ccTLDs - The wave of the future!

It depends. For the larger countries, I'd register the names in local language. Here in Germany, you'd normally search for German words, except for some few well-known English terms like Sound or Jobs. The same holds for .it, .es, .ru, etc.

For .cn, common English words are nearly useless because only few Chinese people speak English.

For .tv, I'd prefer English over some strange Polynesian dialect.

Thanks Kuli!

It depends very much from the cultural context too: in France, there is a tendency to prefer French, although English is increasingly widespread - but the State is proactive in promoting French, including limitations on using non-French words in ads, for instance.

In contrast, in Switzerland, even some government agencies use English for short names rather than French or German, since this solves the problem of having several labels for the same thing.

Small instance: in France, at the time of sales in stores, you would see the French word: "Soldes". Here in Switzerland, it would be frequent to see "Sales". So you have to adjust to the cultural context of every country.

As a rule of thumb: use the language associated with the context
For most ccTlds the context is local, so use (one of the) local language(s)
Some ccTld's are used in a global context and then the language would be different, most likely English.
Some ccTld's are used in a foreign but local context, so you could use the language associated with that foreign local context.

In any case it is a good idea to know your market before you decide what to do.

I've been curious about this too. I recently found an English term in .fr that is available, but I have no idea if it would be a good purchase. According to Google this English term is searched for approx. 12,000 times a month in France and the Estibot stats are below:

Frequency (Google) 105000000
in Anchor Text 2070000
in Title 3390000
in URL 6400000
Backlinks 0
PageRank 0
Alexa Rank Not Ranked
Traffic (Visits / Day) N/A
PPC Ads # 3
Max PPC Bid $0.64
Overture/mo 499443
Wordtracker/day 29994

New! Estibot TotalSearch™ Data:
TotalSearches™ 1127510 /moRead More!
TotalCompetition™ 10/10 adsRead More!
TotalCPC™ $0.00 MaxBidRead More!


http://EstiBot.com Domain Appraisal USD 4,400

Based on these stats (I won't list the word here), would this be something worth looking into further?

Jingles said:

Based on these stats (I won't list the word here), would this be something worth looking into further?

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If it is an adult 2 word term it might be ok to buy because these names have a better chance of receiving traffic (porn terms are somewhat universal), otherwise I doubt there will be traffic to monetize.

If you're going for resale, absolutely avoid, being an English term the chance of sale at "end user prices" is very low.

Which is the best company to register ccTlds?

For .de and .co.uk I use Moniker.. They are cheaper than godaddy for those 2 extensions...

Lots has been said about ccTLDs and their values.

A lot of us domain and develop ccTLDs.

I realised when I started that ccTLDs could level the playing field for me and hence a bulk of my personal and client portfolios (recommended or managed by us) comprise of ccTLDS.

Now here is the buzz, a new video on Rick's blog shows how one company at least is making $3000 PER DAY or $90,000 per month or $1,000,000 a year with ccTLD domains. Check it out here:
http://www.ricklatona.com/2009/02/03/3000-a-day-domainer/

Do read the comments, real interesting to say the least.

Here's what Sahar has to say about this:
http://www.conceptualist.com/2009/02/04/cctlds-my-take-on-the-3000-domainer/

To top this, Rick has decided to put his money where his mouth is and is developing a ccTLD only Auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2009:
http://www.ricklatona.com/2009/01/26/rick-latona-auctions-is-proud-to-bring-you-traffic-cctlds-2009/

RickLatona said:

Atlanta, Georgia USA – January 26, 2009 – Rick Latona Auctions is proud to bring the famous T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference to Europe for the first time, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs, 2009 will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands from June 1 - June 5, 2009.

T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs 2009 is dedicated entirely to the discussion of country code TLDs (ccTLDs). We understand that there are a broad group of ccTLDs in the marketplace;

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Since there is so much happening and so much interest in this space, I decided the time was right for all us ccTLD domainers to share our views on this, as well as success stories and any other general ccTLD info here with the community.

So post away.

very interesting ...repped you

Absolutely,I can see where that kind of money is possible. I'm a total ccTLD guy myself. At least 75% of my traffic portfolio is ccTLD's. I don't even close to $3k a day, but do very well. Since 2005 PPC and domaining has been my full time job... .ES, DE, IN, TV, NL, FR, and some oddball extensions too, whatever I can get my hands on with traffic.
I can't wait to see what happens at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Amsterdam, especially because as of this morning, I just got one of my domains accepted into their auctions. Go ccTLDS!

I really enjoy ccTLDs.. I own lots of .de, a few .co.uk, some good .at..and lately I've been interested in .me.. I try to limit my ccTLD purchases to those extensions..

ccTLD's yipee it's about time

I've always thought that the country code tld's needed a front
seat and hopefully Rick will bring it forward.
My best sales have been with .ca so I'm all for it.

In Canada, we love our ccTLD and it's promoted everywhere,
the television commercials consist of mostly .ca
with the .tv and .org coming second - and the .com is a sparse showing.

I know .com will always be king in some people's eyes,
but it's time to wipe away the fog!

The times, they are achanging! :tu:

If the local population is large enough to support decent ROI, then by all means local keywords.

