You may or may not have already seen the news that WordPress parent company Automattic has added .CO to its limited number of TLDs available for WordPress.com fully hosted websites. People who wish to have their websites hosted on WordPress.com can select from .com, .net, .org, .me, and .CO.
This is a pretty big deal for the .CO Registry because of the expansive reach of WordPress. Think about it like this. Let’s say you want to start a blog and know very little about hosting and development. You visit WordPress.com and decide you’ll let them host your website. Now that you’ve made that decision, you have to pick a domain name. You only have 5 extensions from which to choose. Most people prefer .com, but if it’s not available to hand register, they can either choose something more obscure or choose the matching .CO domain name.
Personally, I would always recommend buying the .com, even if it’s going to cost more in the aftermarket. That’s because I am families with domain names and know this business well enough to know if a .com domain name is worth its asking price. Most people don’t have this knowledge and will simply choose what is available to them. Given the choice of hand registering MyVeganCookingBlog.com or VeganBlog.CO, I think many people would choose the .CO, especially since pricing is similar.
Obviously, I am speculating about this, but .CO has over 1.5 million domain names registered, and I think many of them are small businesses or bloggers who choose a cheaper .CO that matches their desired branding rather than registering an obscure .com. It might not be the best move for someone who wants to have a huge presence because it might cause confusion with the .com domain name, but for a person who just wants a cheap domain name, it will create a big opportunity for the .CO Registry.
This is a big deal for the .CO Registry.
The people behind the .co registry are so intelligent. Really goes to show how important the registry is and how they market and build partnerships with their domains in making their gTLD’s successful.
Extremely smart move. I’m still a strong proponent of sticking to dot com’s, however this certainly makes you think twice about investing a little in dot co. Startups have really embraced the extension. It seems like everyday I am running into another startup using it.
Even though all my main brand websites are on .com or .co.uk (obviously), I still see .co as an incredible investment as a domainer and affiliate marketer. The prices for .co in the secondary domain market are still around 10-20% of .net/org, even though I’ve found them just as good for SEO and branding.
I personally think .co should be the nail in the coffin for .org. Too many webmasters have been developing commercial sites on .org, which is strongly known as an extension for non-profit organisations. With the rising popularity of .co, I think smaller sites will reconsider .org. There’s no need to develop commercial sites on it anymore.