Dot TO

[cocaseco]

So I may be the last one in the industry to know about these, but I don't see much discussion. There appears to be value and good names left. I recently registered ECOMMERCE.TO. The downside is the $50/year price tag with a 2 drink minimum.

TO is the domain for Tonga and their government wisely allow anyone to register under their ccTLD.

TO is a part of the English language with many words ending in to and it is also a common preposition. TO is also a common reference to the city of Toronto, the 4th largest city in North America.

On Flippa there is a history of some good .TO sales.

Yet you rarely see these being offered for resale. Is it just the high registration fee? Thoughts?

 

[kubativity]

I have some experience with .TO names.

I picked up a few a number of years ago and I have sold a few over the years since.
In my experience these names are very hard to sell and since they have a high renewal fee, it makes it hard to get a good ROI. Recently, I sold gold.to and loan.to for a combined total of $5400.00
As you know, these are super-premium keywords, so this is indicative of how difficult this market is.

I still feel you can do somewhat well in this TLD, but you must be careful because every mistake is costly.

You need to buy 2 years up front @ 50 /year so every investment is at least $100.00.

Although many Toronto sites are using .TO as their extension, it is still very hard to sell these names to Toronto businesses. Believe me, I've tried. With a city level name, it is hard to find enough of a market of buyers to ensure a sale. For example, I have been trying to sell Furniture.TO to a Toronto furniture store for years now, but I have had little interest from local retailers. The highest offer I've received and declined was about 500. Maybe I should have sold.

I have been able to find some great keywords, and there are a few available still. My site Comedy.TO has become one of my personal blogs, since I love comedy and I had no success finding a buyer.

The other side of the market for .TO names are names that create a domain hack. Sometimes these do very well, but most great ones are already taken. Recently I dropped, and re-registered Visitors.TO, which is on flippa and I will be converting to an auction to see how it goes. I'll let you guys know how well it did.

For the most part, I have not picked up any new .TO names for a number of years mainly because they are often costly on my portfolio. I have kept the ones I like and dropped a number over the years. These days, with so many new extensions out, I feel there are stronger opportunities elsewhere. Having said that, I would still consider buying .TO names if I find one that I feel is valuable.

Overall, you need to be very careful with .TO names. One or two in your portfolio can give you a great opportunity, but if you have a lot they will drive into your ROI because of renewal fees and the difficulty selling them.

 

[hxp]

I live in Toronto and .to works extremely well. Especially for social sites. "blog.to", "dine.to", and "vibe.to" have been very popular here. We were also recently labeled "best city to live in, in the world" if that makes a difference to anyone. I wouldn't discount the extension.

 

[kubativity]

Any Value in .TO cctld Domains? - Good read!

just finished typing a small draft, I will continue where I left off with some goodies, let me know if you want to add any information to the article and any link backs to you!

You have a typo. It's connect.to not connec.to

Also, you can add my sales: loan.to: 2400 (sedo), 3000 gold.to (private) to your article if you like.

 

[Kate]

You've framed it quite well: .to is the TLD of Tonga simply, that's why it's not mainstream.
Even though it was made open to all early (around 1995).
Or you can look at it like a domain hack, but again, domain hacks are not for everyone.

 

[Jason.tv]

.to are good my Mobiles.to got $2500 as last bid....but I relisted it....

Should have sold it

 

[JudgeMind]

I recently acquired some of these (listed below). Most of the reported sales on flippa have been geared toward domain hacks. That's what my focus was.

Buses.to
Charters.to
CruiseShips.to

 

[Nick]

Google: All Domain Extensions Are Weighted The Same
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-all-domain-extensions-are-weighted-the-same/137139/

"For example, country code TLDs like .ca and .uk will be targeted to searchers in those countries. Google considers websites with country code domains to be more relevant to searchers who reside in the corresponding countries."

You have to read beyond the headline. I don't know why you keep trying to disprove this. I provided direct proof from Google. You're providing headlines from some blog.

