Speculating on .CO Domain Names

History tends to repeat itself.

OK, but for how long will the founders promote the .co? You got the name for free and the worst that could happen is to have that name go back to them. If you notice that $XX,XXXX is to much to spend you just stop it.

Also after 2 years you may just decide that it’s a lost cause, cut the losses and run. Bottom line, you have 10 million companies promoting .com and 1000 promoting their .com addresses. At some point you realize that you are promoting the .com’s guy site.

Good name: Insurance.co (insurance company) and the likes
Good name: Denver.com (a city in Co, Colorado) and the likes.

For the rest it’s hard to justify massive budgets.

all IMHO

SanFrancis.co the name you were granted?

Yes, time will tell how this extension gets adopted. The potential and marketing are there, but no one knows for sure yet. Looking forward to seeing what geo .co you got.

@ Tim

No – it’s not a hack.

I think this is an over-hyped, ridiculous waste. Someone who sees an URL with a .co is going to “see” .com and type in the .com site instead.

Domainers will make up the largest market segment that frantically registered hundreds or thousands of these domains, but I don’t see end users being remotely interested in these whatsoever.

I think many, many people will be throwing their money away on these. Only a few will be lucky or smart enough to land big sales. Thousands of others won’t sell any at all, and their speculation will have been for naught. But this is nothing new, as we all know. Registrars make the big bucks, and fools lose the big bucks.

OK, but for how long will the founders promote the .co? You got the name for free and the worst that could happen is to have that name go back to them. If you notice that $XX,XXXX is to much to spend you just stop it.

Also after 2 years you may just decide that it’s a lost cause, cut the losses and run. Bottom line, you have 10 million companies promoting .com and 1000 promoting their .com addresses. At some point you realize that you are promoting the .com’s guy site.

Good name: Insurance.co (insurance company) and the likes
Good name: Denver.com (a city in Co, Colorado)

I screwed up the .com and .co in my previous post. Sorry

.CO is pure speculation triggered by good marketing where registry and registrars would make money.Ofcourse some domains will flip for high figures among domainers but not much of a use in long term.
Unless someone reports traffic because of c.om and .co confusion, which I doubt its’ not of much value.I just backordered 1 name from networksolutions.com which they didn’t get it.
I am quite happy with type-in traffic which I am getting in.in and .co.in.

My view is that the general public which wants a domain for a personal blog might register a .info, .us, .ws or .CO as an alternative to paying what they refer to as a “domain squatter” for an overpriced .COM. However, I don’t believe the general public will start paying domainers any significant sum for generic .CO domains. They will just migrate to some longer or hyphenated brandable domain in another extension.

While I have my share of .Net and .TV domains I did not acquire any .CO domains yesterday nor do I plan to do so. Are end users really going to buy 200 thousand .CO domains over the next few years (remember renewals are $28-$30/year)? How many .Net sales do SEDO, Afternic & TDNam report annually?

CapeCod.co

(second guessing)

my bad. I missed that note in your previous emails. Sorry.

Looking forward to seeing the name. And the development of it.

A fool and his money are easily parted!

.tv means something to everyone in the world yet……crash!

People should be careful and wait to see what happens here.

In my case I reg’d 3 .Co’s: 1 LLL, 1 product and 1 spanish keyword.

I’ll monitor the traffic and sales for a a little while before ramping up or getting out.

In the worst case scenario, these domains will only have value among domainers in which they create their own market…as with many new extensions…this will last a couple years or so.

So, you have to know which names to get and when to flip them.

I picked up many one worders which I would guess are worthless except to domain flippers and newbie investors so it will most likely be them I flip these too.

Worst case scenario I only triple my money.

last three day i was very upset because designersdigest.com was already registered by someone else and i had to register designersdigest.us and designersdigest..in but now no worries.. I got the DOTCO

“last three day i was very upset because designersdigest.com was already registered by someone else and i had to register designersdigest.us and designersdigest..in but now no worries.. I got the DOTC”

You can’t be serious? The .com is IT, not the .co. You have (or should have) the same worries as before. Frankly the .us is better, at least they know it’s not the .com when you tell someone, not they’ll assume you said .com instead of .co.

“I screwed up the .com and .co in my previous post. Sorry”

LOL, lots of people are already doing that in their posts.

I secured NorthernVirginia.co and Charlottesville.co. Pure speculation.

Another scam extention followed by idiotic thinking and stupid analysis.

There is zero chance for significant end-user adoption. SO many people are so dumb…..it is hard to imagine.

