Once one ventures outside of .com, the type of name that sells varies with the extension. While the best way to see what sells is to perform a detailed sales analysis over the past few years, a look at the top sales in the last year can provide a fast and useful indication.
Three Lists
Before I explain what the columns represent, have a look at the following table. What do you notice?
Top ten sales listed in NameBio up for the year 2024 in A=.xyz, B=.info, and C=.co extensions.
If I asked you to tell me what was different about the terms in the three columns, a response might include the following:
- The terms in columns A and C are generally shorter than those in column B.
- Column B has non-English terms.
- Column B also has more multiple term entries, like ‘MyEurop’ or ‘dan-news’.
- While the terms in columns A and C are both short, they tend to be shorter in C.
- If we compare A and C, the terms in list A tend to be complete words, but that is not universally so in C, where we have acronyms as well as terms like ‘wav.’
While it is risky to assume too much from small data sets, this sort of overview might be helpful guidance.
The three lists represent, in order, the top 10 domain name sales recorded on NameBio for the year 2024 in A=.xyz, B=.info and C=.co extensions. You can readily find the prices and sellers/venues on NameBio.
It is clear that the top .xyz sales are mainly single word, the the top .co sales are very short, particularly compared to the top .info sales that tend to be longer, multi-part terms, sometimes in languages other than English.
But when I looked at the three lists, one more thing jumped out at me for the .xyz list…
Most Top .XYZ Sales in 2024 Were Terms from the Physical Sciences
I was struck by the fact that almost every term in the .xyz top sales list for 2024 was a term that would be used regularly by a physical scientist, someone that worked in physics, chemistry, astronomy or atmospheric science.
Quantum is finding relevance in Quantum Computing of course, but more fundamentally quantum is one of the most important ideas in physics. Newton is one of the best known physicists of all time.
Physicists talk of stable systems, and universal laws, they create experiments, models and theories. One can observe physical phenomena such as an eclipse or halo.
Even the couple of terms that are not exclusively from physical science, find mention such as cradle of creation of elements, particles, stars or galaxies. While the magic potion elixir is not a physical science term, it could readily be used as a metaphor, especially in high energy physics.
I wondered if the trend continued, so I looked beyond the top 10 sales in .xyz, and I found operator in 11th place. Mathematicians and physicists speak of operators extensively, although the term most likely sold because of relevance in the artificial intelligence agent world.
There were multiple other physical science terms in the top 30 .xyz sales of 2024, including interval (14th), trillion (19th), spectral (26th) and synthesis (27th).
Although the use of .xyz domain names is predominantly in decentralized ventures such as crypto, venture capital, online tools, decentralized collaboration, images and other creative works, etc., the terms that sell do not directly represent those, for the most part.
When I did an analysis several years ago of What Sells in .XYZ?, I made the comment “Do not be afraid of less common, or more technical, terms.” This article would add to that “particularly if those less common and technical terms are from the physical sciences.”
News Source:Bob Hawkes ，This article does not represent our position.
