.CO vs. .Net for Geodomain Names

There seem to be quite a few people adamantly opposed to investing in .CO domain names for various reasons. There are also plenty of people who believe .CO domain names are great investments, both in terms of current value and future valuations. I am of the belief that .CO domain names will become valuable in the future (I have a 3-5 year timeline).

That being said, I am wondering your opinion on .CO vs. .net for geodomain names.  This is clearly hypothetical, but would you rather pay more for Boston.net (currently on auction at Sedo) or likely pay less for Boston.CO, which does not appear to be on sale but I will use it for the sake of this question?

I know that some people think .CO would be a nice hack for cities in the state of Colorado, but I am just wondering how you’d rate city .net vs. city .CO domain names. Please vote in the poll below and feel free to discuss.


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

122 COMMENTS

  1. I would rather have Boston.us than Boston.co, so Boston.net over Boston.co is a no-brainer IMO. I am not a big fan of GEO domains in non-native ccTLD.

    If you are going for the “Company” meaning for .CO, I don’t think GEO domains are a great fit to start. The one exception might be Colorado. Denver.co makes a lot more sense than LasVegas.co

    Brad

  2. I share the same opinion with you, that the .CO is a fortune for Domainers who can invest on it. Especially, on the one word or geo of the suffix now, will surelly make good money in about 2-3 years time from now. Cheers.

  3. I share the same opinion with you, that the .CO is a fortune for Domainers who can invest on it. Especially, on the one word or geo of the suffix now, will surely make good money in about 2-3 years time from now. Cheers.

  4. Absolutely no contest.

    .net has been the .com runner-up for more than a decade.

    .net is in extremely wide use globally.

    There are millions of web-users that would easily say, “.co, what’s that?”

  5. Interesting, the dot net has been around for so long that it has old school weight.

    The dot Co being new has to develop over the next few years and will only develop that worth with what happens in the co landscape by people who develop them.

  6. .NET has a much better footprint. Public acceptance of .net is far ahead of .co. Also, .co is not a logical or intuitive fit for geo domains. Maybe Denver, yes … but sort of non-sensical for other geo’s.

  7. As I’ve been saying forever, .NET could have been the next .com, had extreme potential, but unfortunately it has always been considered the stepbrother of .com and domainers are the first to valuate it at no more than 10% of its .com counterpart (which IMO is a shame!). The general public is now used to this view and there’s nothing more to do to recover the situation. I think .CO, being a new and meaningful TLD, could gain value among the general public even for geodomains and other kinds of domains not directly related to “company”. Anyway, no extension will ever reach or overtake .com, this is pretty obvious.

  8. It is natural for people to put any new extension down.
    .net has been around a while I think it is almost maxed out, or the price percentage gain is limited.

    >.co on the other hand has the chance to hit 100x to 1000x returns in 5 years. The risk to reward is outstanding. For 30 bucks you don’t get a lot but if your willing to take a chance and spend 1 or 2k on a generic then that is the way to go. Tequila.co was sold for what 13 or 14k. How could not be a great deal for a company selling tequila or a comparison site for tequila. What other name would you want to use.

    >.co will return big for people that have one worded generics. Just my personal opinion. On the geo side I believe that Colorado is going to see some huge numbers in the future. They don’t even have to start a new ext like new york. It is already done.

    I would rather have a .co than a .com in Colorado. that is if your looking at the whole picture price etc. Though in other states it would be different i would take the .com, and .co over net in any state.

  9. The stats for .co seem to be edging out .net.
    According to Website Outlook, Walmart dot co is receiving
    377 pageviews per day vs 82 for Walmart.net, of course thats
    no where near the 3,716,216 that Walmart.com is receiving
    but who knows what will happen in 5-10 years. Dot co will never be a .com but it is imo, a good future investment.

  10. @Don
    You would take Denver.co over Denver.com. Seriously?

    Look, I’m friends with the people behind dotCO and no one is happier for them. In fact, I was chatting with Eduardo about DotCO’s future when Michael and I spoke at the Latin American conference in Uruguay.

    But, let’s get real here. DotCO has hit the ball out of the park, but they’ll be the first to tell you that comparing dotCO to dotCOM is not only plain silly, but will hurt their brand in the long run.

  11. @ Alan

    That is kind of a strange argument IMO.

    I am sure plenty of other TM typo domains like Facebook.co, YouTube.co, Google.co, etc. get traffic as well.

    It is because in that case it is a clear typo of a popular developed .COM site. Generic .CO have virtually no type in traffic in general.

    Brad

  12. .co sucks big time. .co developed will lose traffic to. Com. People think when they see domain.co os typo n they think website owner forgot to put M. Well only domainers know its not typo but billions think. Co istypo of. Com n they never visit. Co n go to. Com eventually.

    Look at. Your bahamas.co it’s has not reached alexa less than million even being developed for a year.

    Show me one. Co site that has alexa xx•xxx range.

    .co is failure n will be so. Imp

  13. Don’t forget that “CO” is the most widely used abbreviation for the word, “County”. When looking at highway signs (especially the smaller, mile-marker type, CO is used, almost universally, to represent County.

    That’s why I reg’d Sonomo.Co and Marin.Co during LandRush. Some counties have much greater recognition than others. Sonoma and Marin are two good examples. So are Napa, Orange, Mendocino, & Humboldt. There are many more. I believe dotCO domains representing popular counties will do as well as many geo based, city dotCO domains.

    @Don

    Another extension to check-out is dotLA (yeah, I know, “Laos” – but see http://www.la and see how it’s being positioned for marketing purposes). When dotNYC is eventually authorized by iCANN, it won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the US west coast will suddenly take a keen interest in dotLA. Will they care about the fact that it’s the official country code for Laos? Not anymore than end users are concerned that dotME is Montenegro, dotTV is Tuvulu or dotCO is Colombia. All that’s missing, IMHO, is a little brute force marketing:

    http://nametalent.com/blog/?p=2822

    Nevertheless, I would limit dotLA registrations to keyword based products and services offered locally within the greater Los Angeles area (i.e., dentists, lawyers, day care, check cashing, payday loans, airport shuttle, etc.).

