Unconventional domain names

Due to the rarity of one-word dot-com domain names, many unconventional domain names, domain hacks, have been created. They make use of the top-level domain as an integral part of the Web site's title. Three popular domain hack Web sites are cr.yp.to, blo.gs and del.icio.us, which spell out "crypto", "blogs" and "delicious", respectively.

Unconventional domain names are also used to create unconventional email addresses. Non-working examples that spell 'James' are j@m.es and j@mes.com, which use the domain names m.es (of Spain's .es) and mes.com, respectively.

Premium domain names

In the business of marketing domain names, "premium" domain names are often valuable, and have particular characteristics that are used in the domain appraisal process. For example, the names are short, memorable, may contain words that are regularly searched on search engines, and/or keywords that help the domain name gain a higher ranking on search engines. They may contain generic words, so the domain has more than one meaning.

Very short .com domains are valuable as their number is limited. Among the 26 single-letter second-level domains, only 3 are currently registered (q.com, x.com, z.com) because the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority reserved them in 1993. Those that were already registered were not recalled. Among the 676 .com two letter domain name 59 have been registered or purchased by global branded companies.