Weird Domain Names

Bq--3c6bjr3uyysnghfogdbcbrpqvvwmdda.com

[johannamck]

I saw a whole bunch of domain names are expiring today, such as

BQ--3C6YBQFQYDA2YAGBHDDYLR4QYXYNK2OWRQ.COM

Very brandable and memorable. I'm thinking of snapping it up ;-)

No really... what's this about? Who'd register a name like that and why? Just curious...

Why not "bj-asdf," at least it would be easier to type?

[Lisa]

Those are marker domains... The Registry creates them to track things. You are not allowed to register any domain with "--" in the third and fourth positions. This is written into the Registry contract. I have no idea why a Registry needs marker domains but they say they do. I would have thought a database running with indexes, primary keys and the such would do better.

This is just an oddity, enjoy them. Their are thousands of them.

[johannamck]

Thanks for your answer! Interesting.

Strangely, namewinner lists them as domain names ready for re-registration.

[havarian]

im not sure off this but i think names with non english letters will look like that, so that the domain for the register looks like yours ex. but for the average user could be an german or chinese letter which not exist in the english alphabet

[PatrickDeese]

Those are internationalized domains - I know because I had to register one for a client whose business name is spelled properly with an Ñ - but we use the site with N as a substitute for the letter - but to protect the company, we bought both versions.

You have to have a special plug-in to use "non-standard" domains - so they aren't terribly accessible to the average user.