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Some thoughts on the .CO extension - portfolio experiment

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Since October I've been running a massive .co investment test. Dumped some 5-fig on the TLD, not exact math yet but in that range.

Here is what I observed.

- I did have a bunch of sales since then. However, for some weird reason, in March / April it just stopped It's getting 2 months now since I haven't sold about any. What the heck. It's not like I've sold the good ones and that's it. I haven't changed pricing. Or at least haven't increased any.

There's something else going in the market right now, something I can't fathom. Yet.

- I sold a bunch at $199/299 and also some $499. I haven't yet sold any .CO for more than $750. I believe though you can definitely sell a great .co for $2500 and more, and some NP-ers here had, of course. Side note I have mostly 2-words but also a few 1-word. I will renew a small % of them.

- I'm looking at the distribution of sales and it's totally random.

I've expected the top quality domains to sell first, for example those which are registered in almost any tld imaginable and the ones everyone would definitely sell for 4-fig. They didn't. The most I've sold some names which might also be sold below 1k even as .coms. (Edit: most of what I sold are registered in 2..3 of the top 10 tlds or so; the ones that I have which are registered in all of that... never sold. Weird.)

My conclusions so far from this experiment are as follows.

- The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone will go for a .co.

In fact, surprisingly perhaps, less competitive domains have sold in my case. I'd say that better brands/ companies are still avoiding .CO. At least this is my observation based on the portfolio I have. I see SMB's going hard for them, as a .com replacement.

- It is yet very early for .CO, although there is definitely a positive trend here. But I would not advise anyone getting into a significant investment like I did, chances are it won't bring much yield.

I'm personally gonna be in profit on this tld, but overall it's lower than my .coms and even my few .orgs for example. I will only renew a few of them. The other will be discounted and then left to expire ($22+ renewal is not attractive).

Anyway, I still got far better results with .co though in comparison with other tlds. Have some .contact and a lot of .xyz, sales been quite meh on those. Unsure if I'll get my investment back on those, but it was an assumed risk. .CO was decent.

- If you buy some .CO, do it scarcely and cherry pick a lot. Buy the ones you will definitely want to renew and also the kind that you would price 2k+ and keep there. Top quality names.

- For my xxx range sales, the best sales were ones matching an everyday business. For example something like "PestRemoval" .co would be good. Whatever fits an everyday SMB. More special names didn't sell - at all. No AR, VR, or whatever. No crypto etc etc. But again someone else would have a different experience depending on portfolio. I got luck with "shop" names + some niche word that is rather common.

- I doubt pricing xxx range is going to bring good return overall. So skip any of that, domains that don't qualify for higher price; stick to 4-fig names and only those. Renew if you afford /think you should, but keep that small, its costly overall. Otherwise, keep watching what expires and get them cheap for one year, no renewals.

That's about it. Good luck and please share your experience too. Thanks!
 
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Also I think at some point the daily sedo sales (there was really a lot) were done by some investor(s) looking to position themselves on .co.
 
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I invested around $3K in cheap hand reg domains started during 2020 Thanksgiving promo and other holiday promos ( and a few auctions names that I paid upto $30-$40).. From that portfolio, I have made a little over 11K.
During the promo as a sub-part of the experiment, I also ordered about 50 crypto related names, and I haven't made a single sale. Same with CBD names lol. November is approaching fast lol....

I also bought a bunch of "Chinese names". I have only sold 1, so I am not a loss from that niche, but damn, you will find way too many chinese names in the drops. I stopped buying those.

German names, French names, Japanese Names, Italian names, however strong and popular. I didn't sell any, even though I sold one generic name to an European Buyer for X,XXX.

Typo brandbles, like the ones sold in .com on SH don't sell. I have a few

I sold 2 names to colombian national, one for Mid 4 figures.

Most sales come from Afternic. But I had sales everywhere, including sedo and epik.

Other than the Niche that didn't sell, the rest are totally random.



People talk about .co traffic leaking to .com, but I also see a lot of traffic leaking from .com to .co
I have several domains whose reg fee have been paid for from bodis click ;)



Regarding better names, (I Have another premium portfolio each costing $100-$600 that I started against better judgement, maybe because of the price expectation, that is doing really bad).. Hoping for one Big sale to at least get the feels but then it's not even been half a year, so I am hopeful, seeing other comps.

Only made one 4K sale but it was a $30 buy. In fact I made anither 3K sales from a $30 buy. 30 could be the sweet spot eh?

Also I bought 200 .co as my first experiment in june 2020. Some of the names looks really good. And some have great traffic even. But I didn't sell a single one from that batch. I have priced all of thenm at 199 since renewal is approaching, It was a great learning. Just about 200 bucks in learning, because my my next batch was hugely profitable


I also just finished buying 500 names on NameSilo..
I have a $2.29 promo offer going on.
 
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