  14. .NET, not even a question, it’s a well established extension that’s been around for years and years….. .CO is just a ccTLD, so I would use it if I am marketing to Colombians.

  15. How is the .NET market doing “poorly”?

    1.) There are 13.5M .NET regs
    2.) .NET is the second most popular gTLD in the world.
    3.) There are 300,000+ new .NET registered every month with a net gain of 75,00+ per month

    Alexa stats –

    116 of the top 2000 traffic sites are .NET
    1000 .NET are in the first 16,000 Traffic sites.

    The “domainer” market might be weak for .NET, but the end user market is strong for quality generics.

    Brad

  16. This is the truth about .CO right now if Boston.CO and Boston.net was in auction the .net would sell for more, however in 5 or 6 years time this will be a different storey. Also do not let this statement think that you can buy .co names cheaper than .net names because you can not the owners of good .co domains want good cash, and also hardly no domainers own any extreem key word .co’s the top 1000 keywords .co’s are mainly owned by 3 big companies example domainmarket.com and try and buy a cheep keyword .co from them lots of prices are xxx,xxx If you ask me i think thats why the sedo .co auction did not sell many names simply because the reserve prices was to high. My advice if you ever get the chance to buy a nice .co keyword name cheap then buy, the awareness is growing and lots of small businesses globaly are using the value can only go up.

  17. Geo .CO doesn’t interest me unless it is perhaps Cartagena or Medellín or Bogotá (without the IDN characters). My wife is from Colombia and while I have a fair number of .Net and .TV domains, I hold zero .CO. I am not opposed to the extension for Spanish keywords but given the number of non-.COM domains in my portfolio, I don’t see the need to increase my risk profile further. .CO has been marketed heavily but time will tell how much of an end user aftermarket develops for English .CO keywords. Meanwhile, the public is well aware of the usage of .Net and I do sell .Net domains. While I normally don’t buy the “developing on anything but a .COM sends your traffic to the .COM” argument, a .CO development could perhaps create some confusion. Of course if you pick up a great keyword .CO for reg fee and plan to develop, go for it.

  18. I would take boston.ma over .net and Vail.co over Vail.net (same with Denver.co) but otherwise .net wins by 1+ mile.

    They are many interesting .cctld that match US states, for some really good keywords or cities they may be worth trying. Everyone knows or assumes that Boston.ma is a site about Boston, Ma. The same for Denver.co, Baltimore.md (Moldova), Philadelphia.pa (Panama) etc. Insurance.pa for example can be done as a PA insurance. I know what some may be thinking, but rank for PA alone and you will be rich, no need for the 50 states.

  19. While I voted for .net here, the argument that .co is at it’s essence a Columbia-only extension is true but limited. John-Q-Public will never know the origin. If and when he needs a domain he will see .co and decide whether to use it or not. It’s on the landing page of the big registrars. I’ve sold a couple smaller city dot co from high$xxx to low $xxxx and have more. They were really suburbs. IMO the best use is real estate agents. Getting small business advertisers for a geo site appears hard enough for those with a .com. I’ve tried with city-restaurants.com and half the opening sale is explaining the dash. Mission aborted! I can’t imagine trying with dot co outside of Colorado.

    My question is, why is .CO always capitalized?

  20. I think its a bad example… Boston.co make no sense. in a way, its a bad name.
    I’ll take a good .net over the same .co, but a good example would be denver.co vs. denver.net

  21. Easy one. .NET has SEO value. .CO may – but is unproven. Both probably have similiar Direct Nav value.

    And I say that while owning TwinCities.CO and HamptonRoads.CO

  22. Dot net is sinking since many tlds went out these last years and glad to see eliott pointing that .co vs .net
    I own many good .net that could worth $500+ years ago and recently put it all to auction to sell them all since less value now, guess what I wasn’t wrong most were sold from reg fee to 5%+ over reg fee price. So people are less interested about .net. I even daily find great .net for hand reg but not worth. SO for me .net is DEAD, sorry for .net owners.

    For .co I’m not really sure it competes with .net but have some value on LLL and other generic right now will it gain more value? I don’t have an 8 Ball!

    Like someone said above boston.us will be better trusted than .co but .net will not be so great for geo. I don’t think boston.co is an option.

    As said .com is king but for some (sorry for many) alternative tlds are most wanted and dreamed for sucess illusions 🙂

  23. Boston.net then Boston.us for development,

    ..but I’d rather have VisitBoston.com over either of them TBH…but you can guess who owns that one 😉

    I would’nt be interested in Boston.co at all but i’m sure someone could make a profit from it one way or other.
    ———-

    “The “domainer” market might be weak for .NET, but the end user market is strong for quality generics.

    Brad”

    Strong in the 1 to 4k range or higher ?

  24. RE: .US

    IMO, .US has been around for a long time and still hasn’t had much consumer adoption/awareness. I bought some .US and looked into it a couple years ago, but I opted against making more of an investment.

  25. Beyond the short term speculative value of Boston.co, it’s worthless.

    Right down there with Boston.cc, Boston.ws, Boston.me etc.

    Maybe if you spend $20k on development, Boson.co might be worth $5k.

  26. I would not waste time and money developing Boston.co even if I got the domain name for free – seriously.
    Sure it might be possible for domainers to make some money flipping dot co names, but it can’t compete with net/org (and com of course) for serious development.

