.co Why .CO will will not do well

[adinfinite]

well maybe the title of the thread is a little harsh. I dunno. But I had an experience recently where I was helping my gf to organize a fundraiser. She wanted a website set up but the name we wanted was taken in all good extensions except .co, &.tel. So i decided to go with .CO. To make an otherwise long story short, we had pamphlets and invitations made for the event. Then a series of things happened that made me really question the usefulness and value of .co domains:

1) The guy at the printing shop who was making the promo material called to ask " are you sure the website is coorect? It seems to be missing the letter m at the end" lol

2) When we finally got them printed and handed out to over 700 people we kept getting calls about whether or not the website address was correct. I had to keep telling people to "jut type it in, it works"

3) At the event we had a guess speaker who kept encouraging people to go to www.nameof charity.com ( instead of .co ) and donate. Lol

Now I must admit that it might not have been a good idea to put up a charity site on a .co. But I thought that since the actual charity has its own .org already and this entity and site was created for the sole purpose of raising money for the charity in a one off event, then it wouldnt be much of a problem.

I know we sent a lot of traffic to the .com because the 700 in attendance were told to "tell their friends and family" LOL.

I am thinking that only domainers and people close to the industry ( registrars etc) see value in .co. My experience is that the man on the street who constitutes the "traffic" we all crave is totally confused by it. It will take a lot to get regular everyday people to accept it. Probably way more than a superbowl commercial as Godaddy is planning.

I am not saying it doesnt have some value. But for those dreaming of a .co/.com parity situation I say dream on!

I know many people are gonna point to the fact that overstock bought and is currently using o.co. thats fine. I wonder how much type ins O.co gets that are not from domainers? lol. Besides they have O.com to back it up. LOL

 

[snoop]

I think the solution is to build a business with more than one extension. The .co can mainly be used to grab dot com misspelled traffic and you can work the seo aspect but you may need a different variation for offline marketing. I was trying to stay hopeful for those suffering because of the ignorance out there regarding this. But that's just how I see it.

Why would someone build a business on more than one extension. Unless it is a multiple national using country codes it doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[areyoulocal?]

I have only once suggested to someone that they go to a .co address. This was typed into skype so there could be no confusion as yo the address I was sending them to.

They copied, pasted, and of course added the 'missing' M themselves, assuming that I had mistyped.

So, 100% failure rate in this little straw poll

Seriously though, I think it is all about time and marketing to create awareness. If (for example) google posted an announcement on their homepage that there are shiny new .co addresses and let the general public know this pretty unknown extension actually exists, failure rates would plummet. Since google won't do that I guess its up to the people who own multiple .co's to find a way of letting people know. Surely you net savvy types can set up some sort of viral campaign!

 

[snoop]

I have only once suggested to someone that they go to a .co address. This was typed into skype so there could be no confusion as yo the address I was sending them to.

They copied, pasted, and of course added the 'missing' M themselves, assuming that I had mistyped.

So, 100% failure rate in this little straw poll

Seriously though, I think it is all about time and marketing to create awareness. If (for example) google posted an announcement on their homepage that there are shiny new .co addresses and let the general public know this pretty unknown extension actually exists, failure rates would plummet. Since google won't do that I guess its up to the people who own multiple .co's to find a way of letting people know. Surely you net savvy types can set up some sort of viral campaign!

You can't rely on unrealistic stuff. The kind of promotion a tld needs to get public awareness would not be worth the money spent in my view. I think it would take hundreds of millions in promotion.

 

[nameflake]

Why would someone build a business on more than one extension. Unless it is a multiple national using country codes it doesn't make much sense to me.

It won't make much sense if you don't put energy into understanding something.. Lots of companies buy up keywords for their businesses...

 

[ctbon]

It won't make much sense if you don't put energy into understanding something.

very well said :bingo:

 

[snoop]

It won't make much sense if you don't put energy into understanding something.. Lots of companies buy up keywords for their businesses...

.....emphasis on keywords. They don't buy up names in whole lot of extensions to develop them, aside from country codes.

