You’re Not Seriously Buying A .co Are You?
July 21, 10 Comments - Author: Simon Johnson
Over the past 24 hours I’ve personally received emails and private messages from people asking about .co. It seems everyone is asking one of two questions:
Question 1 – Am I buying .co ?
Question 2 – Should they buy .co ?
Instead of replying to everyone individually, I thought I’d post this.
Answer 1 – No I am not buying .co
Answer 2 – That’s up to you and your appetite for risk.
The reality is, people make mistakes. We saw it with .mobi .me .asia and other TLDs.
What I’m about to say isn’t going to be popular, but it’s the reality check that most bloggers and other companies simply aren’t going to give you.
Where The $$$ Is
The people that make REAL money from these new extensions (most of which are over-hyped), are the Registries and the Registrars. In other words, the companies that sell them to YOU. There is only ever a small number of premium generic keywords that sell upwards of $200k. When you look at who is buying them, its often large corporates with the marketing $$$ to spend. Having worked for many global brands, I can honestly say that when it comes down to it, they do this for two reasons: 1. Fear and 2. Protecting their trademarks (brands).
Marketing
Now onto .co – its really no different from any other TLD we have seen. The method is quite simple; get a huge marketing budget and buy advertising.
As a domainer, you may be reading through blogs and press releases saying to yourself “I have to get in on this – everyone is buying”. In reality, what you need to do is have a look at WHO is supporting .co and WHY. Let me give you two examples:
Example #1 – Blogger
- Is their blogging site plastered with .co advertising? How can they be objective?
- Is it “cash for comment” ? Do they have a policy or statement on their blog about how they handle conflicts of interest?
- Are they a full-time domainer or is domaining just a hobby for them?
- Perhaps the only reason they blog, is to sell advertising on their site?
- Do they work full time for a vendor? Perhaps one who is involved in selling .co domains?
Example #2 – .co Founders
This is a great marketing initiative for people who want to register .co and get in first (before everyone else). Seriously, I think its a great initiative – my hat goes off to the .CO Registry.
Here is how it goes…. .co founders come up with an idea, submit an application and “develop, launch and market your .CO domain per your proposal and our agreement“.
I’d also note this clause: “During the license period, you must agree to actively market and promote the .CO domain in a manner that is likely to produce widespread awareness of your site based on industry best practices.”
So – you promote .co as the biggest, greatest thing in the world, to as many people as you can. During this time, the .co you selected is being wiggled over your eyeballs, just like a hypnotist with a pocket watch.
Risk
Many of you know that my background is in Security, Fraud Prevention and Corporate Risk. This is the lens through which I often view my own domain investments. What is interesting is that nobody is looking at sovereign risk / geopolitical risk. Call it what you want – .co is for Colombia. If you are going to invest $$$ into multiple domains (no matter what the extension), then you need to know the risks associated with that investment.
Conversion
We have all seen TLDs like .jobs and .pro; so is the general public REALLY going to use .co ? Sure, everyone knows about .com, but not .co. That’s only going to change with time, but how much time? Months, years? How does .co rank in the search engines? Can your business afford to wait?
Cash
Each dollar that you invest in .co (or any TLD for that matter) is money you are taking away from your business. That’s money, that you could be spending on something else. I was thinking about two of my most important food groups – chocolate & coffee. 
Usability
When I start my iPad or iPhone and browse the digital interwebs, there is ONE button on the keyboard that I use all the time. Its a .com button – not a .mobi button. I think you get the point.
Look, I know this is a bit blunt and its not going to be popular. Honestly – the intent of this post is to help educate the marketplace. Hopefully it gives you something to think about when you are deciding whether to register a .co or the next “landrush” that appears on our doorstep.
Feel free to post a comment and let me know what you think. Are you buying .co ?
