URL shortners & short domains

I needed to get some business cards, and the usual thing is to use QR codes that have a tiny URL name, that then redirect to your real web site.  Easy, right?

Well most people use ‘public’ servers like bit.ly & friends.  In china many people I do business with use 1688.com .  But this got me thinking, 1688 is a FOUR letter domain, unlike any of the three letter ones that seem to be more common.  I know all the one, two and three letter domains are all gone, but are there any four letter domains?

Turns, out YES there are.

I used this site:

Domain Name Soup .com

And I was able to hammer though their UI, and find one, and register it with my usual registrar.

*This isn’t an AD, I’m not being paid to say any of this.  I was more so surprised that I could not only find a four letter domain, but it’s the initials of my wife’s business.

The best part is that I could use YOURLS, a free PHP+Mysql app to quickly and easily manage the redirects.

3 thoughts on “URL shortners & short domains

  1. A friend of mine did this…. with a 3 letter .org domain he somehow snagged in 2009. Of course his site is down at the moment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.