.CO: “Growing Like a Weed”

 

I thought you might find it interesting to read this tweet from .CO Registry CEO Juan Diego Calle, who announced that the .CO Registry beat 2013 numbers despite not having a Super Bowl commercial this year. In 2012 and 2013, the .CO Registry partnered with GoDaddy on Super Bowl commercials that advertised .CO domain names.

As far as I am aware, the .CO Registry does not publish registration numbers, so I can’t share information about the actual growth with you, but perhaps Juan or someone else from the Registry will offer a comment to add color to the tweet. Based on what Juan stated, it would seem that the Registry is seeing strong renewal rates, although that is an assumption. Pretty good for them considering how much money they likely saved by not having an expensive Super Bowl commercial.

The .CO Registry seems to be primarily focusing on the startup market to sell its new domain names, and I frequently see the company’s Twitter feed highlighting startups and companies that are using .CO domain names. The Registry is currently exhibiting at the SXSW Festival, and they have set up a special VIP booth at  SXSW.

I haven’t noticed many large .CO domain sales reported in the aftermarket, but I suppose that is a secondary matter to the Registry. I personally monitor the aftermarket for my own investment strategy. My observation is that .CO is promoted pretty well at various domain registrars, where it often appears secondary to .com. For instance, at Name.com, when you search for an unregistered .com domain name, the .CO box is right next to that. At Enom, the .CO is the first extension on the left hand side below the available .com.

Congratulations to the .CO Registry on the reported growth.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

28 COMMENTS

  1. His tweet means nothing unless there are real numbers backing it up, right now it’s just marketing.

    So based on information from the internet

    Oct 2012 – 1.35 numbers from Chief Operating Officer of .CO

    July 2013 – 1.5 million
    http://press.go.co/53583-sedo-report-details-success-of-co-domains-on-third-anniversary-revealing-roadmap-for-new-tlds

    Jan 2014, 1.6 million, so says wikipedia entry

    And I imagine with all these new extensions and mainly .web the big competitor to .co, it should level and then probably drop once renewals hit

  2. Juan emailed me this comment:

    “Both adds and renewals were up compared to Feb 2013. Big accomplishment for the team … Wasn’t really intended to generate publicity. :)”

  3. This is quoted from the February 6 2014 blog by Michael Berkens regarding the growth of .co:

    “… when they went live in July of 2010, they registered 100,000 domains in the first 10 minutes that they were live. Less than a year later, in June of 2011, they had reached 1 million domains… Just under 2 years later, by April of 2013, they had gone from 1 million to 1.5 million, so they added 500,000 domains during those 2 years… And then from April of 2013 until December 31 of last year, they added another 90,000 names, they closed the year at 1.59 million.”

    This shows the growth has slowed down.

  4. “Wasn’t really intended to generate publicity.”

    I find this statement disingenuous. This was a public tweet meant for his own registrar’s Twitter account… If you wanted to pat yourself or your team on the back, why not do it in a more meaningful way than a public tweet?

    I call bullsh*t on this snake-oil salesman.

    No registration numbers + a thinly veiled “good job team” on Twitter = marketing spin. Sorry, Juan.

    The sad thing is… you’re going to see so much more of this “go us!” messaging with everyone and their mom getting into the new gTLD garbage.

    Each gTLD operator will be clamoring for attention and talking about how amazing they’re doing for no other reason than to pump themselves up in front of the sheep, i mean, uneducated buyers. *cough* *dot club* *cough*.

    And the best part is, if you thought ICANN’s money-hungry grab of a joke known as arbitration was bad… this is like the cesspool that feeds it.

    More confusion = more potential for arbitration volume.

    More arbitration volume = more $$$ for ICANN.

    At the end of the day, ICANN doesn’t care as long as more arbitrations bring in the bling; and the registrar doesn’t care since they’ve already got your money.

    Guess whose holding the hot potato? 🙂

  5. I let all my .co domains drop; I think it’s a horrible extension to hold for investment purposes…HOWEVER, at 1.6 million reg’s, Juan & Co. (see what I did there) are making $25 million+ in gross annual revenue.

    Horrible extension, but HUGE profit center. Same for the gTLD’s…they will almost all make a profit…not investment material, BUT profitable for the registries.

  6. thou who has not sinned can throw the first stone.. Mr.Co can say what ever he wants, its his company. He can tweet what ever he wants it’s twitter! that’s what its for. He is selling a service. He is not targeting domainers like gtlds are. Colombia is a third world country its not the Uk with .co.uk. When Colombia’s economy grows and businesses in colombia start buying .co then it will get speculative. That’s all it is. But now its for a business looking for a address. And I repeat he’s not talking directly to domainers if he did he would have post a comment here, Trying to sell .co then its fair to bash him. but he didn’t, he’s minding his own business .
    I don’t see Donuts.co complaining. Donuts.co is giving birth to the best gtlds so far. If its good enough for a billion dollar business………….

  7. Regardless of what you think of the extension, I am seeing a lot more .CO addresses in Facebook ads and Google search results. Sometimes it makes me to a double-take. I see more .CO, for example, than .biz or .US. That doesn’t mean there is a greater number of developed .CO sites than in either of those extensions – but it does speak to the fact that there are real businesses out there using it, who have advertising dollars to spend.

  8. I’ve received few offers for my 3 Letter and one word .co’s.
    .CO is shorter than .COm and I think its more professional.

    The good way to invest in .co domains is to purchase Premium 3 Letters and one word domain names.

    We Own, Mayo.co OGM.co, VGN.co, Xbr.co and many more.

    I got offers for each of these.

    .CO is the way to go. .WEB reminds me WEB.com. It is where you go before you buy a real domain name. .CO is shorter than .company, .contractor….

    I strongly believe in the present and future success of .co!

    • I couldn’ imagine using a .co domain for a business, it would be embarrassing…explaining to customers that I`m just not successful enough to have a .com domain.

      Let’s face it, you only buy .co if you can’t afford the .com

      • I think startup founders (the primary audience of .CO users in my opinion) think differently from other types of people.

        Many are worried more about the product / service than the brand. Some figure if the brand takes off and is a success, they will be able to afford the matching .com if they need it.

  9. i believe with the way things are going now, most especially the commercial marketplace, .co with surely be the next big move in the industry, and better than earlier.

    IDD.co
    EEM.co
    ISSUER.co

    if you have interest…i am selling them. Reply with your offer at

    lovebabysogo@gmail.com

    • If that is a real sale, report it to Ron Jackson at DNJournal. If I don’t see this sale in there next week, then you are a liar.

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