Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few months you cannot have missed the latest in a long line of must have domain extensions hitting the market. The .co extension is, if the hype is to believed, the future of the internet and the solution to all the problems that have plagued the current top level domain system.
Internet marketing gurus from all over the web have suddenly become evangelical about the new .co domain extension, telling anyone who will listen that they simply must buy a .co domain name immediately. Using their affiliate link of course.
Keep your money in the pocket. The new .co domain name extension is nothing but another geographical extension that will end up being dropped like a hot potato once people realize that Google doesn’t like being treated like an idiot. Dot com domain names rule the roost now and will continue to rule the roost until something more established and trusted usurps them. And that’s not going to happen anytime soon. If you want a good domain name for your blog that will work then stick with a dot com and don’t fall for the hype.
What do you think? Are we being too negative about the new .co domain extension? Have you bought one? If so, how are using it? Leave a comment and let us know.
I think the .co extension is a great asset to have, especially if you can’t get the .com .net or .org of your choice. If Google do to .co domains what they did to .biz domains and .info domains (bin them from the results rendering them worthless) then I guess they are a waste. But I don’t think Google will do that this time since .co appears to have a lot of support.
Isn’t it supposed to have some sort of built in brand protection that will make it squat proof?
.co = .bs ;)
Just another scam to get a fool to part with his or her money. It will be used and abused by the typo crowd and get banned by Google for that reason.
I think this blog is losing its value in its content.
Potentially useful as a domain name “hack”; one of my domains is http://jeffbyrn.es/, which spells my name. Nifty stuff!
It’s a scam. All of the .co pushers have signed up to be part of something called the .co founders. They get publicity in return for telling people that .co extensions are the second coming.
Google it and you’ll see it’s true.
The .co is a geographical extension, but the difference is that it is devoid of the regulation other geographical extensions have. For example, .us – you need to be a US citizen or have a US based business.
I don’t know why you believe that .co is some sort of scam that will be dropped from Google though. It’s a viable alternative. Just like, .net, .org. .us, – and yes, even .info and .biz.
Any extension is seen as equal, it depends on the content that you’re associating with those domains.
It just so happens most of the crap is associated with .biz and .info. No doubt because most registrars will give away .biz and .info for $.99 in order to entice new leads.
Anyway, I’m doing great with a variety of extensions (yes, even a few .biz’s). If I find a .co that will help with branding I’ll go for it. However, right now it seems the registration price is running between $20-$25, I’ll wait until it dips below $10 to really get into it.
I think the .co is a great idea but I do agree that .com’s rule the roost. Unfortunately it seems like all the good .com’s are taken. Even for some wild new names I came up with, I was shocked to see that some idiot bought them all up.
I’m being forced to either use a hyphen in the name of the .com that I want or change the business name altogether.
I researched the .CO Founders program – and it has nothing to do with pushers of .CO. The registrars who sell .co aren’t even in it. It’s for early adopters who build stuff on domain names so they could be showcased before the .co names were launched. The people got the names for free. I think it’s a sweet deal and I wish I got in on it!
Well I don’t know if it’s too early to tell if .co is good or not. My new .co website has been index by google for two, three weeks now. Using the rank checker tool I can’t find the site even up to 500 position. That is very strange because I build and optimize websites for a living. So if anyone is thinking about buying a .co, you might want to wait until .co starts to appear in Google search, if it ever does. What a disappointment and shame on those scammers.
Joe
Well, it’s a wast of money or it’s good news is relative. If you rush out to buy 50 .co names you don’t need, that’s a fool. On the other hand, for years i’ve been wanting to get some decent .com names but can’t because either i have to pay a premium price (would you want to pay $5,000 for one?) or settle with left over garbage .com names no one wants. So for me, this gives me a chance to get some name I can live with, and .co although is geo name, it doesn’t have the restrictions others do.