 

[kinesis]

I think from execution to finish - .co was a very overhyped public launch with a massive marketing campaign that added tons more hype to that overhype. for one, they auctioned all the premium names and kept them, giving very little opportunity to the little guys - this is greed in my eyes. The best thing about new ccTLD's is the availability and equal opportunity for each and all to get premium names. People from rich to poor backgrounds - all have even playing field. That was not the case with CO! I will not be buying a .CO domain, for this reason amongst others - one being it's a knock off wanna be dot com, and will never touch it. Then again if you have something nice like coffee.co or some very nice typo like sex.co, hats off to you!

---------- Post added at 11:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 PM ----------

On the up side, look at how SEX.CO is ranking, assuming just typo traffic, f**king nice...

Site Information for sex.co
Get Details
Alexa Traffic Rank: 849,954
No regional data Sites Linking In: 3

 

[John Baron]

\

[/COLOR]On the up side, look at how SEX.CO is ranking, assuming just typo traffic, f**king nice...

Site Information for sex.co
Get Details
Alexa Traffic Rank: 849,954
No regional data Sites Linking In: 3

thats like 10-20 hits a day ...

 

[bmugford]

thats like 10-20 hits a day ...

Yep, the traffic for Sex.co is virtually non existent.

Compete Traffic Sex.com vs Sex.co

Brad

 

[NPer]

[/COLOR]On the up side, look at how SEX.CO is ranking, assuming just typo traffic, f**king nice...

Site Information for sex.co
Get Details
Alexa Traffic Rank: 849,954
No regional data Sites Linking In: 3

I have many sites with waaay better Alexa Rankings. Between ranges 200 000 to 300 000. I know it's not the best of rankings in the world (for those who feel they need to attack me), but it's certainly better than sex.co.

@liror & brad: that is very little traffic indeed. I agree, a ranking of around 850 000 could be around 10 visitors a day for the most.

Nubiano :wave:

 

[snicksnack]

I have many sites with waaay better Alexa Rankings. Between ranges 200 000 to 300 000. I know it's not the best of rankings in the world (for those who feel they need to attack me), but it's certainly better than sex.co.

@liror & brad: that is very little traffic indeed. I agree, a ranking of around 850 000 could be around 10 visitors a day for the most.

Nubiano :wave:

Alexa isn't really exact since. There are domains which have alexa of xx,xxx,xxx and have over 1000 visitors a day.

 

[NPer]

Alexa isn't really exact since. There are domains which have alexa of xx,xxx,xxx and have over 1000 visitors a day.

You are right there-alexa is not always accurate. But, xx,xxx,xxx is a bit extreme.

That said, what do you (snicksnack)think the traffic is on sex.co? I think it is very little actually.

Kinesis was under the impression that 850 000 ranking is good-which really is not in the way he was using it.

Nubiano :wave:

 

[snicksnack]

I think the traffic of sex.co should be below 100 a day, my guess would be 30-40 a day.

---------- Post added at 09:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 AM ----------

You are right there-alexa is not always accurate. But, xx,xxx,xxx is a bit extreme.

I have some, that's how I know.

 

[trsaso]

.Co not treating to .Com
.Co Its 2 if you choise to be.
Need to stay with price and will be.

 

[thefreshtwist]

its marketing which has embeded the .com into people minds

i have a name which people try and put extra letters into even after i hand them my license, they look up sometimes too and ask is this spelled correctly (why on earth would i hand you my license if it was wrong...ugghhh)

countless times i ask people to repeat my last name back to me, they do, (it is spelled correctly)then i get whatever the thing was i was using my name for and it has an extra letter.... :O

my name is short and it has one vowel at end and people are always trying to put another one in.....

my point:::

its like how people ask for Tylenol when they mean asprin

branding plays a large part on the subconscious decisions people make...

i think it hurts more then .co
i think the branding of .com is so strong in the general public that any other domain when mentioned in the real world (like a supermarket)
gets a what i heard them wrong let me put the .com at end like it should be...

:blink:

 

[emjohn]

Yep, the traffic for Sex.co is virtually non existent.

