What do you think of foreign language domains?

[sleepysentry]

I've been utilizing my German lately when registering domains. I've found that a number of premium .de's are available as .coms. My best find yet has been AuslandsInvestition.com (German for "foreign investment"). The name is taken on three other extensions, but the .com was still available. Someone registered the domain in 2000 and let it drop in 2006.

Do you think names this these have value? Obviously finding a buyer will probably require a bit more work, but I am particularly interested in German .coms due to the strength of .de. German is the most widely-spoken language in Europe and a main language in five extremely web-savvy countries.

I think great opportunities exist with foreign language names because there is less competition for registration as well. It's really hard for me not to think some of my German registrations might be worth something when I see domainers featuring names like hiccup.cn and ticket24.tv on Sedo.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[DavidH]

You have a distinct advantage if you speak German as you will know whether a name is technically correct in its spelling - for example I have the dot com of Krankenversicherer which I understand is not completely correct nor not entirely wrong, but as I dont speak German I was not aware of that when I got it.

I have sold a couple of Dutch language names but like the Germans they seem to prefer their country tld which may explain why the .com was previously available!

I have had some Scandinavian language domains which I had no luck in selling even though they were keyword rich.

There is certainly less competition in that area of names and if you are confident in your language abilities give it a go starting with keyword rich names which you can get for registration or low prices.

Please let us know how you get on.

David

 

[realtimeregister]

Hello Sleepsentry,

Several of our resellers are domainers who buy and sell gTLD's as mentioned in your example.

Spelling needs tobe 100% correct. One tiny error and you register a domain that will never sell.

However the prices for an english word or name for .COM or .NET are still higher then the german/french/dutch/spanish ones. The reason for this is that most end users usually go for their own ccTLD first.

I strongly suggest you put in alot of research when you want to register domain names as mentioned in your example. I would check if the ccTLD is already taken. If it is not taken i would not register the .com or net version at all.
If the ccTLD is taken then it mightbe intresting to register the .com and see if u can sell it to the current ccTLD owner who holds the domain.

Just a few fast pointers.

 

[StonePillar]

"Although these ccTLDs have gained influence, and in some countries may even be as popular as the .com, the .com remains king of domains. The biggest Spanish domain sale in Sedo history was viajes.com for $300,000 in 2004. That same year, the biggest sale among all TLDs was juegos.com (games.com) for $1 million." Source: Antonio Marzo, who was director of Spanish and Latin American markets at Sedo, as reported by dnjournal)

realtimeregister, If I own fabricacion(.)com (manufacturing(.)com in Spanish), should I try to sell it to current ccTLD owners who have the domain?

 

[liquidcherry]

Hey Sleepy..

Schau einfach beim DNjournal vorbei, dort siehst du die aktuellen Verkaufsstatistiken und wirst feststellen das z.b ekino.com fuer $3,500 verkauft wurde oder frankreichurlaub.com fuer $2450....es ist mit Sicherheit Geld zu machen damit

Cheers

Liquid

Translation for all no Germans :

Hi Sleepy,

Just go to DNjournal and look at the recent sales statistics and you will discover that ekino.com(ecinema)was sold for $3500 or frankreichurlaub.com(francevacation) for $2450...so there is for sure money to make!


But warning to all non germans or noobs who just see the $$$ numbers lol...like everybody else said ,it needs to be correct!

Cheers

Liquid

 

[Coopey]

Yes, go for it.
But, as everyone has already mentioned, make sure you get the correct spellings before registering. Perhaps a German friend/penpal could help you with that before you register?