Joe: Consider yourself lucky. My (.co) gets downloaded often according to the Webmaster Tools, but it hasn’t been indexed yet. Maybe someone forgot to tell Google there’s a new top level domain it might want to index.
really
if you can come up with one good .com domain that is still avalible
there is no that’s the hole point of .co
but if i buy google.co or facebook.co that will be illegal becous of the braning
it’s like if two companeys have the same name
or will facebook just buy facebook.co and all the other .com owners get a .co and a .com
and redirect
well that just makes me think is this just an attempt to make more money
This may be good for some consumers who “got in too late”, the thing that you have to realize is that domain companies are trying so hard to create this new extension because they have to make money and if there are no .coms left than they need something to sell, so they make up .co or whatever. The problem that I have with this is that if they are successful than the porfolio that I have built of great .coms (including several very expensive premium .coms that I paid top dollar for) are worth nothing. I see .coms as real estate, they appreciate with value as they become more scarce. I hope for the sake of all of the .com owners that this new extension fails horribly.
Clearly the jury is still out on the .co debate. I have bought my website’s .co to protect our branding but I also agree that until .co starts popping up in my Google search results then I won’t be developing anything on the domain. Great post.
We are already convinced. .co is a lame duck. Waste of money. Pushed by the internet marketing crowd in return for publicity. Don’t believe the hype.
A scam huh? So if you had a chance to buy abc.co or 123.co or a.co you wouldn’t buy it, it depend on the price you say right? That was the same thing when .com started. I’m not saying that .co is equivalent with .com, not at all, there are many .net domains or .org that are worth more than their .com counterpart, for obvious reasons.
Not getting indexed in Google is a very valid reason why we should not jump into .co at the moment. Even if that changes, there would be no way Google would rate “abc.co” above “abc.com”, so what’s the point owning “abc.co”?
We also need to consider the fact that .com is the default domain pulled up when you just type the domain name (without extension) in the browser’s URL bar, at least in majority of the World’s countries. So If you had abc.co, people would see abc.com if they just typed “abc” on their URL bar.
However, .co (or any other extension for that matter) cannot be written off. After all, people loved a name like del.icio.us, didnt thay!
Hmm, .co will become popular maybe in a few years. Just like all other domain names, as the time goes on .co domains will begin to rise in demand.
After all what is worth to keep in mind is that .co is a Country domain not a international one, indeed it may rank also on google.com, but it is pre-dominantly intended for Colombia. Unless you have business interests in Colombia, I would not bother.
The only reason to reflect is from brand protection and to avoid potential fraudsters – some domain names like .co.uk for uk could be confused with the new domain by some visitors who do not read emails properly.
However, on most search engines I doubt that the domain will do very good Bing and Yahoo place high emphasis on country of orgin of the domain itself. On Google you might get some results if you do a good job with the relevancy of the site, but it cannot realy compete with a .com.
Regarding .biz and .info. I have of both domains. Info can be harder as used to much by spammers but a valid site on a .biz and a .info that are top level internetional domains can do well in the rankings. For commercial use a .biz can work, but most .biz domains are pruchased for brand protection only, therefore not to many of these in the SERPs, in my view there is nothing preventing a .biz or a .info from ranking internationally. Just build a good site, but why not go for a yet free .com? If the domain is registered as a .com already that is indexed by Google and you want to build a viable business. Look for a still free .com instead a unique name can be best from branding perspective even if it does not contain a keyword. Think amazon, google… twitter fuc..oops.. erm… I mean facebook and groupon
I bought
MtvIndia.Co
MTVChina.Co
MtvAsia.Co
Ragingwaters.Co
Shakeys.Co
etc. etc. etc. etc.
and no one has contacted me about it
They wre pushing the .co extension at this years Superbowl. That was the first I actually paid any attention to it. Jeez, the superbowl. Why? All I was thinking is, ‘Great, I’ll have to shell out more money. Not because I need the extension… just to prevent someone else from procuring it.
But wait didn’t they say YEARS ago that .ws was the new great extension to solve the .com availability crisis? How many people do you know with a .ws extension? Me, personnally? None. Of course .ws didn’t advertise through godaddy at the Superbowl.
Another pointless gimmick. You can argue its merits or shortcomings all you want but the reality is that .com has been ingrained in all of us. Anyone punching in a domain as opposed to searching for something will always go .com out of habit so your weenie.co traffic will all wind up at weenie.com anyway. If you’re hoping to cash in on this it’s a pipe dream. Better to actually put the work in and go for organic results.