  27. Personally I would prefer to spend $29 on the .Co and allocate the rest of my funds towards development. Lets not forget the .Co is a gTLD, not a ccTLD. What used to be is no longer. The proof is in the ranking. I just recently started an SEO campaign and I’m ranking my .Co in Google’s SERPS with the same effort it would take to rank a non descriptive .net or .org.

    I agree with Mr. Castello. I would never compare a .com to a .Co. Everyone knows .Com is king.

    But I think it’s extremely important to understand the psychology behind the purpose of your investment. I don’t believe the .Co registry really intended to please domain flippers or squatters. My personal belief is that they want to attract real businesses that intend on creating equity in their extension via development.

    In my experience if you’re investing in .Co and plan on developing then it is a winner.

  28. “I’m ranking my .Co in Google’s SERPS with the same effort it would take to rank a non descriptive .net or .org. ”

    Bo hoo. I am ranking, two of the probably the most competitive terms [keyword XX] where xx is a US state abbreviation with just a few forum links and next to zero work. And these actually make sense since they appeal to visitors from that state searching for that service.

    .Co makes ZERO sense for a developer, unless you’re Pepsi and develop Pepsi.co . .Co sucks today and it will suck even more tomorrow, don’t build your house in a swamp. It will sink, no matter how nice you build it.

  29. “Lets not forget the .Co is a gTLD, not a ccTLD”

    Just because people keep repeating this does not make it true. .CO is a ccTLD and that is an indisputable fact.

    The registry can market it how they want, but it does not change that fact.

    Brad

  30. @David C

    on the co and .com in denver I would take the denver.co. To buy denver.com would be around 2-3 million or whatever. Denver.co could pick up for nothing. But I am just to look at the whole picture price etc. When comparing these two. the .co has a built in factor that no one is talking about for colorado.

    This is only true for Colorado. all the others I would not even try to start a .co or compete against a .com no comparison exists. For example Palmsprings.com it would be insane for someone to start palmsprings.co. But not my money.

    But for the money if someone wants to buy colorado.co or denver .co I think they would have a greater chance of making it. All the others are going to have a very hard time.

  31. Yeah, .co will be great for Colorado geos, just like .in was for Indiana geos. (How many do you see, let alone visit.) But, they’ll get pumped and sold as ‘make sense’ geo domain names to… ‘domainers’, who’ll (again) wait for those endusers that ‘are just dying to build US geos sites on cctlds’!! “Not!”

    @Nimo “”Lets not forget the .Co is a gTLD, not a ccTLD.””
    And you keep telling yourself that too.

  32. @Nima,

    Do you actually believe that, or are you just so heavily invested in .co like so many other of the promoters here that you don’t mind that you are making incorrect statements?

    .co is a ccTLD, specifically for Colombia. Google gives you the option to select it as “global”, and it may rank better than a typical ccTLD, but it is still a ccTLD and NOT a gTLD. There is a difference between being an actual gTLD and “ranking” as one in a search engine.

    See: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

  33. @M

    you only need to type in

    “dog tips”

    on google

    to know that dogtips.co comes up on the first page and that .CO is a gTLD

    by the way, I highly recommend that you do not go to dogtips.com version as you will be redirected to a cheapdrugs.com site and possibly infect your own computer with viruses. Warning on the .com site. Do not go there.

  34. From a development perspective, both extensions are good for SEO.

    I’ll take either one of them, develop, rank them well and sell.

  35. .net is old and reputable… thats why people love it.. .co is new and needs some time to grow… and it has huge huge potential..

  36. Hi Elliot,

    If I owned Boston Pizza, for example, I would prefer the .CO. for obvious reasons. It’s more of a company than a network. Plus Boston.co looks better than Boston.net. Really it depends what you are going to do with it, whether you choose .net or .co. If I was tight on cash, I’d probably go with .CO. If i had the cash, I’d probably see if Boston.com was a chance and if not possible, think really hard about the .net and what I would do with it.

  37. @ Doon,

    I’d say that’s slightly state/country-centric, wouldn’t you? There are many meanings behind .CO, not just Colorado. Any company that has a city name in it would do just fine, like Boston Pizza or New York & Company. Boston.co or New York.co would both look great for these companies.

    BTW, Brad made a good point. Even Denver.co you are not going to get for peanuts. Even now .CO is worth around 4-5 percent of the dotcom (just a rough estimation) and Denver.co would set you back at least $100,000, especially because of the natural hack quality.

  38. @M- I stand corrected on the technical standing of the .Co extension with ICANN, however my primary concern is driving traffic via search engines. Thanks for sharing the link.

    I am not “heavily” invested. I have about 30 niche specific .Co domains that are in the process of being developed and utilized to drive traffic. Just a small percentage of my overall portfolio (which mostly consists of .Com).

    I initially invested and started my case study to prove or disprove how the search engines treat .Co in the SERPS. So far, so good! It has been a fun learning process.

    I appreciate everyones feedback, thanks again.

  39. @David C.

    “But, let’s get real here. DotCO has hit the ball out of the park, but they’ll be the first to tell you that comparing dotCO to dotCOM is not only plain silly, but will hurt their brand in the long run.”

    Yep, hit the nail on the head, David. Many of us have been saying that it is o wrong to compare .co to .com. .CO has its own independent life. .com is in a different sphere, and actually, there is no need to talk about .com. That’s how far removed it is from every comparison discussion. I think it is more realistic, at this point, to talk about .co vs .net.

  40. In addition to BenchMob.com redirecting to BenchMob.co, some of the others I have seen in my research are:

    AngelList.com redirecting to Angel.co (Read all the business press on Angel List – it’s pretty incredible!)

    ThirtyDayChallenge.com redirecting to Challenge.co (Check out the traffic stats for Challenge – not too shabby)

    How about this one – http://www.bmr-legroupe.com redirecting to BMR.co. Ummm, you’d better believe these guys are happy to have picked up their .CO domain!

