Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

Domain Name Industry News

Featured Domains

Instant Domain Search

Chinese registrars are very active in new top level domains

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

Kassey Lee analyzes how Chinese registrars account for a large portion of new top level domain registrations.

Magnifying glass over Chinese flag

New top level domain names, such as .best, .rich, and .guru, began rolling out at the end of 2013.

According to nTLDstats.com, there are about 34 million new top level domains registered across 1,187 new extensions at 372 registrars. The site also displays a list of the 372 registrars and their market shares. For our study, I have selected the top 10 registrars, as shown below.

Rank Registrar Domains Share
1 Alibaba 5,426,279 15.90%
2 GoDaddy 3,253,218 9.53%
3 NameCheap 2,827,229 8.28%
4 West263 2,742,342 8.04%
5 GMO 2,150,271 6.30%
6 West.cn 1,839,191 5.39%
7 Eranet 1,717,788 5.03%
8 WebNic.cc 1,435,744 4.21%
9 NameSilo 800,547 2.35%
10 CentralNic 767,804 2.25%

Because West263 also belongs to West.cn, essentially two Chinese registrars — Alibaba and West.cn — together capture about 29% of the new extensions. Chinese domain investors have been active since the early launches of new extensions. This might have been because there was a feeling that they were late to the .com game, so they hoped to lead in the new frontier of the domain space. New top level domain registries also pitched new TLDs as an investment in China and often offered low-priced registrations in the region.

While it is still debatable whether the new extensions are a success or not, there have been some great sales. In 2019, for example, Free.games was sold for $335,000, ZB.app for $91,000, and Business.club for $60,936. You can find more sales data at Namebio.

As years go by, it is becoming difficult to justify still calling these extensions “new.” Unfortunately, so far, there is no consensus on what to call them, so they’ll remain to be called “new” extensions.

China has 21 of top 50 global sites based on Alexa Rank

by — Uncategorized 4 Comments

China has a large share of the most-trafficked sites on the web.

Top 50 on a green background

Alexa.com gives you a big picture of the most popular websites in the world. If you go to the Alexa.com/topsites page, you’ll get the top 50 sites — or the top 500 for paid membership. Below is the top 50 list with domains in China indicated.

1 Google.com –
2 Youtube.com –
3 Tmall.com China
4 Facebook.com –
5 Baidu.com China
6 QQ.com China
7 Sohu.com China
8 Login.tmall.com China
9 Taobao.com China
10 Yahoo.com –
11 360.cn China
12 JD.com China
13 Wikipedia.org –
14 Amazon.com –
15 Sina.com.cn China
16 Weibo.com China
17 Pages.tmall.com China
18 Reddit.com –
19 Live.com –
20 Netflix.com –
21 Okezone.com –
22 Xinhuanet.com China
23 VK.com –
24 Blogspot.com –
25 CSDN.net China
26 Alipay.com China
27 Office.com –
28 Instagram.com –
29 Yahoo.co.jp –
30 Microsoft.com –
31 Bing.com –
32 Google.com.hk China
33 Twitch.tv –
34 Bongacams.com –
35 Panda.tv China
36 Zhanqi.tv China
37 Livejasmin.com –
38 Naver.com –
39 Stackoverflow.com –
40 Microsoftonline.com –
41 Twitter.com –
42 Google.co.in –
43 Tribunnews.com –
44 Tianya.cn China
45 Aliexpress.com China
46 Ebay.com –
47 Amazon.co.jp –
48 Mama.cn China
49 China.com.cn China
50 Myshopify.com –

Here are some observations.

  1. China accounts for 42% of the top 50 sites, confirming China as a very important market for domain investors.
  2. The best extension in China is .com (12 sites), followed by .cn (5). .tv (2), .net (1), and .hk (1).
  3. 2-pin names are very popular. 8 of the 21 Chinese domains use 2-pin names.
  4. Short is good. Most of the Chinese domains are less than 6 characters excluding the extension.

Single letter domains in China

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Here’s who owns single letter .Cn domain names.

Black background with a green background inside that has the letter L and "one-letter .cn domains"

Corporate China loves short domains. Over the years I have seen many Chinese companies upgrade to short domains such as JD.com, Le.com, VIP.com, and DJI.com. How about single letter domains?

Even though Chinese companies prefer .com, none own a single letter .com because most of these domains are still reserved. However, we can turn to .cn, the most popular extension by volume in China.

I checked all single letter .cn domains from A to Z, and the result is shown below.

