Hi all,

About 7 years ago, I acquired a 4-letter domain name from ebay for a low price. I don't recall how much, but not much more than yearly registration fees. This is the domain:



I didn't put any thought in to what it means, but liked that it had a repeating x. I used it as a dynamic DNS service for a while, but there was never any content on the webpage other than a black background and image of the domain name.

Shortly after acquiring the .com, I bought the .net and .org for good measure. They were freely available and not registered previously. For whatever reason, I had whois privacy on the .com, but not the .net or .org. I have over 50 domain names that I keep in my stable. I'm not a hoarder, but I can't stand to let a domain registration lapse. Like most other domains I own, these X domains just sat doing nothing. That was, until 2 weeks ago.

I first got email contact about the .net variant since there is no whois privacy. It was obviously not spam, but this guy was interested in buying it. With some investigative work, I was able to determine he's a pro photographer based in the US. His offer was so low it wasn't even worth my consideration. I declined and figured that was that. Then, a few days later I got an email from a Chinese person. This email was written in Chinese with a copy/paste English translation underneath. No amount was offered, but they wanted to know if I was selling the .net. I didn't bother to reply, but did find it odd to get two non-spam emails about the same domain so close.

A couple days after that, I get another email from a 163.com (Chinese webmail) address written completely in Chinese with no translation. They're apparently offering 700 for the .net. They didn't include a currency symbol or other currency code, but I was now very curious.

I decided to direct the .com .net and .org to Sedo where I have other domains parked to see if there is any real interest. Within an hour, the .com had an offer for hundreds of dollars and then thousands shortly after. A few more offers in the same ballpark have come in since as well, but it has only been up for about 30 hours now.

I've had a handfull of domains parked at Sedo for years. Domains that I think are actually worth something. A couple of them get some traffic and people click the ads they're served and I've mad a few cents (literally). However, I have never received offers on them, let alone four offers within 24 hours.

So, I'm trying to find out what those initials might mean. Because of the two last email offers, I assume it's something in Chinese. I found this webpage with what looks like 3 to 4 Latin characters next to a Chinese translation. The domain in question apparently translate to "regret." I assume this is the Chinese word that's produced when typing domain on a Chinese/qwerty keyboard. But then I tried doing that on a GUI representation of a Chinese keyboard and it spelled out an unfinished sentence about children.

If the empeg brain trust has any insight it could lend, I would appreciate it. I will have to reply to the offers at some point, but I'm trying to do my due diligence. It could simply be a case of it being a 4-letter domain with easily-recognizable characters. But if Chinese McDonalds is about to launch the Mc, I want to know.

Thanks!