@ Vinnie

“Stupid analysis”

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. You sound like a smart guy… what have been some of your success stories? Let us learn from your smarts and experience.

“There is zero chance for significant end-user adoption.”

As an alternative to the .com, maybe.

But what about Spanish or Columbian sites? I see dev. opportunities there for sure

Nobody knows for sure. When I started buying spanish .com in 1998 people told me it was a waste.
When I started buying .tv in 2000, I heard the same thing again. I have extremely well in this business but it took massive risk and the rewards did not happen until years latter.

Bottom line is this, if I listened to those idiots, I would of been working a “dead end” job. Instead I told the “naysayers” to “F-off”, and now I am basically retired, work 2 hours a day, and get to hang out with my 2 year old twins all day.

Alot of those people are jeolous today, but they were the same ones who ripped me 10 + years ago. Even though I passed on .co, it’s not fair to rip people who did. I would love to see more people succeed. This is the best business in the world. Like anything time will tell.

Thanks, Jim

Yippee!!! I got the domain name – HYPERLINKS.CO

I would assume it is a premium domain name. Of course, I will be selling it. Question is – Should I sell it now or wait a bit longer for the .CO market to mature and then sell it?

Let me know your thoughts friends.

Cheers.

As stated at some point, if Google ranks there is no reason not to develop. It is more than proven that one can get the clicks with a keyword-match domain and quality content. When read in a search que, .CO will not be guessed by a searcher. Could be a good extension for arbitrage for those of us with real generics. I scored a couple mid-size cities geo.CO’s and we will see…

I am reading reports that Google will automatically set the location of any site built on a .co domain name to “Columbia” (this is what people have found when testing Google Webmaster Tools) and that they’re blocked from changing that targeting to a different country. If that remains the case, then it’s going to be a real struggle getting the domains ranked on non-Columbian flavours of Google…

Personally, I won’t be buying any – I see it going the same way as all the other cctlds-as-pseudo-tld launches over time.

Having said that, I don’t have any animosity towards those who choose to invest of course – so good luck with it!

Any word on that big 6 fig .CO sale?

Hi,

Besides getting the .co…of some real good “generic .com type-in traffic domains”

The only ‘natural’ thing to me would be “Geo” & Generic targeted domains having to do with Colorado.

Example:

skiing .co
snowboarding .co
fishing .co
hunting .co
denver .co

Etc…

Just my 2 cents….might be worth less than $0.02….LOL

——-

Peace To ALL ~ “Generic Domain Name Asset Investors” !
Dan

you think a .org generates spill over traffic….wait till you start marketing a .co …..an extension 1 letter away from .com but without a bit of recognition…..

I think a big mistake made is the allowing of cyber squatting and where registrants allow for 100′s of domains to be bought then just simply domain parked to be sold later at a profit. Most of the time these prices are to high and the guy who wants to develop a website will fall back to the .com etc where they know the extension is more acceptable. The .co will then never build up a good reputation as the quality websites built on these domains will be so thin and hard to find.

@Edwin

It took over a year for Google to let .me domains to be geo-targeted via the webmaster panel. How they decide? It is probably done in response to the webmaster behavior. As more people built sites that geo target other countries on a ccTLD, Google will let them target their original audiences to create a better user experience.

I am sure it will be quicker .co. But, Colombia is a much bigger market than Montenegro and it will create a larger problem. How differentiate between people really targeting CO or targeting all english speaking countries or all spanish ones.

It will be solved via the webmaster central IMO.

According to PCPro.co.uk, Google said this about .CO domains:

“We will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted. Webmasters will soon have the functionality to be able to specify this by using the geotargeting options in Google Webmaster Tools.”

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use

I’ve just discovered that a .co domain name that i registered through 123-reg.co.uk (lse.co) did not actually get registered.

They charged me £35 and it was ordered after the “pre-order” phase… i called them up to find out why the domain was not appearing on my account and they told me someone else had taken it. They referred me to the “pre-order” t&c’s. I explained to them that i bought it after 7pm on 20/07/10 so it was not a pre-order.

I purchased a domain (yel.co) through godaddy after i’d ordered the one through 123-reg… that domain went through without any problems.

The question i’ve got is: do i just have to accept that 123-reg failed to register the domain for me, or should i pursue the matter further?

I cant help feeling that if i’d ordered through godaddy i might have actually obtained the lse.co domain name…

Hi Rob,

Go daddy was the best to use,,,for .co if you did not want to get into a bidding auction.

