.co domain type

[TotalWebSolutions]

Hiya folks,

We are about to start taking pre-registration requests on these ready for the launch later this month and I was just wondering what peoples thoughts were on this domain type? We have tested the water with a few random customers and the early signs seem positive. I would be interested to know if you would consider a need to register a .co if you already had say a .co.uk / .com

Thanks

Simon

[Eagle]

It would depend on cost I suppose.

[downsouth]

price iss gonna be the biggy, also can see this domain ext taking an absolute lifetine to stick in peoples mind, we are all to geared towards .co.uk/.com

Ranking potential??????

[soft-industry]

This will depend on the price and purpose pursued by the customer

[TotalWebSolutions]

Thanks for feedback so far. We are probably going at £20.00 per domain (per year), plus a one-off pre-registration fee of £4.99 (per domain). Then, if on 20th July (full launch) there are any domains that cannot be registered you would get a full refund (minus the pre-registration fee).

Simon

[MASSEY]

.co is gonna be a flop, what value it has to anyone who isn't columbian is beyond me :|

[akirk]

nope :)

we are now in a world where people are far less worried about owning all their domains. If someone uses your trademark - ask them not to!

biggest issue with the .co is that while I can see someone owning it as part of a portfolio of domain TLDs I can't see someone owning it instead of a .co.uk / .com as I can't see it working for advertising - put out www domain co and I would reckon that 70-90% of people using it will assume a mis-spelling and enter the .com or .co.uk variants instead. If you don't own those you will just be sending your visitors somewhere else, if you do, why would you not use those which are more familiar when advertising?

We will be advising our clients not to bother - seeing it as a waste of money...

regards

Alasdair

[curtisclarke]

.co is gonna be a flop

Seconded.

---

.co will be used by people who cannot get their preferred name in .co.uk/.com and then they will spend the rest of their days convincing people that you *don't* need to type in the .uk bit at the end. It will cause more trouble than it's worth.

I suspect you'll get the usual flurry of companies trying to scam you by calling you up to say that 'someone has tried to register your name in .co, but we'll give it to you if you come to us first'.

How many people think websites *must* start with 'www' still?

[ecenica]

How many people think websites *must* start with 'www' still? Yes good point. We dropped 'www.' part of our domain about a year ago. Whilst technically correct, it's a bit redundant in every day use. Only downside we've found is with geodns. Which might force us back to www.

[david8765]

I cant see .co being anything special. For those who dont know .co is the country code top level domain for Columbia.

The only use for it is for the unique naming opportunities (like del.icio.us)

[TotalWebSolutions]

Just an update on this, we have seen continued interest since launching our pre-registration campaign with our existing customers and will be following this up with a full launch on 20th July. We plan to launch an offer of 3 months free hosting with a .co registration so that we can see if people are actually looking to host a .co - particularly new businesses - as a result of our online marketing drive.

[Greyhound-Computing]

I dont see why there is such negativity around the .co idea.

What about the scenario when your domain is very closely linked to your product
ie. cupcakes.co?

If the .co.uk and .com arent available and .co is then why not buy the .co and then you have ready made SEO juice right there surely?

Also, for personal use, those who would like a unqiue email address ie.their name stand a much better chance of getting it.

AIMHO.

[Astaroth]

If you simply want to have it to get your domain for SEO purposes then there are already plenty of options out there without need another one.

The issue with .co as others have already said, once you go beyond being solely reliant on SEO or PPC then you are going to have to explain to people that you are .co not .co.uk or .com and you will lose a lot of traffic to these other two domains (which presumably are already bought if your getting the .co domain to get your keyword rich domain rather than completing the set of tlds)

[Coppock]

.co is gonna be a flop, what value it has to anyone who isn't columbian is beyond me :|

I third ;)

I guess the handy thing about a .co is if people type too fast (i'm forever doing it)

pressing return before typing the "m"

Although it would be cool to own www.psy.co or www.co.co

[newdomainer]

.co WAS the domain extension for Columbia..... just as .me WAS the extension for Montenegro....

The point of .co is it's application as an abbreviation for "company" - especially in the UK & other English speaking nations.

As a domain extension I can see the arguments for confusion - typo for .com or .co.uk but we had the same problem when .co.uk was launched - people thought .co.uk was a typo for .com and when .info .org .tv .mobi or .biz were launched the public at large became confused but as we all know, these multiple domain extensions are now part of our vernacular but of course, many people get left behind at each stage and it'll be some time (for example) before all Americans learn that there are extensions other than .com ;-)

There have been many new extensions and some have been more successful than others but I like this one; it's perfect (more so than even .com) for many 'company' applications.... everyone recognises that extension from way before the internet was even invented; -

.co = company

works for any business, surely?