Otherwise english keywords seem the best bet.

Cheers!

I have definitley been considering cctlds for a while now but decided to do a small traffic/profitability test before I dove in head first.

I tested out .com.mx first - registering generic spanish keywords, at $14 a pop (very easy to spend $XXXX if you are unsure of the language). These are all keyword domains that showed some nice Google/Yahoo results w/ads...after close to a month the most traffic received is 27 visitors with $.49 in revenue at Sedo - that wont even cover the reg fee, as far as I know Sedo is the only place that allows opimization in other languages, so that limits my options of parking companies. I am going to try other extensions with english being the main spoken language so I can test parking at other places.

My feeling is that this guy who is making $3k/day must have XXX,XXX domains and I cant see how he is covering his reg fee, with most ccTlds being quite expensive. I can understand the occasional enduser sale and with a pool of domains like this guys got it surely is possible but is it likely that a company in Romania is going to pay you the same price as someone in the US - NO! This also is true for advertising, the PPC is much lower for cctlds b/c there is less money being paid per keyword meaning you have to get 5x the traffic to make some money.

I am in no way bashing cctlds, I think they are great and make sense but to all the newbies reading this you have to exercise caution when spending your $XXXX - you will not make $3k/day, if it were that easy then most of the members here would be millionaires.

I think for the people that know what they are doing, country TLDs are a goldmine. However for the people who dont know much about country TLDs it could turn out being a bit like a black hole that sucks money in but they will probably not see any returns.

so thats my view....I will be trying to find out more about this because I think there is a lot of money in this.

I don't even saw the video of 3000 a day domainer up to the end.

I stopped to the 04:06 frame that this guy presented a short list of the ccTLDs he choose to make money
I know and worked with 3 ccTLDs from this list and i can say for sure that not only they can't produce the traffic or the numbers he claims but some of them are totally pathetic from the way the ccTLD operators use them in some countries. I know for a fact that at least to one ccTLD from the list they FORBID generic names. This kills type-traffic instantly.
I just don't know how big his list is (because he says that "these are just a select few of the ccTLDs..."), if he's making the money he claims good for him. This is not a realistic scenario that can work to anyone and renewal costs is a hidden factor that many don't count.

I agree with bgmv regarding his thoughts that he expressed them in his previous post

1. this guy who is making $3k/day must have XXX,XXX domains
2. most ccTlds being quite expensive
3. it NOT likely that a company in Romania is going to pay you the same price as someone in the US
4. the PPC is much lower for cctlds
(because they underestimate/or don't value the power of the net for now, or there is few competition compared with US advertisers)

ccTLDs are good and certainly there is a market but we can't generalizing this rule.
Some ccTLDs are a TOTAL waste of time.

I don't think the focus should be to the ccTLDs alone but rather the internet penetration level and the economy of the country that the ccTLD represents.

As a last note i believe every newbie domainer has no other way to really learn the domains if he doesn't first loose some money by dropping some of his names that he originally thought as gems.

With that sense .com .net .org or ccTLD make no difference BUT i rather have one domain that all the world wants, rather focus to one domain that is limited to specific borders. (both in terms of buying/selling and parking)

dotnom said:

I don't think the focus should be to the ccTLDs alone but rather the internet penetration level and the economy of the country that the ccTLD represents.

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These points cannot be stressed strongly enough. They are the keys to the ccTLD kingdom. I would add two other elements. The first is consideration of the dominant language of the ccTLD and the most valuable keywords in that language. The second is the selection of ccTLDs where the country is ccTLD positive. That means that the ccTLD is used more than .com/net/org for local websites.

Regards...jmcc

1. to make $3000 on ccTLDs, you don't need xxx,xxx domains (.de,.co.uk, .es, .it, .nl, .co.jp, .se traffic is converting very nicely)
2. for example .de, .nl, .it, .be are cheaper than .com
3. ppc for ccTLDs can be lower, but not necassairly

snicksnack said:

1. to make $3000 on ccTLDs, you don't need xxx,xxx domains (.de,.co.uk, .es, .it, .nl, .co.jp, .se traffic is converting very nicely)
2. for example .de, .nl, .it, .be are cheaper than .com
3. ppc for ccTLDs can be lower, but not necassairly

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The video is talking for $3K with hand-reg. domains parked at Sedo

I understand this. I am am convinced, that this is possible. There are still a lot of ccTLDs out there with plenty of traffic waiting to be registered.

There are tool available which help ypu to identify traffic domains also for ccTLD markets.

snicksnack said:

1. to make $3000 on ccTLDs, you don't need xxx,xxx domains (.de,.co.uk, .es, .it, .nl, .co.jp, .se traffic is converting very nicely)

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You probably don't, specially if you're making $100 per domain per day.

However, most of these extensions have a nexus requirement, which means you need to open a company or at least get local representation to buy domains.

Might not be a big deal if you're making $3k/day but costs do pile up with adherence to local and international laws and taxation requirements.

lot's of registrar ofer proxy services these days,so no real problem to register a ccTLD.

snicksnack said:

lot's of registrar ofer proxy services these days,so no real problem to register a ccTLD.

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There are ccTLDs that require VAT number (for Europe) and extended personal/company information