opinion So why are .us domains not catching on?

[MapleDots]

In Canada the .ca regional domains are on fire, I don't understand why I never see a .us domain in actual use.

With the .coms almost out of reach why are the .us domains not catching on?
There are a lot of us companies like plumbers, roofers etc. yet so few of them use .us domains.

I would love to see what the penetration for .us is as compared to other countries.
I have been thinking about dabbling in some .us domains and would love some feedback.

 

[Want2learn]

if love.com is top domain

if you want love you have to go to a different extension. Now keep in mind this is a nondomainer speaking here! It is a tricky tricky proposition. I may think love.xyz is a nice substitute, and I actually think it can be. But some of the value in having love dot com outside of the obvious great name, is that there is 1 of them! Do we really want 1700 extensions where love is available? Me thinks no!

In fact while I do like some of the new extensions, I hope some of them go by by!

 

[Web Trader]

if love.com is top domain

if you want love you have to go to a different extension. Now keep in mind this is a nondomainer speaking here! It is a tricky tricky proposition. I may think love.xyz is a nice substitute, and I actually think it can be. But some of the value in having love dot com outside of the obvious great name, is that there is 1 of them! Do we really want 1700 extensions where love is available? Me thinks no!

In fact while I do like some of the new extensions, I hope some of them go by by!

What you are saying amounts to changing the subject. .US is the official country code for the USA and is not some "new extension." It has existed for decades, been available to the general public since 2002, and is in a class by itself as the only official US country extension applicable. There are and have always been big reasons to have expected it to become widely known and extremely popular in addition to and in some or many cases even more so than .com, and reasons why it has not yet have been addressed by some of us

 

[MapleDots]

@Web Trader - well said, could not have said it any better myself

@Want2learn - a .us domain is not speculating similar to a .xyz domain.
A country code is here to stay and is (in my opinion) at a much higher level, assuming you are dealing in that country.

Let me give you an actual true example...

I own a shopping site that sells 1.4 million per year (yes I own that)
I use a .ca extension for Canada exclusively because I do NOT sell outside of Canada. Being a health supplement there are rules for other countries and I do not want to be bothered with exporting, customs etc.

I will still have people from the states email me asking why they cannot pick a state instead of province for shipping. I tell them it is a .ca extension which serves only Canada.

If I see a .US extension I know I am dealing with a us company that mainly focuses on the us.
That said there are many businesses in the US that only do business locally and they could have a sweet killer short domain if they only switched away from the .com.

 

[E-Promote]

Very True but success is also finding new opportunities before they become mainstream

True, but in the case of .us, no new opportunities have presented themselves since the launch and even that was a big failure. Could it one day awaken and be embraced, sure but what are the odds? Even if it did "awaken", you would have plenty of time to invest with much less risk.

What's that? You want to take even more risk than that you say? Well, good news, because encompassing all of that speculative risk is opportunity risk. You have now successfully increased your probability of loss by investing in an unproven asset and irreversibly committing capital to it.

 

[MapleDots]

True, but in the case of .us, no new opportunities have presented themselves since the launch and even that was a big failure. Could it one day awaken and be embraced, sure but what are the odds? Even if it did "awaken", you would have plenty of time to invest with much less risk.

What's that? You want to take even more risk than that you say? Well, good news, because encompassing all of that speculative risk is opportunity risk. You have now successfully increased your probability of loss by investing in an unproven asset and irreversibly committing capital to it.

It's not a risk if it is a US business doing business in the us.
If my widget company could not get widget.com then I would register widget.us

It still boggles me that someone would pick widget.net or widget.xyz over the .us

Keep in mind I am talking about a small business within the states.

In Canada it is a no brainer, every big company owns the .ca
Apple.ca Microsoft.ca BestBuy.ca Walmart.ca... it goes on and on.

It's one of the only times Canada is more progressive than the states.

I keep looking and saying.... it's got to happen as .coms dry up.

Lets all click our heels at the same time and wish it

 

[Want2learn]

@Web Trader @MapleDots

Both of you replies make sense. I did know .US was older than say xyz.

Back to love!

So love.com is king. The question, if I understand correctly, is why isn't love.us more valuable right? There are those love gas stations, and i believe they are us based. I am trying to extend the convo I guess a little. Why isn't love.xyz or love.xxx or love.republican worth much? When I pose the question I think love.xyz is a cool domain. Love.xxx maybe in porn industry would be a good fit. Id think love.republican would not be a good domain.

I think to circle back to .us, I am surprised that some us companies haven't used .us as tertiary type of sites. And of course those smaller businesses. Maybe dot us can carve out a "small business" feel/community for small us businesses. Like american express does a small business month where if you purchase from designated small businesses you get x off the purchases!

 

[E-Promote]

It's not a risk if it is a US business doing business in the us.

It is if no US businesses are buying/using them. You can hope they will, tell yourself that they will and even tell them why they should but if they are not interested, your just tying up your bankroll.

 

[MapleDots]

It is if no US businesses are buying/using them. You can hope they will, tell yourself that they will and even tell them why they should but if they are not interested, your just tying up your bankroll.