 

[Jason.tv]

actually just picked up my very first one ; pen / to

 

[Jason.tv]

Any Value in .TO cctld Domains? - Good read!

just finished typing a small draft, I will continue where I left off with some goodies, let me know if you want to add any information to the article and any link backs to you!

 

[cocaseco]

@JasonTV thanks for the contribution. Agreed that they are increasing in popularity and good tip on the registration.to. I bought a couple that had seven digit price tags in the .com realm recently. I haven't tried to market them yet. Of course I don't expect anywhere near the .com price, they should still do well.

 

[cocaseco]

Grabbed trucks.to today so we will see how it does. Could be Toronto Truck market or commercial trucks to somewhere hack in shipping industry. I noticed Trucks.ca went for 38K and Trucks.info went for $2700...so somewhere in between should be the price lol. Gonna hold it for awhile though.

 

[cocaseco]

after .io .to is hot domain sales at flippa my Mobiles.to is at $205 at flippa auction...easy to transfer within register.to with a provided key.

$205 is hot? with a $50 regfee, its almost not worth doing at that price IMO.

I have several that I have been working and are still live leads, but no sales to date. These include cabs.to, conventions.to, trucks.to, roofing.to etc. The domain hack is a reasonable selling point, but the Toronto connection is even better IMO. But these do take a lot of work, more so than a dot com as you have to educate the buyer first. Many don't know and are understandably suspicious at first. That is if you want end user sales. I don't usually sell to resellers and so I expect a lot more money than $200

 

[campout]

It wouldn't surprise me if .to got added to Google's "generic" ccTLD list. As stated there is a push to use them in Toronto, and I think there is some movement against Internet types to make use of .to. It certainly wouldn't fit simply into the class of pure ccTLD - only related to Tonga.

 

[Messiah]

Although I believe .To domains are specific to the country Tonga, there is this SEO which plays a major role. Country Code TLD is just one of the factor out of many other factors which Google use to rank websites.

For example, I sold Rehab.to yesterday. If you search Rehab in Google, the first page will show the links of
1. Rehabs.com, 2. Wikipedia Page for Rehabilitation, 3. Rehab.ie

.IE is a domain extension for Ireland. Here, ccTLD did not stop this website to rank only in Ireland. The overall SEO played major role in ranking this website in the first page.

Any domain extension can be ranked very well if the SEO is done properly. JMO.

Regards,
Messiah

 

[campout]

I sold Rehab.to yesterday.

Congrats! Want to share any details? Listing venue? Price?

 

[Messiah]

Congrats! Want to share any details? Listing venue? Price?

Sold it on Flippa for $400..I was expecting a bit more to be honest with that strong keyword...But I'm happy overall... I regged that domain one month back for $45.

I have 6 more strong keyword domains in .to which I'm planning to keep at the moment...This domain extension is gaining momentum...

 

[campout]

This domain extension is gaining momentum...

How do you know?

 

[Messiah]

Do you mean that they weren't available at the normal ($50?) price, but had to be registered at a premium?

No..the premium domains you see in register.to website are just a few premium domains..there were lot other strong keyword domains which were still available one month back but they are all registered now for normal pricing $50...

I kept around 6 to 8 geo domains in my list such as Poland.to and Sweden.to .. Even those geo domains are now registered...

 

[Jason.tv]

I have

Vape / to
Menu / to
Pen / to
Places / to

 

[Jason.tv]

don't really like the extension, however some good keywords have sold for a lot of money. Also starting to look at these as it's shorter then the .top extension? so could be a good target for the chinese?

What do you think?

 

[JudgeMind]

don't really like the extension, however some good keywords have sold for a lot of money. Also starting to look at these as it's shorter then the .top extension? so could be a good target for the chinese?

What do you think?

I picked up 444.to just to test the market. Not sold yet

 

[Jason.tv]

the only issue is the policies regarding the selective registrars that offer .to and privacy on all the names. I think once the registrar updates a few things it could be something to look at.

 

[BrandChimp]

Another thing, you can't push a .TO domain. They have to be transferred to another account by paying a transfer fee.

 

[JudgeMind]

You can push between accts depending on where they are registered