The TV46U website and domain name are less than two weeks old at the time of this writing. The name was selected using a random password generator during a family conversation over the holidays. Since the process of finding a relatively short domain name ending in .com was so easy, I began to ask myself whether this was a happy accident or something that could be repeated by others. So I did a little experiment.
I generated twenty random 3-character strings or domain names, twenty that were 4 characters long, and another twenty that were 5 characters long. Then I tried to register them all with the .com extension, or top-level domain, as it’s also known.
Before I discuss the results, I’ll mention that my favorite web-based random password generator only lets me generate as short as a five-character random string. I used the Linux program and command pwgen to generate random domain names for this article. For example, to create twenty random passwords or strings of three characters each, I used the command: pwgen -s -B 3 20.
Of the sixty total domain names that I generated in my experiment, thirty were available for purchase. Two of the thirty were ‘premium’ domains commanding big money. The domain mmk7.com was asking $2,295, and the only available 3-character domain name of the bunch, 9nm.com, was asking $9,850. All of the rest were available at the normal price, which in the case of GoDaddy, is $19.99/year.
I mentioned that none of my attempts at 3-character randomized domains were available at the regular price. Of the 4-character examples, nine, or 45% of the total, were available at the usual price. Among the 5-character randomly-generated domain names ending in .com, all but one was available, and all at the regular price, for 95% availability. (Not all are pictured in the illustration that accompanies this article. Of the ones shown, red are already owned, yellow are available at a premium price, and green are/were available at the standard price.)
So, if you’re looking for a short domain name ending in .com at the start of 2023, you’re unlikely to find one as short as 3 characters. Your odds may be about 45% of finding one 4 characters long, and as high as 95% of finding one 5 characters long, providing that you’re willing to consider randomization. At least keep this in mind before combining words together to arrive at something super-long like LuciusPhilosophyBlog.com, which is the other style of .com domain name that’s still readily available.
Happy hunting.