I can't argue with that

As an investment for a domainer it does not make sense but being accustomed to having a regional domain I don't understand why the .us is not catching on. I think a few of the big boys need to start using it for the tide to finally shift.

I just tried to punch in Walmart.us and it switches to .com

I type in Walmart.ca and it stays as Walmart.ca

 

[E-Promote]

It has a lot to do with branding and branding momentum...ccTLD's are good for most Countries, especially when selling country specific goods and services, but the US was branded early with .com for business and the momentum is and will be hard to overcome.

 

[MapleDots]

It has a lot to do with branding and branding momentum...ccTLD's are good for most Countries, especially when selling country specific goods and services, but the US was branded early with .com for business and the momentum is and will be hard to overcome.

And talk about stupid.... BestBuy is absolutely clueless

Go to www.BestBuy.us and guess where it goes?

Are you ready?


Seriously....

Clueless Bounders...

It goes to the global site, as in select your country

 

[Recons.Com]

Another trend is with auto industry.

They do have country specific US websites but prefer to go with ... adding +usa.com, like

MBUSA.com
BMWUSA.com
etc.

 

[Web Trader]

.US would also have international appeal to people outside the country, just like .com, not just for doing business in the US. In fact so far it seems that with perhaps only few exceptions internationals outside the US have far more awareness .us even exists and far more interest in it.

Kate already provided the most important point before I even got to this thread.

Just briefly for now, there are primary reasons why .US has not caught on yet the way one would have expected, and there are reasons which are only secondary reasons which flow from the primary reasons, but which some people obviously believe are the primary ones when they are not. And underlying all that, there would be the reason or reasons why the primary reasons have been in effect since day 1.

And as I have said before, the truth is that, quantitatively speaking, all this time it would have taken virtually nothing at all for the reality of the situation to have been vastly different and exactly like what one would normally expect for this country and this TLD.

I and to some degree others have touched upon that before, but that'll do for now, perhaps more later.

One thing I'll mention though is that it does seem some people posting are still not familiar with these active .us phenomena:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/post-developed-us.1011553/

 

[TRY]

I can't argue with that

As an investment for a domainer it does not make sense but being accustomed to having a regional domain I don't understand why the .us is not catching on. I think a few of the big boys need to start using it for the tide to finally shift.

I just tried to punch in Walmart.us and it switches to .com

I type in Walmart.ca and it stays as Walmart.ca

Of course because .com is #1 in the u.s.

Walmart owns both, so do many other big u.s. brands.
Domainers can't see the value yet big brands do, umm shouldn't it be the other way around. ....That's how it would seem but in reality big domainers are already heavily vested.

 

[Web Trader]

Well speaking of big brands and in case anyone didn't see my post in another thread already, see what this .com is up to when you click it in the US...

www.CalvinKlein.com

 

[raceway]

.com has the biggest audience... Everyone knows about the ".com". But if your business is local it's hard to beat a good cctld. There's just not as many fish in the sea but you will still get a few bites. $$$ I have sold some .us, .in and .ca's but definitely more .com's then anything else. It is what it is.

 

[TRY]

Edit

 

[TRY]

And talk about stupid.... BestBuy is absolutely clueless

Go to www.BestBuy.us and guess where it goes?

Are you ready?


Seriously....

Clueless Bounders...

It goes to the global site, as in select your country

For me it redirected to the .com. I'm in the u.s

 

[Web Trader]

.com has the biggest audience... Everyone knows about the ".com".

Right, we know all that. The relevant question is what could have been done and what still could be done for .us to "catch on." I've already given the answer, as did Kate. It's really very simple. It all boils down to whether people in the US government really want .us to catch on or not. If they do then it would have taken very little at all, but a very little that has never been done. If not the US government, then it would take a bit more for the private sector, i.e. mainly Neustar, but not that much more really. But that's assuming they would even do such a thing if the US government itself didn't really even want .us to "catch on."

And see this big surprise .com-to-.us in addition to Calvin Klein I just discovered by the way:

www.haagendazs.com

That was very surprising. Haagen-Dazs is a huge brand here, a household name. You almost can't go anywhere without running into it prominently displayed in a store. I was going to save this for later but might as well post it now. Look at this: .us is even on their Facebook page, at least here in the US - https://www.facebook.com/HaagenDazsUS.

 

[raceway]

Right, we know all that. The relevant question is what could have been done and what still could be done for .us to "catch on." I've already given the answer,

Everyone is entitled to post there own opinion. If you did not get my point then it's not my fault. There really is no right answer to the question asked because .us is doing what it is was meant to and many companies in the .us are worldwide and of course choose to own the .king.

 

[Web Trader]

The significance of this surprise discovery of what Haagen-Dazs is doing is remarkable, folks.

Haagen-Dazs is huge. Calvin Klein is also huge (see earlier). But the comparison in the US between giants like Haagen-Dazs and Calvin Klein is like this:

Calvin Klein: a great big whale in the sea.

Haagen-Dazs: Mount Everest.

But that's not to say that what I believe has always been needed and is still needed is no longer needed in order to ignite public awareness and desire, barring any surprise unexpected grassroots emergence which we have never seen yet.