    Here is yet another real business redirecting the com to the co.

    http://www.escellinternational.com
    http://www.escellinternational.co/

    They are out there and growing for sure

  41. .net for its history.
    .net for ranking boost.
    .net for adoption by the general public.

    .co for brandability.
    .co for its own marketing efforts so far (Godaddy, Super Bowl, Time Square ads..)
    .co ability for selective Geotargeting in google (just like gTLDs .com/.net/.org) Other ccTLDs do not have this ability.

    To me it looks like .co has a better future ahead than .net. Due to the current marketing efforts, it will be adopted by the general public. It wouldn’t surprise me if similar to Panda 2 update, the extensions will become a lesser factor in ranking however.

    At the moment .net sites are doing better however, I think will be overtaken by .co. So i prefer .co over .net.

    On another note; I think .co’s are great for company and/or geo names. If its a pure country or city name to focus on corporate/economic news.

  42. Anybody know what the figures for .co registrations are now after the superbowl marketing?

    Did the shoot up much or not ?

  43. .co is a ccTLD, nothing more!
    The hype about .co as “CO”mpany-branding will soon slow down. Sometimes it takes longer for people to wake up and see, that they wasted their money…

    Ahoi!

  44. @ Dietmar co is a ccTLD, nothing more!
    The hype about .co as “CO”mpany-branding will soon slow down. Sometimes it takes longer for people to wake up and see, that they wasted their money…

    ——————————————————

    I would have to agree … as soon more extensions come out

    it will be drowned out in the new noise.

  45. Other than personal websites,

    the Internet is vastly used by .COmpanies

    And it is these .COmpanies

    that drive the money machinery.

    It is very newsworthy and headline story making that companies like ES Cell International, a subsidiary of Biotime, Inc. would forward their http://www.escellinternational.com site to http://www.escellinternational.co/

    It is the perfect storm of a perfect extension with the amazing marketing machine of Calle and Lori and their team that will make .CO valued more than .com

    You will see .CO marketed where small to large businesses conferences goes on. It is these startups and entrepreneurs that are looking for their perfect web addresses and believe me they would rather not be paying $30,000 or $50,000 for their perfect domain name. They will choose .CO

    As more businesses use .CO the snowball effect will only grow larger and you will see an ever increasing number of sites using it.

    The domain revolution has only begun and only a few fools want to think with old school. If you haven’t heard the news, the .com value has already begun to drop.

    Continued strong marketing is key and .CO is the richest extension to do it.

  46. i,m a rookie in this biz. Green like grass !
    My question is ; ” what about good SPANISH dot CO names” ???

    You don,t hear a lot about it . I,ve got a SPANISH dot CO but i,m receiving even visitors from Brasil for that particular word (product)
    I found out that the word has the same meaning in both spanish and portuguese.

  47. @ Robert Cline … as more extensions come out the marketing noise will be deafening … .co will be drowned in this new noise. The refuge from all this noise and marketing confusion will be .COM … imho 🙂

  48. @Anthony

    It’s interesting that you say this.

    It is the same argument that .CO registry and I included thinks will only help propel .CO further into the forefront.

    In fact, Calle was the keynote speaker in the last big right of dot world conference. You should google it and watch the key note speech yourself. It’s where he says “.com is actually the typo of .co” since .co was used from the very beginning with the Boston Tea Co.

  49. Robert,

    We would have to respectfully agree to disagree. 🙂

    I still maintain that .com will passover to the promise land …
    good marketing abhors a muddled message. I wouldn’t be
    surprised to see new record prices for category defining .coms.

  50. @Anthony,

    We would have to respectfully agree that you are a minority.

    I can tell you have recently become aware of .CO yourself and for someone who has invested a lot in .coms feel a little should I say insecure. You are not alone. Many come on this board like yourself and end up registering many .CO s afterwards. I can tell because they come on this board sounding like you and then 2 months later they are telling us they registered a few dozen .CO

    Many long time followers of .CO since last July will tell you .CO has exceeded even their expectations. I would not bet against Calle, Lori, and their team.

  51. The unique characteristic of

    .CO

    is that it is essentially a .com

    but better rather, like

    if you ever wanted something better than a .com

    you would come up with

    .CO

    It like oh I want to be lazy and lets type less.

  52. Are you kidding? .co is a crappy cc tld. .Net is one of the top global tlds.

    Unless it’s a city in COLOMBIA, you should never register any .co for anything but a spanish word, a colombian city and maybe a major TM.

    That’s it

    I thought they had educated domainers around here?

    .co

    LOL

    Almost as funny as Rick Schwartz outing himself as a Mason. SKULL AND BONES baby. They control it all .

    http://blog.domainlords.net/?p=282

  53. @Robert Cline

    Your marketing and promotion of .co is strange,

    especially your knowledge of random “private” .co sales and how random websites rank in google, and your constant mentioning of people on the .co marketing team,

    And your posting these exaggerated statements dozens of times every day in the comment section of blogs

    This all leads me to believe, because my gut is telling me,

    that you are probably somehow connected to or affiliated with,

    the .CO registry !

    (see, I can make a haiku too- just going with my common-sense gut feeling)

  54. @ same thing

    I know the marketing team at .CO and the Pappas Group. I can almost 100% assure you that “Robert Cline” is in no way associated with them. In fact, I would wager a very large sum on that fact.

    I believe he has a large investment (for him) in .CO domain names and feels the need to be a “cheerleader” in a sense, which, quite frankly, is annoying for many people to see.

    IMO, it’s not different than people with .mobi, although .CO makes more sense to me and a lot more people spent significantly more money on .mobi names when it first came out than on .CO so far. Fortunately, I don’t see a bubble with .CO (as we saw with .mobi), which is probably why there are fewer cheerleaders.

