It might not make sense to Westerners, but it does to people in China.
Have you wondered why some mixed letter and number domains can sell for 4 or even 5 figures? Sometimes a little bit of research can reveal the possible reason. 520HB(.)com is a good example.
On November 11, Namebio reported that the domain sold for $5,600 on GoDaddy. While no buyer information has been revealed, I know from experience that some Chinese buyers like this kind of domain, so I turned to Baidu search for hints — and I found one.
520HB has a meaning in Chinese. 520 represents May 20 and it also rhymes with Wo Ai Ni (我爱你 = I Love You). HB is an acronym for the Pinyin words Hong Bao (红包 = Red Packet). All together, 520HB refers to May 20 (unofficial Valentine’s Day in China). On this day, you can send “I Love You” electronic red packets to the digital wallets of your loved ones — up to the amount of 520 yuan using WeChat as I understand.
Giving red packets of money is an age-old Chinese tradition to celebrate Chinese New Year, weddings, graduations, birthdays, and many other occasions. In 2014 WeChat launched digital red packets for the Chinese New Year, followed by rival Alipay. Since then, this practice has been extended to other events, including this invented festival on May 20.
If you look at Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, you’ll see that the domain was previously used. Most recently, it was for an adult entertainment site. The auction price was probably impacted by this prior use and any remaining search engine value the domain has.
But as I’ve explained, it’s also easy for Chinese consumers to remember this domain, which makes it valuable.
Brad Arthur says
Thanks for bringing insight and revealing the deeper meanings to these non generic dot coms. As westerners we are continuing to learn about the fascinating Chinese culture. Since “words” are really just conditioned symbols whose subjective meanings are culturally relative its always interesting to learn how words can be transformed and interpreted.
Kassey Lee says
Glad that you like it, Brad. I’m learning more about my own culture too — as a result of studying domains. Suddenly, history and culture become interesting, which I used to dislike when growing up. I thought they were very boring.
j1ceasar says
That is an instance of legitimate reason for a short strange name. When I don’t get is all of the companies I buy these names it mean absolutely nothing just because they’re short
Kassey Lee says
End user behavior is hard to understand.
j1ceasar says
I would really like to see one of the big SEO companies do a study and create two different websites one with a name that means something and another one that is gobbledygook then both will have the content exactly similar as an example bird houses Com vs xyz123 com and do a quick study of which one azbetter pagerank and higher authority.
Maxwell Ding says
I am the one who watch for expired domain and get it with low price
Kassey Lee says
Me too. I sift through thousands of domains everyday at the garbage dump. Call me a garbage collector.