, plug in a few parameters like keywords, title, and affiliate IDs and the script or service takes care of the population of the content. Some services even market these parked domains in exchange for a percentage of the affiliate commission earned from these cookie-cutter sites.

While domain parking and monetization in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, it can have an impact on your primary domain’s ranking in the search engines. If the script or service is of low quality, such forms of parking can give your brand a bad name and could even end up promoting your competition, if applicable. Again, by purchasing the top TLD variations, you have greater control over how these domains are used, thus protecting your brand.

Making use of your secondary TLDs

Depending on your company’s industry and your objectives, there are a number of ways you can make productive use of the TLD variations of your company’s domain.

• Some owners choose to simply redirect all variations to their primary domain. This is perfectly logical and is easy to do with a simple 301 redirect.
• Some owners choose to use the various TLDs to help segregate different aspects of their company. For instance, using .com for the publicly viewable store front to their company while using the .net TLD for the company intranet.
• Some owners choose to take a page from the book of cyber-squatters and simply park their secondary domains and use them as an additional source of income.
• Some owners choose to use the variations of their TLD for SEO and marketing. While this last method can be extremely effective, great caution should be used in how you use this tactic.

Which options you choose will depend on your needs and goals. However, the most important factor to remember is to protect your brand name. Regardless of whether you are a blogger, operate a hobby site, own a SMB that has an info page on the web, run an eCommerce portal, or manage the IT assets for a major corporation, making the minimal up-front investment to acquire the top TLD variations of your domain name can go a long ways to protect your brand and give you the flexibility to either develop secondary monetization streams or to organize your network assets.

You’ve read my two cents. Now have your say!
Do you always purchase the top TLD variations of the domain you are buying?
Have you ever been the victim of unethical use of a TLD variation of your domain?