damagedgoods

Does anyone have an opinion of geo names .net in general? e.g. let's say any US city with a population of 10,000 or more. With GEO names being hot sellers these days would it be safe to say that even .net would be worth something to resellers and end users?

damagedgoods

bump

Rob J

I've caught a couple of those dropping, I haven't done anything with them yet but I plan on throwing up quick entertainment/travel/living guide type sites. Restaurants, schools, hotels, theaters, etc, maybe try to sell some local ad spots. I don't know if it will amount to anything with these small towns, but why not give it a shot?
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One thing though is check the .com version, if that's already developed as a city guide you're probably gonna have a tough time competing with it. Alot of these small towns don't have any sort of online presence at all so you're filling a niche for them.

800ml

what about if it's a north american city with 300K+ population, 2 universities, 1 college type of town, what range would you appraise that type of geocity.net, would high $x,xxx be a reasonable price point, more or less?

Jeff

Development and excellent SEO are key for the success of Geo .NET's!

Best of Luck.
-Jeff

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800ml

that is great advise, thanks,
if only i wasn't so lazy...i mean paralyzed by too many ideas

gazzip

......I'll go along with that - even more so if the .com is a parking page !
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800ml

the .com is a parking page in this case,
which makes the opportunity for the .net to steal the spotlight even bigger,
this could change lives for many people in this city

gazzip

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471647
Maybe it could if you are willing and able to develop it into something usefull for other people.

I did a volunteer community website for a town of about 10K and it worked out well, website gets around 30,000 visitors per year and is ranked no1 in Google, Yahoo, MSN for just the town name and many other variations.......did it change lives..hmm, sure made it easier for people to find out more info


What did it cost to do - just loads of time


If its something that interest you and you have lots of time to develop it then go for it ! - don't forget to put a "Bookmark this site" link where everyone can see it !

Good luck


ps - I recently got outbid going after the .com it is now....parked !



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800ml

sounds like time well spent. Was it a Scottish town?
if you don't mind , i'd love to take a look at it for inspiration

David J Castello

Even if the dotcom version is parked, you're taking chances by developing the dotnet because you could "awaken" the dotcom owner into developing or selling to someone who will. You may get a jump on SEO, but the dotcom is going to trounce you on direct navigation. Even worse, if you try to sell advertising to locals the dotcom will psychologically win every time if they ever decide to go toe-to-toe with you.

The best situation for a dotnet Geo would be for the dotcom version to be developed into something else. Rare, but I've seen it happen.

Sleepys

Topics like this have been popping up here more recently. A city of 10,000 is simply not that big. There are so many cities in the world that are larger. If you want to register the domain of a small town/city, then you have 2 good options. First is the .com, second is the cctld of the country that the city is in. I would not get the .net, .org, or .info of a city unless it was significantly bigger.

David J Castello

Even more important than a town or city's population is its name recognition factor with the public. Two of our highest grossing Geodomains are PalmSprings.com (48,000) and LagunaBeach.com (27,000) because the public is extremely familiar with those destinations.

Sleepys

Very good point. I think that in the two examples above good development definately had something to do with it, but they would have been extremely good names on their own, for the reason you cited.

labrocca

I am bullish on dot net and bullish on geo domains. Add the two together and I am doubly bullish. Just my opinion at least.

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800ml

Yes the conventional wisdom would says, the ideal situation to start a portal would be the .com, just like you'd think the best way to impress a girl would be to pull up in Lamborghini. However when the Lamborghini just like .com are not an available option, there are other ways that will get you the attention to win the heart and mind of the object of your desire. And once you have won the heart and mind, then even a Lamborghini won't take it away, because it will be just too late (ok maybe not the best analogy but hope it makes the point)
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????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471647

you're taking chances by developing the dotnet because you could "awaken" the dotcom owner?
Taking chances by developing? but there isnt any risk in development when you're competing against a parked page. The biggest fear of any .com owner of parked geocity must be that .net is going to get developed, because once it does, than it's not just SEO that is going to dry up the organic traffic away from .com, but it's going to CREATE direct navigation for the .net. Another words the developed .net is going to destroy the parking page.
so saying taking chances, i feel is a common fear mongering argument by .com owners

People are not dumb, they get more internet savvy, smarter and smarter everyday, it only takes a few encounters for a user to learn and build mindshare that city.NET is usefull and city.com is just a parking page.
Once .net is developed into useful city portal content with good SEO and organic no.1 position on its side then bye bye .com because we all know Google doesn't like duplicate content, so in order to overtake .net and win back users's favor it will have to work much harder with a unique value proposition as opposed to the obvious city portal stuff that was gonna work in the first place.