They only allow one order per domain…

example : if rob .com had not been ordered by someone else through Go Daddy…you could have ordered it for $27.00

And if they beat all the other ‘Registrars’…name jet, snapnames etc….

You would have the domain…no auctions or anything.

That WAS THE BIG DIFFERENCE from most.

Best,
Dan

I registered 6 of the same .CO’s across Godaddy, Domain.com, Enom and Network Solutions. Domain did not get any, the others each got 1 and I missed 2.

Good news on Google. I am listing my geo.CO’s for $200 and some popular last names I bought yesterday.

Again, we will see…

I just registered mobi.co, I am really excited….. think of all the subdomains I could set up insurance.mobi.co, hotels.mobi.co etc…

Elliot – A post about the events leading to release of 1st level .co domains could make an interesting read. Who had the initial idea, was it the gov that approached someone for marketing or vice versa, obtaining gov approval and support, hiring of Lori, etc..

Wow…thanks for the heads up. This is so great…now I can own some premium domain names…I just bought an amazing premium domain home-for-sale.co Hope this is a good investment.

@idan

I checked and you did actually register this double hyphen name.

well the .COM and .NET are going to cost me $13,000- USD for the 2 for my new Company is Australia.

I have already the below for my Company, should I also get .org?

.com.au
.co
.biz
.info
.asia

If you are so “unbiased” how about starting a “complaints post” so there is a platform to explore how many dissatisfied customers there are, or any suspected dodgy dealings ?

So the .co launch can be congratulated on a successful launch, it brought large nos of domainers on board, many who benefited financially who helped promote it. It was great marketing.

I typed “.co launch complaints” into google and i got no decent results. tried “.co launch domain complaint”, same thing, strange for the scale of it , and that some were kept waiting for days for their results (I didnt get a rejection of preordered names till friday afternoon !!!) And i suspect two of those were available and then clawed back by the .co people when they realized they should have had them in the reserved bunch !!!

But a platform to discuss it I have not yet found !!!!!

With some reservations, I actually think .co will be a winner quite simply cos the way it is being marketed, they could make a three legged donkey into a racehorse. !!!!!

@ Dee

“If you are so “unbiased” how about starting a “complaints post”’
“But a platform to discuss it I have not yet found !!!!!”

—-
Get off your lazy ass and start one yourself. I have my hands full right now with enough websites and projects. Since you seem to think there’s a big market for it, why not take the bulls by the horns, get a WordPress template, and dedicate your time to building the biggest and best .CO complaint forum you can. Based on your assessment, it sounds like it would be in high demand and with all those exclamation points you’ve used, you seem to have the drive and excitement to do it.

It’s amazing that people seem to think that others should build something for them to use. It’s like yelling at your neighbor to build a swimming pool so you can go swim laps… do it yourself!

@Elliot

No I wont be starting, a .co complaints forum, like you I value my time, and recognize the futility of it. It happens I rarely write anything on the internet, whereas you maintain a Domain Name Investing News and tips blog and I assumed that you were open to varying opinions. An unbiased opinion requires a consideration of variation in position.

You said “I can’t be completely unbiased despite the fact that I feel like I am offering my unbiased opinion.”

While you admit this. I mistakenly thought you would be more interested in opinions from different angles. It was not a complaints forum i was looking for but a a serious reflection on any negative experiences. !!! Sorry I’ll move on.

@ Dee

You can post what you’d like as long as you’re civil. There’s no reason to post an article for complaints because I have none and this is my blog. You said it yourself that you couldn’t find a complaint forum so maybe its just you.

Perhaps you should start something on DNForum if you don’t want to start a blog or site.

I used http://www.networksolutions.com to get these 3 below

http://www.inventorspot.co
http://www.edisonnation.co

and my new Company one

http://www.realinventions.co

I was happy with the service and also made a keystroke mistake and canceled the order and was reimbursed through pay-pal

also Jim Holleran, thank you for sharing your experience, nothing ventured, then nothing gained, life is full of risks and you can put your head in the sand or get out their and make things happen,

here are some links I found for .CO

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/07/co-domain.html

http://www.melbourneit.com.au/domainname/co-domain-names

Dear Elliot,

I am trying to sell the following domains, can you offer some insight as to finding a buyer?

GodHearsUs.com

PowerofIllusion.com

DomainSalesNow.com

UnityConsciousness.com

Kind Regards,
Maya

@ Maya

I am not a domain broker, and wouldn’t be able to help… sorry. I have written quite extensively about selling domain names, so hopefully that will help.

@priv

well, time will say who is right and who is wrong.

