Is there a domain that still has opportunity for a single letter registration?

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 22 Mar 2005 08:20 PST

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I don't think single-letter
domain names are allowed by the internet powers that be.

Is there anything else we might help you with?

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by uzzz-ga on 24 Mar 2005 06:12 PST

Hello pafalafa-ga

Thanks for checking into this question. Learned a lot even if the
'answer' to my question is "no". I sincerely appreciate the effort and
those of the commentors below. In all fairness you did research and
have provided an answer. Please feel free to post "No" as an answer.

Regardzzz

Uzzz

uzzz-ga,

Thanks for inviting me to answer this for you.


It's clear from a whois search on single-letter domain names, that the
bulk of them are being held in "reserved" status, and are not being
used as active domain names.

For instance, here's a bit of the whois record for a.com, b.com, and c.com:



http://www.whois.sc/a.com
Domain: a.com
Name: IANA_RESERVED
Registrant:
    Name: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)



http://www.whois.sc/b.com
Domain: b.com
Name: IANA_RESERVED


http://www.whois.sc/c.com
Domain: c.com
Name: IANA_RESERVED



As you can see, in each case the name is "registered" to the Internet
naming authority itself -- IANA -- and is being held in reserve.


You can substitute the single letter of your choice into the urls for
the whois record -- that is, change the "a" in
http://www.whois.sc/a.com
to any other letter -- to easily see the record for that domain.  

Not all the single letter domains are reserved however, as this record
clearly shows:


http://www.whois.sc/z.com
Registrant:
Nissan North America, Inc (Z602-DOM)
   18501 South Figueroa Street
   Gardena, CA 90248-0191
   US
   Domain Name: Z.COM



I don't know how it comes to pass that a few single letters are
available, while most are not.  However, the odds of you being able to
come up with a single letter domain for yourself are, I think, pretty
slim.


Hope that was the information you were looking for, but if anything
else is needed, just let me know, and I'm at your service.


Cheers,

pafalafa-ga

Thank you

No.

Never 1, Never two, rarely rarely 3, nasty 4

I could not get godaddy to accept one or two letter domain names-
however I did get them to accept various 3 letter ones. elite-
fox.com, nbc.com, abc.com, msn.com- there are many many of them  three
letter ones friend!

In the early days of the internet (and before the web) single letter
domans were in fact registered. Take a look at x.com and z.com

However when the web was being formed in 1992 John Postel registered
all available single letters which were then assigned to Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (iana.org) See this thread;

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200007/msg00085.html

All two letters in the generic TLDs are registered, however they do
come up for sale in the secondary market where they currently fetch a
price of $10,000 to $15,000 USD for a letter/number combination and
more if it is a letter/letter combination.

Occasionally (very) the registration expires for a two letter domain
and becomes available for anybody to register, which obviously many
try to do at the instant it expires.

Likewise for three letters. Other country TLDs where the registrars
let the general public register domain names do have a few two letter
domains available. However it is practically universal among
registries that single letters are not allowed for general
registrations.

I own a 3 letter domain name, albeit a .org instead of a .com, and I
own a corresponding 4 character domain as well.

In response to eliteskillsdotcom's comment, two letter domain names do
exist (eg. o2.com)

Thank you everyone. As is often the case I learned a great deal in the
comments. I appreciate each of you taking the time to post.

Regardzzz

Uzzz

As of last year I think it was, if an owner of a 2-letter domain lets
it expire now, it cannot be re-registered.  Two letter domains are
very much sought after and are becoming more and more valuable,
especially two letter dot-coms.  I own a two letter dot-com.

Thanks for your comment.

Uzzz