  55. The difference between .mobi is we buy and develop and invest in .mobi, it’s a global tld, whereas, we registered a few TM’s in .co and do zero investment and development.

    One is a minor cc tld and the other is a major global tld.

    We have page 1 serp’s for .mobi sites.

    No one will ever hit page 1 for a .co unless it’s a spanish keyword term. Period, case closed.

    Anyone pushing .co has ZERO clue as to the future of the net. If and when google throws one line of code, .mobi becomes the PREFERRED tld for all mobile device searches.

    It’s not IF, it’s WHEN. The .mobi becomes more relevant than any tld in mobile device serp’s PERIOD.

    .co, it’s a minor cc tld. That’s it

    It was marketed like .ws as a vanity alternative, in SE’s algorithms it has ZERO VALUE as to importance of the tld.

    ZERO

    .mobi is the sleeper of the whole domain market IOP

  56. when SCHwartz dumped flowers.mobi for 6K we offered the guy 100% profit to sell to us

    he refused

    we have .mobi’s on page one of SE’s

    it’s a GLOBAL tld

    .co is not

    and yeah, we’re big on .mobi, every client has real mobi pages and it’s the most qualified lead you can get, from a mobi site

    eventually google wakes up and decides, ok, any sites with legit .mobi sites make them relevant in all mobile device searches

    all we know is they work, mobi content works, so it’s the future of the net, mobile devices, the old net is dead, all the growth and development is moving towards .mobi IOP

    you can ask my lawyer and doctor clients how they like the leads from .mobi surfers

    it’s ALL THEY WANT now

  57. My God people,get a life man.

    Dot com is king and basically,you do not have any money , your websites are totally useless- scam BS sites.

  58. .net 15 million registrations renewal price around 6 usd.
    .co 600k registrations, renewal price around 30 usd.

    The math is simple.

  59. @ theo

    The 600k figure is very old and I would bet it will be 1m before the Summer (as I bet someone here on my blog). I would also bet the price will come down for renewals…. I am more confident in the first wager though.

  60. “The 600k figure is very old and I would bet it will be 1m before the Summer”

    So whats the figure just now?

  61. @ Gazzip

    I know as much as you, but after the SB commercial and the $11.99 promotion on and off at GoDaddy, I think they’re likely very close to 1m registrations.

  62. @Elliot Silver

    Yes, lower renewal prices would be a god sent.

    That would give us a lot of confidence that we are all willing to do our part in getting .Co to be #1

    that the registery is helping us out and that we are doing our part.

    Then there won’t be the massive drop and actually build more confidence in all of us to build the .Co even further.

    If the price of renewal is high, there would be massive drops and the ones that were at the cutting edge of the blade would be dulled and the momentum would disappear and might never come back or worse take many many years to rebuild.

    With lower renewal fees, there will be very little drops and therefore the higher number of renewals will actually get the registery more money and the incredible momentum that .Co carries will be ensured.

  63. The first yearly renewals for dotCO start in July. That’s when the first major litmus test for the TLD will begin.

    @”Robert Cline”
    If you REALLY care about dotCO give the hyperbole a rest.

  64. In my opinion .CO has a tough choice to make.

    1.) If renewal prices are not lowered, there is going to a bloodbath when it comes to renewals.

    or

    2.) They go the way of .INFO and offer endless promotions to keep registration numbers artificially inflated.

    Realistically option #1 is going to happen. They just have to take their lumps and move forward.

    It is going to be hard to go with option #2 as Juan Calle, and others at the .CO registry have frequently defended the high pricing model.

    “Our 5-year goal is to be a significant portion of the fabric of the Internet – with 3 to 5 million active registrations. That may seem small relative to other extensions, but we are focusing our marketing efforts (and our pricing) to target real use – not speculation,” Calle said.”

    If they significantly lower the renewal price then so much for their marketing. It will cheapen the .CO brand IMO.

    Brad

  65. IMO July 20th isn’t the real date that will give us an objective picture of the .CO status quo, because most of the domains registered in the first days after public launch (especially those nabbed the second the general public registration began) are mainly high (not necessarily premium) quality 1 and 2-keyword domains, while the lower quality ones started to be registered later, as the pool of left domains began to lack in valuable keywords. So I think July names, statistically, will have a higher chance of being renewed.

  66. @ 1dominios

    “Tequilas.net $1,500 sold
    Tequila.co $14,500 sold”

    “Tequila” and “Tequilas” are not comparable in any way. I am surprised Tequilas.net even sold for that price to be honest.

    Tequila – 201,000 exact monthly searches. 3.3M Phrase.
    Tequilas – 4,400 exact monthly searches. 40,500 Phrase.

    It is not an indictment on .NET, it is an indictment on a very average keyword.

    Brad

  67. I’m all about sharing information that is helpful to the whole community. So I just want to make one last comment that I think is important for investors on both sides of the fence.

    I’ve personally ranked a non descriptive .Co on the first page of Google’s SERPS for a competitive keyword term. I’m nothing special, I’m not a guru of any sort and I don’t know any black hat tricks. Any one of the people in this thread can do the same. Just good old fashioned content and some basic on-page/off-page seo.

    Cheers to everyone’s success and to development.

  68. Like I said NO ONE HAS A HIGH VALUE CPC TERM ON PAGE ONE OF GOOGLE using a .co

    PERIOD

    NO ONE

    Go ahead, show the serp, it will be a NOTHING CPC TERM

    GUARANTEED

    Any cpc term of value has a ton of developers hitting it, who know what they are doing, and there’s no way google is going to put a Colombian cc tld on page one for any money cpc term.

    Go ahead, PROVE ME WRONG, you say you hit page one, so what, it’s not a high cpc term, NO WAY

    Post the keyword and serp

    So I’m wrong, I’m not

  69. The problem with public disclosure of that info is as soon as you post serp’s other seo teams try to mess it up and harass the client.