If the .com wakes up in time, or has sufficient time for proper development (questionable when being part of a large portfolio of geo properties) and wants to go toe-to-toe, than i say bring on the competition

Time is running out for undeveloped geo .com's if they want to remain the no. 1 geocity destination, the winner will be the first decently developed site.


true, however in many ccTLD's at least in .ca the GEOCity is a restricted domain for governement function, this fact actually plays in favour for domain developers that want to develop a .Net, .Com, .Org,...

David J Castello

LOL Great points all, but please note - I don't drive Lamborghinis (you're thinking of my brother Michael).

soggyindo

here's a completely left field suggestion, may well be nuts



but what about going after the geo.info or geo.tv?

the .net has the disadvantage of being the poor man's .com, and many people will think "that person probably meant .com".

but a .info with plenty of online branding/ town posters/ publicity might get a certain uniqueness that the .net can't match. people will forget about the .com and "go to this info site i've heard about". infos are coming up in the world anyway, and might have a buzz about them in a couple of years.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471647

similarly with the .tv, if you throw up a lot of video content - even producing your stories with a cute person in front of a video yourself - would be "unique" enough to be a completely unique product and not a copy.

i'm developing a couple of geo.info's at the moment - not even geos, but popular streets - with plenty of advertisers and visitors. my niche being the insider's guide to what's best there. i'm figuring on stickering the local area with the URL, offering prizes for restaurant reviews and the like, we'll see how it goes.

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dgridley

Not getting the .info could be short-sighted, especially if you think out of the box and seek some advertisers who might not have thought of advertising online. Small town newspapers might also be interested in a suite of local .info's.

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Sleepys

Anyone who wants to develop an in depth destination city website should certainly get the .info, the .net, the .org, the local cctld, and whatever else if they are available. The original question here was is a city with 10,000 people worth getting in the .net? My answer is still in most cases, but of course not all, No. I just registered 8 geo .com cities last night with populations of 10,000-40,000. They are still out there, why would I go for the .net? If the city has lots of people, maybe over 100,000 people, or lots of name recogntion, that is a different story.

Yes, it is true that if someone develops the .net they will get lots of search traffic, and if they are around long enough some people will start to type them in, but if anyone wants to develop the .net or .info of one of my .com cities, that is fine by me. The moment the .com decides to develop, the .net will start to lose out. Also, the more traffic the .net gets, the more traffic will leak out to the .com. That is why popular .net's pay millions for their corresponding .com (if they cannot force the courts to give them the name).

coldgarb

even the govt of southafrica is using Southafrica.Net in all its advertising.

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dgridley

I don't know why but I've always had an aversion to .net.. have only ever owned one or two. I like info because it's also a keyword, us because it defines a geographical place but I'd prefer a .com just because they are so strongly associated with the Internet.

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David J Castello

That's because the South African government lost a court case when they tried to take SouthAfrica.com:
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/07...eps_ownership/

Sleepys

Exactly. Everyone wants the .com, it is superior and will always take away from the .net or .info, whereas the others will tend to help the .com the better they do.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=471647

And back to the original question. South Africa is a far cry from a town of 10,000. Yes, some geo's are certainly worth it in the .net, that is easy. 10,000 people is still not a large amount, unless it is an expensive resort town or something like that. If all that is available is the .net, keep looking for better cities. The exception is if you really just want that city for personal reasons.

gazzip

I did'nt say I was THAT proud of it - its a bit fugly but it works !


I was just trying to say, do the best with what you can afford and don't forget alot of people still use search engines to find things !



True, prime direct navigation GEO domains are the way to go if you have a good amount of money to spend.

However...many of the large portfolio owners are just not interested in selling the .com

As the Highlander said "there can be only one!" - I'm sure he was talking about .coms at the time


JMO



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