@Vector,

You just summed it up like all extensions. 100% correct!

In New Zealand our domains end in .co.nz so to be able to leave the .nz of the end of a domain address must be a plus I don’t mind blowing some money on a gamble it’s a bit of fun and if I lose the lot so what,I’ll have a story for the rest home when I’m 80 what I’ve done is brought 2nz.co & n-z.co + others and I’ll run sub domains of these for the accommodation industry eg:www.newzealand.n-z.co,Have fun with it regards Pete.

This will help, Google comments

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use

I bough a few .CO domain names through GoDaddy and am really impressed by their service. I made a mistake on two of my orders and was refunded without ny drama.

I cancelled googel.co to avoid any legal dealings with google, nut maybe should have kept in. Could have used it to promote some gelatine based porduct for kids…

I am mainly going to be using the following domains for my Adwords campaigns.

3gphones.co
creditcardapply.co
buymobile.co
cellphoneplans.co
consumercredit.co
creditsolutions.co
equitylinecredit.co
loanbadcredit.co

I decided on these purchases based on the estimated global adwords spend amounts. If I need to sell these I am hoping to make at least a 200% profit.

More information on .CO

http://www.cointernet.co/domain/faqs/co-domain-faqs

Also, the discount online shopping site Overstock.com announced last week that it purchased the registration rights to the domain name O.co from .CO Internet for $350,000. Not only will the single letter website domain be handy for the Internet company’s branding efforts, but it will also be a handy shortcut for users on desktops and mobile devices.

http://www.pewnews.com/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=1823277

The above say’s it all, and the die hard .COM to the people

I purchased the 6 .CO’s that I wanted happy with that, yes there are risks, but also consider this, you can sell your .CO cheaper than the .COM and make a some buck’s

give it 2 years and the game will be very different!

Hi Guy,
So far I have 6 only.

http://www.realinventions.co
http://www.inventorspot.co
http://www.edisonnation.co
http://www.inventorsblog.co
http://www.inventionblog.co
http://www.inventorsguide.co

the first one is for my Company, the others well see if there is interest or not

I don’t understand why somebody would buy english .co
words on a country extension that speaks spanish.

For example, Travel.co is not nearly as good as Viajar.co which is Travel in Spanish. I been buying spanish .com since 1998 so I have been around this game and this makes no sense.

@ Jim

“I don’t understand why somebody would buy english .co
words on a country extension that speaks spanish.”

Because Google is supposedly going to be treating .CO as an international domain name rather than just a ccTLD.

OK, that makes more sense.

@Elliot “Google is supposedly going to be treating .CO as an international domain name rather than just a ccTLD.”

Does it means that the content of the domain could be in english, or could I register for example a French .co domain to be targeted to France (or at least French speakers around the globe)?

@ Ame

I am not sure, but I am under the assumption that it means Dog.co (for example) will rank on Google.com and not just Google.co, which will presumably be used in Colombia as the default. Most cctlds rank well in Google in their country but not necessarily on the main Google search, so if you have a high ranking .CA domain name in Canada, an American may not see the site listed as high in Google.

Very good article on the codomain. Personally I think its gonna be a success, but it needs time. People have to get used to it. I secured two co domains through http://linuxhostingplans.wordpress.com/co-domain
These are love.co and dating.co
It’s just an investment. Will keep them for a while and then sell for profit.

@Pieter Hoogendyk
I guess you will receive some good type-ins on both of those domains

Why don’t you get a dating script and develop dating.co?
If you could get, let’s say, 2,000 members it would be sold for much more than the domain name alone.

This will all make you laugh, but what’s the best way to sell domains and to me this is a learning experience, I will make mistakes, I have 10 Domains pointed at my business and another 10 that are parked

I will say that the 10 domains point at my business main site have generated business for me in strange ways with the search engines

I am hoping I can sell http://www.inventorsblog.co

the other are who knows

ok, I bought one .co, that’s
http://www.kau.co
kau means buy in Japanese.

I took a shot with several .co domains, As long as they are not ignored or given sub par weight by Google I think the extension is sure to catch on. Started work on one of them to see if I notice any difference in search results. I have to admit checking on my own site I have typed .com instead of .co a few times already.

Hi,

I got some .co domains but many of them refunded because my registrar was not very good to get them for me.

Some of my domains :

pokerguide.co
mobilemarket.co
compute.co
ecurrency.co
——————

.CO’s are providing value for me and redirecting traffic to my main site from high value .COM’s were you get the .CO instead

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