December 27th, 2006 by 
Phil Stewart
If you are interested in short and rare domain names, I just ran across something you may like to see. From time to time, I check the availability of short domain names. I have even created an Available Domains Lists page to track the availability of several types of domains. It has been my experience that these short domains are registered over time and eventually sell out. When a specific type of domain sells out (three letter .coms, for example), the demand increases, driving prices up on a fixed supply.
A few weeks ago, three-number .cc domains sold out. That is, all three number domains ending in “.cc” were no longer available to register. If you wanted one, you would have had to buy it from someone who already owned one. You couldn't register a new one yourself because all one thousand of them were taken. I just noticed, however, that one three-number .cc domain is now available for registration. That domain is: 902.cc, and it is currently the only three-number .cc domain available for registration. If you want a three-number .cc domain, this is the only one that can currently be registered. 000.cc through 901.cc and 903.cc through 999.cc are taken, they aren't available.
Now this may or may not mean anything, but if marketing economics and past performance are any hint, this is significant for several reasons.
As I previously mentioned, all three-number .cc domains had previously sold out only a few weeks ago. This means 902.cc was registered at one time and it has just now become available to register again. The previous owner may have canceled the domain or it may have expired and wasn't renewed. In any case, there has been one consistent factor I've noticed when short domains sell out – they tend to stay sold out. Sure, domains will expire and domain owners will forget to renew them, but once a specific type of domain sells out, the attention received from the sellout (and attention to the domain type's limited availability) tends to act as support to keep the particular type of domain sold out. In other words, 902.cc will not be available to register for long.
Also, when a specific type of domain sells out, it tends to drive prices up for that type of domain. This may take a while as domain resellers and potential end users adjust to the lesser availability of the domains. But eventually the prices do go up because of the simple laws of supply and demand.
Finally, this domain is one in a thousand – literally. There are one thousand possible three-number combinations. For the “.cc” domain extension, nine hundred and ninety nine of these combinations are currently registered. That leaves only one that is currently unregistered.
So, if you like short, rare domains, or are looking for a reasonably cheap investment and don't want to go the traditional route, take a look at these short domain names. I can all but guarantee that 902.cc will be registered soon, and the three-number .cc domains will be sold out again. Sure, more may become available (And I will post them here if and when I find them), but for the most part, this type of domain has sold out and will remain sold out. A limited supply with a constant (or more-likely, increasing) demand can only mean one thing... increasing prices – which makes for a sound investment.
Of course, I could be wrong, but that's why I posted what I know, and will leave it up to you to decide.
Good Domaining.
Update: December 29th, 2006
902.cc has now been registered. This means the three-number .cc domains are sold out again... all one thousand are registered. 902.cc was available for around 36 hours so I am hoping someone reading this site was able to snag it. Over the next several weeks there should be others that pop up and become available. If and when this happens, I will post them here.
BlueHost.com
January 13th, 2007 at 12:35 am
[...] There are one thousand possible combinations of 3-number .CC domains (000-999). Out of those thousand possible domains, only one is currently available. Although all of the three-number .CC domains sold out a while ago, there have been a few that drop and become available for registration. They are only available for a short time before being snapped back up and registered by someone else. So when they drop, I try to post them here. The only available 3-number .CC domain currently available for registration is: 698.cc Check out this post for more information about the three-number .CC sell out. [...]