.co domain names – To Buy Or Not To Buy
dot co - is it the way forward?
The .co domain name extension was released on the 20th July 2010 to the general public (although the high commercial value names were extracted from the ‘pool’ a month prior) - was it going to be another over hyped domain name extension? Or was there logic in the marketing hype? Oh, when I say marketing hype I mean marketing bombardment! Unless you were doing a stint behind bars or were living without the basic amenities (food, shelter, internet access) you would have heard about the next big thing the dot ‘co.ming’. This was at the time just a ccTLD for Columbia!
Marketed as a way to get the name you were after if the .com (or .net/.org) had been taken (again even when it was a ccTLD). With one half of Internet evangelists thinking it was the next best thing – the other half thought it would just be another domain extension that would fizzle away (anyone still using a .biz or .info?).
.co being a country code top level domain name for Columbia – so what the heck was the big fuss? Well Google announced it would treat .co domain names as it would .coms. Meaning? Yep you can now get ranked for .co’s globally. But the thing is this was not announced until after the release date. Having said that the price of a dot.co wasn’t really going to break the bank. The rumours were there – after all they’re always there.
So – a few months later have the .co’s made an impact? Have any new or existing well known companies or brands come out and used the .co? The problem I have with .co’s is that the typical (non-savvy) Internet user would probably stick an ‘m’ at the end of it. So don’t hold your breath for direct visits. On a personal note there’s only one .co that I ‘frequent’ on a frequent basis. Having said that .co’s have probably been the most successful new domain extension for some time.
I would say worth buying – it will all depend on the level of the end users proficiency – what do I mean by that? Well will they be able distinguish between a .com and a .co, and not think it’s a typo. In the long term I think the .co could well become a worthy top level domain.
