I assume this is a pre-Super Bowl test, since the .CO offer ends on January 26, 2011, but Go Daddy has an interesting special offer splashed across its homepage right now: “New .COMs and .COs $11.99”
Instead of its frothy $29.99 price per domain name, Go Daddy is selling .CO domain names for $11.99/year for the first year only. If you opt to register a new domain name for longer than the first year, the regular price kicks back in after year one.
Perhaps more interesting than the price is the grouping of .COM and .CO together. Some people have shown concern that there could be confusion if people “accidentally” purchase a .CO instead of .COM, which is what was discussed when Go Daddy made .CO a default in a previous test.
Now with the price being the same and .COM the default, Go Daddy will be able to see how amenable customers are to choosing .CO as an alternative to .COM if the .COM of their choice is unavailable.
This price change will also allow GoDaddy to see how price sensitive its customers are when it comes to .CO domain names.
With the company spending millions of dollars on a .CO Super Bowl commercial, it’s a very smart idea to do user testing prior to the game to ensure a smooth experience and help eliminate confusion and an influx of customer service calls.
Thanks to Giuseppe Biundo for the tip.
Yep… definitely a pre-superbowl test. Renewals still $29.99. Interesting.
You caught what is the whole point of the offer to me: putting .com and .CO on the same level to the eyes of the customer. That’s why I believe such an offer will be available again during the SuperBoal commercial.
Interesting. This may mean Go Daddy is actually selling .co names at a loss.
@ Kevin
Very possible… loss leader knowing that a company who builds a site is sure to renew it after year 1.
Here’s a related post from .CO
http://www.cointernet.co/blog/here-we-go-again-go-daddy-market-research-causing-stir
Funny nobody mentions that almost all the good .co’s are already registered. People are just going to get frustrated when they go to godaddy thinking they are going to find a great .co, only to find they are all gone. I’d like to see a list of the best .co hand regs someone could find.
@ Mike
If you own a company called Mike’s Plumbing, you would know that MikesPlumbing.COM was registered years ago. If you visit Godaddy today, you can register MikesPlumbing.CO. To you, that would be a great domain name.
Most people who visit Godaddy to buy domain names aren’t necessarily looking for great descriptive/generic one word domain names. They are looking for great domain names for their new website or their company.
@Elliot
Good example, but mikesplumbing is also available in other extensions. How much traffic would mikesplumbing.co lose to mikesplumbing.com? I would rather build around mikesplumbing.tv to avoid confusion. Perhaps I look at it too much from a domainers point of view. As usual the public will act like sheep and throw away good money. I still don’t recall ever seeing a .co in my serps.
@ Mike
I doubt that many small businesses care about lost traffic to .COM. Most just want a website to “hang their hat” and if they put it on their business card, car door, and business stationery, their customers will find them. If they lose 1% of the traffic, so be it, especially because if Mike’s Plumbing of Tucson Arizona has a customer who goes to the .COM in error, he will realize he’s at the wrong website since that company is in Maryland. With Google Places, they will put small businesses at the top for local searches, regardless of extension.
I don’t recall ever seeing a .TV in mine either, although I am sure I can show you both .TV and .CO if I spent a few minutes looking. (Search for the “TNT” brand or “Angel List” brand in Google and you’ll find one of each).
Small/medium sized companies don’t aspire to acquire superpremium keywords. They just want a name that describes perfectly their business but isn’t very long or a made-up word (which is possible in .CO but extremely unlikely in .com). After all there are only 650,000 taken .CO’s (vs 95,000,000 .com’s).
Since godaddy’s model is based on renewals, it’s not such a shocker to see them move prices down. I think we will see more of this in the next few months.
It’s funny. Now there are people saying all the good .co’s are gone and there are still good .com’s to be registered. This, I do not understand.
“(Search for the “TNT” brand or “Angel List” brand in Google and you’ll find one of each).”
I think we cannot use AngelList example here as it is imo ranking because angellist.com is redirecting to angel.co
JMO
A good example of .CO being in a position higher than .com is BMR [http://www.google.com/search?q=BMR]. Notice .com is a full website, so one can’t think Google gives more weight to .CO because it’s the only one being developed.
Ontology.co in searches for “ontology” in Google ranks 1 space below Ontology.com in my search.
From my understanding, this is a one day only sale.
Awesome, this will attract the suckers and gamblers into this worthless extension, and leave more .com’s and .net’s open for the taking.
@ Mike
Unlike the mobi and eu phases, I don’t see a whole lot of high dollar sales from people gambling on the extension.
IMO, the Godaddy sale appeals more to smaller businesses, and they will likely develop rather than try and buy to flip.
Looks like Juan Calle was inspired by this very post to write a blog post about the marketing campaign from the .CO Registry. He also unveiled one of the next advertising moves: a .CO billboard in Times Square.
http://www.cointernet.co/blog/here-we-go-again-go-daddy-market-research-causing-stir