Compete Traffic Sex.com vs Sex.co

Brad

I don't think comparing the two helps very much. Two different animals. If we went entirely by traffic, sex.com is definitely not worth 13 Mill. It only has a ranking of 36,000 in the US. There are a lot of other "parked" names with little traffic that are selling for big bucks.

Sex.com is still worth 13 mill, though. The name has built in juice, for obvious reasons.

 

[DU]

I don't think comparing the two helps very much. Two different animals. If we went entirely by traffic, sex.com is definitely not worth 13 Mill. It only has a ranking of 36,000 in the US. There are a lot of other "parked" names with little traffic that are selling for big bucks.

Sex.com is still worth 13 mill, though. The name has built in juice, for obvious reasons.

Owner claims 7 figure parking revenue.

Here's a question.

Given that the promise of .co was said to be in the notion that .co means company, what is the feeling of people now that we are seeing registrations so focused on keywords that the COMPANY component doesn't make sense.

ABM.co
Tiffanys.CO
RealEstate.CO
Chocolate.Co

Obviously make sense. The ABM Company, the Chocolate Company.

New registrations like:

Smartcars.co
HiDefTvs.co
<CityName>Hotels.co
submityourdomain.co

Etc. The "Company" relationship is meaningless. It's just a bunch of keywords.

Also...why aren't THExxx domains more popular.

TheChocolateFactory.co
vs
ChocolateFactory.co

Because a lot of company's include "The" and it makes it look and sound more correct.

No one says - let's go eat at CheesecakeFactory

 

[ctbon]

Owner claims 7 figure parking revenue.

Here's a question.

Given that the promise of .co was said to be in the notion that .co means company, what is the feeling of people now that we are seeing registrations so focused on keywords that the COMPANY component doesn't make sense.

ABM.co
Tiffanys.CO
RealEstate.CO
Chocolate.Co

Obviously make sense. The ABM Company, the Chocolate Company.

New registrations like:

Smartcars.co
HiDefTvs.co
<CityName>Hotels.co
submityourdomain.co

Etc. The "Company" relationship is meaningless. It's just a bunch of keywords.

Also...why aren't THExxx domains more popular.

TheChocolateFactory.co
vs
ChocolateFactory.co

Because a lot of company's include "The" and it makes it look and sound more correct.

No one says - let's go eat at CheesecakeFactory

by your logic .net would only be suitable for fishing.

 

[DU]

by your logic .net would only be suitable for fishing.

Where did I say anything about suitable/not suitable?

.net was initially setup for registrations related networking.

Obviously at some point that changed and it became generic.

The argument I keep hearing for .co is that it means company; however, it seems that registrations have already ignored this and treat .co as something generic.

I was curious as to how people felt about that in terms of what it means moving forward.

Does it meant that .co has moved too far too fast or that the initiative that is making it mean company was purely a marketing schtick that people bought into and the value is there regardless.

 

[the_poet]

The argument I keep hearing for .co is that it means company; however, it seems that registrations have already ignored this and treat .co as something generic.

The same way .com was supposed to stand for 'commerce' but it's been used for any kind of website. Same happened to .co.uk in the UK.

New registrations like:

Smartcars.co
HiDefTvs.co
<CityName>Hotels.co
submityourdomain.co

Etc. The "Company" relationship is meaningless. It's just a bunch of keywords.

And even if I wanted to strictly use .CO for 'company', what's the matter with founding a company named 'Smartcars', 'HiDefTvs', etc.?

 

[kubativity]

the .CO extension is great for losing your customers to the .com version of your domain name!

 

[Mize]

a similar .com to another .com will cause this

 

[dragtastic]

the .CO extension is great for losing your customers to the .com version of your domain name!

what proof do you have of this?

this could hold true for ANY extension not just .COM

 

[bmugford]

what proof do you have of this?

this could hold true for ANY extension not just .COM

The difference is most extensions have an identity.

.CO starts off as a typo, and with so little broad awareness many people are just going to assume it was a typo of .COM

Brad

 

[Mize]

if anyone needs help with .co
check out the new:
opportunity.co