    All I can say, yeah, we hit page one for clients ALL THE TIME and .mobi’s are now showing up as a 2nd hit on terms had to target for clients.

    We’re not taking on ‘clients’ really, other than a few niches, lawyers mostly, and we’re not soliciting for new legal clients here.

    Just adding our 3 cents

    Oh some of the SEM terms we targeted had hits too with .mobi

    So those are the high value cpc terms I know we are hitting, and over a year ago .info was hitting too, then google killed .info for high cpc terms

    All you see now for .info on page one is low cpc geo terms, no major business terms

    So, .info is out, .co was never ‘in’ and .mobi is starting to show global importance in serp’s IF you know where to look

    And anyone doing SEO isn’t showing HIGH CPC hits, I’m not talking about low grade crap terms, major money terms, you don’t publicly discuss them

    You don’t

  70. Granted, if someone hit .co for ANYTHING, ok, but it’s not a high cpc term

    HIGH CPC terms mean BIG MONEY

    The only high cpc terms ever hit with .info that I know of we did

    The only high cpc terms ever hit with .mobi that I know of we did

    We can all throw out high cpc terms and see what’s on them, .com and .net and .org

    99% of the time

    Never seen a .co on any, and the only .info I see now on serp’s are geos

    Germany and Spain have .info’s last time I heard

    LOW CPC TERMS

    We’re probably the only ‘developer’ here, it’s a domainer forum from what I see, and if any developers are here, ok, they’re not hitting page 1 with .co for major cpc terms, they’re not hitting it with .info like we did last year and they’re not hitting it with .mobi

    I know who we are, what we do, we hit page one all the time

    You do it with .com/net or .org

    Inside USA you can use .us

    .biz is a last choice

    .mobi, not really ready yet, but it’s starting to show global legs

    .info is dead

    .co and .ws are not even in the conversation

    So first thing we do for a client, or we used to when we did stuff outside out of our holdings, was determine what keywords and tld’s they had to invest in JUST TO GET US to do a long term project

    You don’t own keywords in global tld’s YOU HAVE NO SHOT at long term seo

    Now our business model changed, we only develop our assets and lease

    Most are .com/net some org and a few major money keywords are .biz

    Got a few .mobi’s and even some .info of only major keywords

    For what we do

    .co

    Nothing really, a few TM’s we own that’s it

    .ws

    LOL

    Yeah we ended up with a few from YEARS ago

    never even bothered to use one ever

    We throw them in on deals if a trade is being done

    Ok, here’s a MONEY term .ws

    That’s about all we’d do too if we bothered to get .co’s

    throw in’s

    Junk

    We’re not ‘domainers’ we hit page one for clients

    Now we only hit it with our assets

    And we’ll never use a .co NEVER

    Unless the client was a lawyer in Colombia and they couldn’t afford us

  71. Here’s a test

    injury lawyer forget what google adwords says, it’s almost a 50 buck nationwide term now and over 100 bucks in some GEO pockets

    what is on page one for ‘injury lawyer’ at google

    10 organic .com’s

    ALL .com’s

    now let’s see a injury lawyer GEO

    injury lawyer hollywood

    9 .com’s

    1 non .com

    a .net

    That term is a 70 buck per click term

    and if you know where to ‘look’

    you see our work

    LOL

    enough said

    no one I know but us are hitting huge ppc terms without .com’s

    NO ONE

    case closed

    move on

  72. To ALL:

    It’s shocking that an experienced bunch like yourselves still talk about .CO in the context of Colombia and in the context of ccTLDs/gTLDs. You are missing the entire point.

    John Doe in middle america could give a crap about Colombia, ICANN and any of its useless acronyms.

    What they want is website and .CO and/or .NET are perfectly valid for that purpose. Sure, a .COM would probably be their first choice… but guess what: it’s taken.

    It seems to me this forum of full of pissed-of “.com is king” domainers who are now holding thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in an asset class that is facing real downward pressure on its value.

    It’s only going to worse folks. Just wait a few months until new TLDs come out.

  73. “John Doe in middle america could give a crap about Colombia, ICANN and any of its useless acronyms.

    What they want is website and .CO and/or .NET are perfectly valid for that purpose.”

    John Doe has never even heard of .CO

    Brad

  74. Brad,

    John Doe buys its domain from registrars such as Godaddy, Network Solutions and all the others. Go see where .CO shows up on any of those sites.

    ps: I could care less about .CO, .NET, or .COM for that matter. I’m simply stating a fact that in the face of hundreds of new options, .com as an asset class is now facing real alternatives.

  75. @ Jason

    The domainer world is rather small on the bigger scale of things. Big news in the domainer world usually will barely register with the general public.

    O.co for example is huge news for .CO supporters. Do you think the general public really knows or cares about it?

    Extensions like .INFO, which has 7.5M regs and has been around nearly 10 years, is barely known in the general public.

    I deal with end users daily and there is very little broad awareness of .CO at this point.

    Brad

  76. @ Elliot

    Angel.co is a nice domain, especially since the .com would obviously cost a fortune. It was assigned under the founders program.

    Premium keywords, especially single words, have value in almost every reasonable extension.

    I don’t think anyone is denying there is value in Solar.co, or Fish.co, or Fitness.co, etc.

    The problem is the average .CO holder is not holding these types of domains.

    37,000 domains were taken before open registration even began, including most of the true top tier category defining terms with obvious commercial value.

    Brad

  77. @Brad Mugford

    “I don’t think anyone is denying there is value in Solar.co, or Fish.co, or Fitness.co, etc. The problem is the average .CO holder is not holding these types of domains.”

    Well, I hate to have to state the obvious… but neither is the average .com holder. And worse, the average .com holder that goes to buy a domain name today, with over 100,000,000 names already registered – is stuck with just some leftover crumbs and a bunch of junk to choose from.