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Facebook comments:
I worte an industry vet this A.M. asking the same question relating to our lates project. First I absolutely agree with your statement the handful aside the ONLY ones that make money on this is the registrars. So my question was and is if all you need to make money is a commodity and group of speculative gamblers then why hasn’t the pending release of a new toll free extension spurred millions of complimentary domain name sales. You can’t say it is because .co is more attractive than any other type of domain name. It is speculation and gambling pure and simple. And no I am not buying a .co for basically the same reasons that you provide. Years ago I paid to reserve some god forsaken play of the day ext and never got the name or my money back. Sadly hundreds of thousands will learn the hard way while the registrars and auction houses feed them an occasional token pittance meal and a drink or two a couple of times a year and then laugh all the way to the bank.
As founder of one of the few (maybe the only?) registrars who plainly labels new TLDs as overhyped and unnecessary, we actually recommended defensive registrations under .co to our members who were heavily branded under .com (http://easyurl.net/dotco)
They reality is that .co is a typo for .com and that’s the single factor putting wind under this TLDs wings. Everything else is marketing dolled up to gloss over this fact.
Most new TLDs you can safely ignore, this one you should at least try to defend your .com’s. It sucks, especially because it was so overpriced, but its true.
Domainers and aftermarket players need to look at this reality, and I think you’ve nailed it. Only a minute fraction of these names will ever sell at “high profile” prices on the aftermarket, and any money you sink into .co’s is money you could be investing elsewhere.
Too bad more objective ‘why are you regging it’ posts like this weren’t put out before the ‘landrush’. Too many probably got caught up (again) in the ‘well.. everyone else is regging them’ hype with this extension, and once again in a year the drops will show such. Wasn’t .me the ‘ultimate must have extension’ also?? Seen the drops on them lately?? Look at the steal Mike at TheDomains just got picking up those ‘nice’ geo domains. 2 years after launch!!! All your points are very valid and definitely should of been (should still be) heeded prior. And other telltale sign to me that this a ‘fools gold’ chase for many, when reading through the forums on who got what or tried to, notice that it’s 75%+ of newbie domainers/posters hyping and chattering about the extension. And so many so proud of their second tier, hyphenated, wtf?? regs!! Good grief. The big boys with the big bucks got the good ones, and the registrars and registries – ‘Got The ‘Rest’!!’
Scott: I completely agree with your view on “speculation and gambling”. Although most “domainers” probably don’t see themselves as that.
Mark: You have a good post on easydns about .co – thanks for sharing it. You are 100% right when you say .co is a typo. It will be interesting to see how many typos are out there and how quickly the disputes arise.
Kevin: Yes, .me was the “must have extension”. Glad that someone else recognizes that its the newbie domainers/posters who are hyping this.
Personally, I’d be happy to be proved wrong by the .co fanboys, but I can’t see that happening anytime soon.
Goodmorning! I’ve been reading the commentary concerning .co domains, and haved summed it up-what a bunch of hype! The .com is still the big kid on the block, and will be for years to come. As the registration market gets soft, here comes another new “model” for the masse’s to buy. I’m sure most of us have at least a few nice .com names, and maybe we should concentrate on developing them in to viable on line business sites. If you do that, now you have something of value to sell….Have a great day, Jerry-
[...] far I’ve seen only one refreshingly accurate assessment of .CO which basically calls it for what it is: a speculative trap, where far more domainers will lose [...]
Three words!
Waste of Money. I own only 5-6 domains, and I had them developed all of them
.CO is not a domain investment, it is like throwing the money in the empty wells of registry.
Come on people, wake up!
5-6 domains that i have are .coms, please add that to my comment above.
I own zero .co and will continue to keep Big Fat Zero .co domains
Can so amny people be wrong about this investment in .co?
200.000 Domains registered in hours.
I think something is good is going to happen with this extension.
Let’s see how google is indexing it.
The most expensive advertising space in cities across the world is billboard advertising and the most important element of these giant posters, in order to be effective, is the design. Professional companies spend small fortunes on design and how their ad will transfer across this and other media inc. TV. Radio, Newsprint and Internet. Domain speculators are not designers and with respect, here is where the point is missed. .CO has the potential to be a powerful extension for the fact that there are so many words that work well with it both visually and aurally. .CO is very well understood historically and internationally to mean ‘company’ and corporate, commerce etc. Last but not least it’s short and sweet. Let me put it this way, if we were back in the year dot and we were starting from scratch and you were given the choice .CO or .COM I know which one I’d pick!