discuss Future of .CO

[abstractdomainer]

.CO has changed their policy. Although there are a number of good domains and the extension, by the virtue of it being a short for .COM, is solid, according to me.

Here are some issues recently:

1) A lot of the good .CO domains have been priced at $100
2) Investors can hardly manage and own a portfolio of .CO given the pricing
3) The sales seems to have declined - Mainly by the price at which .CO are selling

My questions is, given all these scenarios, do you think .CO is still a good investment?

When you shortlist like 100 names and try to purchase them, you get this message where out of the 90 odd domains which are available, only say, 20 are prices at the registration price. they categorize even simple names at premium prices and it so happens that you end up not investing in the extension. I personally planned to purchase 1000-2000 domain during promo codes that provide the domain in $1.99 or $2.99 but then, the issue is, you do not have so many names to register.

Even the simplest possible names by putting say ly, ed, etc. are priced super high. For domain investors like us, who like to invest and own a huge portfolio of names in the extensions that we see promising, this has huge implications.

Inviting all .CO investors to share their comments on this new(or rather old from a year), strategy to price the domain name higher. Any way you are surviving this change?

I personally will have to change my entire business model, which was built around this extension itself. Is the registry only targeting end-users by this? Super worried with this.

 

[abstractdomainer]

I'm seeing companies advertising on .CO everywhere — in YouTube ads, display ads, Twitter, and elsewhere online. These are companies I haven't stumbled across before. It seems like I see a new one every 2 days.

Would most of these companies or small businesses prefer to own the .COM? (Same thing with .io and .ai). Sure. But unless they're VC-backed or wildly successful, it's completely out of reach.

One-word names sell the best in .CO.

I never saw it as a replacement to .com, or even something that could compete with it — it's its own thing. A good option for companies or entrepreneurs who need an alternative to .COM, and are smart enough to avoid things like .xyz, .pizza, and .plumbing.

Renewals add up, yes. I can see how it is difficult to keep more than a few .CO names, depending on the person's financial situation. It was harder for me a few years ago, and I was constantly switching registrars and looking for coupon codes.

I own somewhere around 65 .COs.

A few I've sold:

anna
ocho
friendly
internships
chutney
audiobook
garten
carly

The lowest sales price of these was audiobook at $720. The highest was Anna at $10k. The others were in the middle, in the $1500-5000 range.

I haven't been doing outbound, and I turn down a lot of lowball offers, so these sales don't happen too frequently. I also know I wouldn't have as much luck with sales if I didn't have good, 2010 pre-registered names (for the most part, I picked up a few after that). It's worth it for me to renew my .COs, because a single sale more than covers the renewal cost.

But I realize that's much harder for a lot of people.

Excellent share there! Thanks a lot!
How much is the holding time for these?

 

[NLP]

Excellent share there! Thanks a lot!
How much is the holding time for these?

Between 8 months and 4-5 years. Some maybe a few more, like closer to 6-7. I'd have to check.

I'm a "buy and hold" investor, for the most part, and don't mind waiting for the right offer.

 

[ecomslice]

Some pile if nice co domains on nameliquidate. What's the best trend ? Great keywords or short brandables?

 

[NLP]

Some pile if nice co domains on nameliquidate. What's the best trend ? Great keywords or short brandables?

Short keywords that can function as brands.

Most of the names that have any value seem to be in the $424 and up range (and even then, most of the names aren't worthwhile, even limiting the length to exclude the longer ones).

 

[abstractdomainer]

Between 8 months and 4-5 years. Some maybe a few more, like closer to 6-7. I'd have to check.

I'm a "buy and hold" investor, for the most part, and don't mind waiting for the right offer.

That's a long hold time. How much are we looking in renewals - like $100 in renewals I believe, on an average.

Some pile if nice co domains on nameliquidate. What's the best trend ? Great keywords or short brandables?

Short brandables on I would say.

 

[NLP]

That's a long hold time. How much are we looking in renewals - like $100 in renewals I believe, on an average.

My yearly renewals are a lot more than that.

 

[abstractdomainer]

My yearly renewals are a lot more than that.

NO. I meant for holding one domain on an average, before it sells.
So holding something for 4 years which has an annual renewal of $25 means and sell in say, 3-4 years, we are looking at $25 * 4 = $100 renewals.
According to that, sales price has to be in 4 figures.

 

[NLP]

According to that, sales price has to be in 4 figures.

Correct. Everyone's business model, ROI, an ability to deal with renewals will be different.

On average, I hold longer than 4 years. But my average sales price per name is around $3300.