    I love .com. .Com has changed the world. But wake up to reality – it’s just simple math. In case you haven’t heard – new people are being born every single day across the globe ….There aren’t any good .coms left for the billions of people in the world who now need – and will continue to need — domain names.

    Are-we-just-supposed-to-keep-making-domains-longer-and-more-filled-with-hyphens-and-Zilly-Zpellings-with-com.com?

    Forget arguing which is “better” – it’s comparing apples to oranges. .COM is fabulous. God bless you if you have a great one. But .com is depleted. It’s spent. All the juice has been squeezed from the lemon. And that’s just a fact.

    .CO opens up opportunities where .COM leaves off… once any extension gets to 100,000,000 it will spent too. Why are we arguing about this simple fact of life.

  78. @Andrea

    I will respond with an equally obvious point – The bar for quality domains is obviously much lower in .COM than .CO

    Niche keywords in .COM have far more buyers than niche keywords in a secondary extension, like .CO

    The farther you go down the extension totem pole, the better the keyword needs to be to have any real value.

    The are plenty of other secondary extensions available from NET/ORG to INFO/BIZ to TV/ME to respected ccTLD. .CO is the newest one of those alternatives. There is nothing special that really vaults it ahead of the rest.

    Brad

  79. @Jason

    If John Doe is your target, then sure, .co works. But you are missing the obvious characteristic of this John Doe you mentioned: he is only building small blogs and insignificant sites. Big businesses, social networks, and large operations DO CARE which domain name they buy. Their lawyers, if they know what they are doing, will advise them not to register a .co if they unless they are a colombian company or are targeting colombia specifically. Big businesses, which are global and market to everyone, will be advised to get .COM/.NET/.ORG for legal reasons- they are global extensions by definition. And the obvious marketing reach reasons.

    So John Doe, sure. But I ask you, if you are only talking about “middle america John Doe,” who is creating a blog or small mom and pop website, does it really have a chance ?

    Also, who do you think scooped up the vast majority of the 600,000 + registrations of premium keywords for .co this past year ? John Doe? I think not. Most definitely domainers. Maybe not the big name, usual suspects. But domainers nonetheless.

  80. @Elliot- Congrats on a one hundred comment post!!! It takes talent to create a community environment on a blog that organically generates this many comments. It’s also a solid indicator of how healthy and strong your following is.

    Keep up the good work!

  81. if renewal is even one cent above 10 dollars I am not going to renew 70% of my .co`s.
    Just at Sedo auction We can find almost 70,000 .co`s for sale.
    99,9% owners did not get even one bid, not to mention to sell any of their domains. I really do not think many of them will bother renewals.
    Many new comers invested in .co`s. People who are new into domains almost always register rubbish at the beginning. But I am sure they learned some for a year.

    I think main reason why .CO do not want to says how many .co were registered is that they want to to release this info just before renewal and they hope it boosts renewal numbers
    So be careful and do not allow them to manipulate you, look just at facts.

  82. @ 1dominios.com

    I agree with Brad Mugford.
    I would not pay even reg fee as I can still easily register better quality .co`, with better search volume, ppc etc. Not to mention that for small money you can buy incomparably better one.
    do not compare two those domains as its totally different story.

  83. John Doe doesn’t get websites, and pay for design, John Doe is broke, he does it himself, 99.9% of businesses can not afford high end design and seo/sem, they’re broke too. The few companies and small businesses with real budgets to design sites and hire real seo/sem crews would be FOOLS to hang it all on a .co

    The whole tld is for one one thing, spanish keywords meant to be seen by people in Colombia, PERIOD.

    The only fools buying the tld is speculators, ‘the king has no clothes’, there, I said it, now you realize, .co is a Colombian cc tld, it has ZERO investment potential for even basic keywords, fish is not fish in Colombia, you want the only things that will have MINOR VALUE since Colombia is basically a 3rd world nation, get Colombian GEOS the way they spell the towns in Colombia and local spanish keywords native to Colombia, PERIOD.

    Next

  84. I guess KansasCity.net is still in play at Sedo. $4999 current bid. It was no reserve at Sedo from Latona I think. Maybe it did not close?

    Dot CO reminds me of the early days of Howard Stern. He ruled the ratings and half his listeners hated him. Has there ever been a topic that generates so much discussion/comments?

  85. I originally voted .CO, being a supporter, but I’d probably say .NET now after a bit of contemplation. My answer will still be the same when .co surpasses .net and here’s why: .net has a more online ring to it. both .com and .co dont really make sense other than the aforementioned domain hacks.

    londonborough.net

    Whereas .net is closer to sounding like ThisArea online. For everything else, well most things else, .co and .com

  86. Good luck with your mobi portfolio DoLo. I always thought that even for phonesites .mobi’s restrictions such as can’t use frames, coupled with the evolution of mobiles increasingly being able to display more complex web sites does not seem like a future investment. You have your eggs in the basket of

    “when google see sense and start treating mobi with the respect that I hold for her, we’ll be raking in the $”

    You then bizzarely comment against .CO ccTLD, which has been given the green flag by google making it as easily rankable as .com gTLD, hasn’t even been out for a year, and is experiencing a healthy steady growth.

    You say
    “No one will ever hit page 1 for a .co unless it’s a spanish keyword term. Period, case closed.

    Anyone pushing .co has ZERO clue as to the future of the net.”
    as if to say you do! You’re the only person I’ve heard putting such hope against a flopped extension. Who also ironically happens to be bashing the latest extension which in part owes its success to the failure of .mobi

    Your customer comes to you and says “I want a website” you being a .mobi promoter, persuade them likewise, then come here to say that they only know of .mobi not .co!