Domain Status
A.cn Not resolve
B.cn Personal site
C.cn Personal site
D.cn Games. D stands for 1st word in site name Dang Le Wang
E.cn Not resolve
F.cn Not resolve
G.cn Owned by Google. Redirect to Google.cn
H.cn Not resolve
I.cn Not resolve
J.cn Social network for women. J may stand for 1st word in Weibo (similar to Twitter) handle Jian Dan Wang
K.cn eCommerce. K may stand for 2nd word in company name Wei Ku
L.cn Not resolve
M.cn URL shortener
N.cn Not resolve
O.cn Not resolve
P.cn Links to popular sites. Meaning of P unknown
Q.cn Not resolve
R.cn Landing page seeking partnership
S.cn eCommerce of shoes. S may stand for “shoes”
T.cn URL shortener
U.cn Page title indicates domain is for sale
V.cn Not resolve
W.cn Not resolve
X.cn Not resolve
Y.cn Not resolve
Z.cn Owned by Amazon. Redirect to Amazon.cn

As you can see, there are still many single letter domains not developed into websites. Interestingly, two letters (G, Z) are owned by U.S. companies Google and Amazon respectively.

A powerful feature of single-letter domains is that they can be used as URL shorteners. In a LinkedIn post, top domain investor Yue Dai describes how SMS messages include such domains to take customers to corporate sites. For example, both “y.m.cn/00jD” and “t.cn/RV3OWuy” take you to KFC’s Chinese site.

Are domains containing “4” really bad?

by — Uncategorized 8 Comments

The number four has a bad connotation, but also some others.

The number 4 on a purple background

I regularly post messages on LinkedIn to share what I see in the Chinese domain market. A few days ago, I wrote about several 4 character domains, including 44QP.com, with 5-figure asking prices. That post started a lively discussion.

One reader wrote “Isn’t 4 undesirable in Chinese numerology?” Many people may not like “4” and the given reason is its association with death as it sounds like the Chinese character 死 (death). But, did you know that “4” also sounds like many other words without the negative connotation? For illustration, here are 10 Chinese characters which rhyme with “4”. Many more are possible.

Chinese Pinyin Meaning
世 Shi generation
丝 Si silk
事 Shi affair
势 Shi power
试 Shi try
司 Si manage
士 Shi scholar
时 Shi time
石 Shi stone
示 Shi show

Note that each Chinese character can have multiple meanings. For simplicity, only one meaning is included for each Chinese character in the table.

So, as you can see, “4” is not always bad. That explains why there are companies in China using domains containing “4”. For example, 4.cn is a well-known domain marketplace and 444.cn is a website selling domains. Also, 4399.com is a game site operated by Si San Jiu Jiu (四三九九) which ranks No. 42 on the 2019 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies list.

These recent four-letter domain sales are interesting from a Chinese perspective

by — Domain Sales 6 Comments

Kassey Lee explains why these recent domain purchases would be interesting to Chinese companies.

Four L's on a blue and orange background

Among the 4L .com sold in February as reported by Namebio, I’ve found the following domains interesting from a Chinese perspective.

ZZGC.com sold for $1,205. The domain was acquired by a Chinese investor and is for sale at 120,000 yuan (about $18,000). Potential buyers include Zhong Zi Gong Cheng (中咨工程) whose corporate domain is ZZGC.com.cn.

CBRG.com sold for $1,161. This domain may be an upgrade for CBRG.cn (little content currently) and CBRG.com.cn (landing page only).

ZJCP.com sold for $2,650. This domain was acquired by a Chinese investor and is for sale now. It can be turned into many Chinese brands, such as Zhuan Jia Cheng Pin (专家诚聘=recruit experts), Zi Ji Cao Pan (自己操盘=do-it-yourself trade as in investing), and Zhong Jie Che Pai (中介车牌=brokering license plates).

YXBF.com sold for $1,026. This domain was acquired by a Chinese investor and is for sale now. Again, many Chinese brands are possible, such as Ying Xiao Bu Fan (营销不凡=extraordinary marketing), You Xi Bin Fen (游戏缤纷=rich and diverse games), and Ying Xiong Bu Fa (英雄不乏=no lack of heroes).

MFZJ.com sold for $1,211. This domain was acquired by a Chinese company. It is currently used for selling domains but MFZJ does not seem to match the name of the company.

PYYM.com sold for $1,051. Related domain PYYM.com.cn is for sale at 190,000 yuan (about $28,500). PYYM.com has many possibilities, such as Ping Yi Yi Min (平易移民=very easy immigration), Pei Yang Ye Ma (培养野马=to educate wild horses), and Pei Yao Ying Ming (配药英明=to dispense medication wisely).

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!