    To summarise, you effectively say the trend that .Co is produces will not be so in the future, and the low promise of .mobi now will flip trends and enjoy the growth and multigaint backing that .co is now…

    Wishful thinking if you ask me.

  87. I love domainerspeak. It’s ccTLD, it’s a gTLD it’s a who cares?

    The question that is posed is a pure domainer question. The amusement factor is that the discussion goes to SERPS, SEO, and a lot of end user gobbledygook.

    The only people that are worth listening to are those who understand marketing to end users. That’s Brad, that’s David. However, there’s a difference between listening… and just taking at face value.

    It’s important to understand that simple fact.

    Domainers are mostly herd followers. Very few leaders.

    Be part of the change.

    Listen to leaders. Don’t blindly follow leaders. Follow their examples.

    The reality is that a great site can be developed on mediocre names. All that is really needed for a huge home run are great names. You don’t need the BEST names (though there is indeed an advantage). If you provide something that people look for they WILL find it even if they go to the wrong place first.

    It’s called product differentiation.

    The idea that the top generics make or break a business? It’s not necessarily true. It’s an idea pushed by those who need to push it.

    Drug companies push drugs. Their doctors make money and help.
    Registries push domains. Their top domainers make money and help.

    One day marketing and image consultants will take over the in the domain world and it will be ugly. It’s an opinion but it’s based on fact. The goal of domaining is to become the dealer at the top of the pyramid.. the street corner vendor always ends up hooked on their own inferior product. It’s reality.

    What’s your 10 year plan? Are you going to continue to hock names? Are you going to continue to “hold” as an investment? Or are you going to facilitate change? Think about that.

  88. To answer the question.

    To Invest ? .COM > .US = .NET = .TV > .CO

    To develop? .COM then a number of KeywordGEO.com variants (or ccTLD that matches GEO) then .US/.NET/.TV.

    I believe in platforms which changes things even more but it out of scope.

  89. to clarify

    we think mobi is about to be pushed by google and or yahoo/bing as most relevant tld for all mobile device serps

    so now we usually tie a mobi version to clients development projects to catch all the mobile devices, and the results are amazing, huge response ratios from any mobi site with mobi content, HUGE

    so if there’s a .com avail, we develop that paired with a mobi

    if not a .com

    then a .net with a mobi

    then org or biz

    .us cuts you off from the rest of the world in googles eyes, you won’t see .us usually in a global serp in UK or CA or where ever

    yet com/net/org/biz show

    even mobi is now showing in global serps

    so .us is too regional, granted the top region for marketing in the world I guess

    unless you got something cheap to sell to 1 billion indians or chinamen

    com is king, so com with mobi is the development combo right now

    and mobi is doing nothing but catching the mobile devices, granted, we could have done m.keyword.com but we like the concept of .mobi

    and now we’re seeing google push them some too

    so if any SE realizes .mobi is a natural choice tld for mobile devices…

    well then mobi has the long term potential and it could be short term

    today or tomorrow google or yahoo can recode their tld valuation algorithm and put in an IF parameter

    IF a mobile device then tld value is

    mobi
    com
    net
    org
    etc

    right now it’s

    gov
    edu
    org
    com
    net
    biz
    mobi

    so even though com is king

    it’s only due to people no realizing the right order

    gov sites get preferred status in all global serps
    then edu and then org

    problem with org is it’s not a tld most companies want to brand for commercial use, even though for pure seo value it’s better than com

    • @ Lords

      We have a difference of opinion. I wouldn’t invest any money in a .mobi domain name. I see no need for .mobi, I don’t recall seeing any .mobi names ranking for keywords I search, I don’t see very much activity in the aftermarket, I don’t see many companies using or marketing .mobi websites, and this extension has been public for several years now. For all of those reasons, I have zero interest in .mobi.

  90. Re: .mobi

    I am undecided on mobi. I’m in favor of platforms but I don’t believe mobi fits the criteria of platform in the manner I see.

    Mobile is huge and I believe mobi can answer the question.. But I’m not sure the question is being asked but I see many more hints of it.

    Remember though that Google is not the premier mobile search solution. They are pushing their idea of mobile for a reason. Don’t be a follower. Be a leader. Listen to what they say but don’t blindly jump on their wagon.

    Domainers don’t get mobile. This blog sucks on a phone. It’s unusable, almost.

  91. yep, no one understands mobi until the phone rings

    then they get it

    we saw all our qualified ‘leads’ for a while only coming from our mobi site

    so when we did the first mobi, we hung it on a m.ourname.tld

    then after we saw the real qualified owners of businesses were all responding on the mobi site and the pajama wearers were all on desktops and laptops

    we knew then

    OK you doing net marketing and want real qualified users not the muppets in their mom’s basement

    you use MOBI sites

    so then we started to do .mobi instead of m.

    and google started dishing out serp’s with .mobi

    so

    mobi it is

    now it’s a selling point

    we show a client (lawyers and doctors)

    go to our competitors sites

    on your iphone

    you can’t use it can it

    now go to our site

    see, the site forwards to our mobi

    now here’s our legal site

    type in whatever

    see, it disappears, goes right to the mobi

    our sites know you’re on a mobi device

    now you want qualified clients calling your lawfirm on iphones or you want the people in their moms basement

    everyone jumps on mobi

    easiest tool to sell high end work there is

    so in the whole mobi crowd, we’re the LEADER by far

    no one touches our mobi work NO ONE

    and I can assure you we have a mobi forum but never touched blogs for mobi

    we don’t consider the DL blog to be for quality end users

    LOL

    like you said

    the domainers don’t get it

    so why make a mobi blog for domainers

    LOL

    they’re all in their mom’s basement, 99% of them

  92. @ unknown

    You’re just the second person to complain in 3 years.

    @ Lords

    “they’re all in their mom’s basement, 99% of them”

    Not the ones that do this for a full time living.

Comments are closed.

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