.Co Is Now #2 On GoDaddy.com Drop Down Registration Menu Right Behind .Com: Who Is The Big Loser?
If you ever registered a domain name over at Godaddy.com you know that they have a drop down menu for extensions.
So if you wanted to register a domain, you type the domain without the extension into the first box and then select the extension that you want in the second drop down box.
Since Godaddy.com at last report was the registrar of choice for 50% of all new domain registrations, where an extension falls on the drop down menu is pretty important.
At the moment Godaddy.com of course puts .com number 1 spot, but the second spot now belongs to .CO.
Of course we do not know the basis on which Godaddy.com allocates its positions, be it on a “commission” or pay for position situation if you will, on basis of popularity, on the amount of money they make on each new registration or a combination thereof.
Here is the current ranking order on Godaddy.com site for domain extensions:
Before the fold (Before you have to move your mouse down for more choices):
.Com
.Co
.Info
.Net
.Org
.Me
.Mobi
.Us
.Biz
.Co is clearly the big winner on placement on Godaddy right now.
Anytime in life when you have a big winner, you also have a big loser.
So who is the big loser on Godaddy.com right now?
.TV
The .TV extension is way down the list, relegated to a alphabetical listing, well below 46 other extension including some pretty uninteresting ones by domainer standards including, .Ws, .Ag, ..Ms., .Nu. .Tc, and .Tk just to name a few.
I have quite a few .TV domains, so I take no pleasure in saying this but .TV placement on Godaddy is not going to help it gain registrations and acceptance, keeping in mind once again that Godaddy is responsible for 1/2 of all new domain registrations.
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Sorry,
I re-read my post and I realized I am starting to sound like some of the people I rail against. Undoubtedly some will have success with .CO, really it’s an individual thing and to some degree it’s how much you persevere and how hard you work, so I encourage you to pursue your dreams.
Internet Media
Wanted to answer your first question because I think its a good one:
“What is the metric for a TLD to be proven successful? ”
(as to your second question, “If .CO were to become successful, could it ever change from a ccTLD to a gTLD?” the answer is no)
People argue about this all time, how do you determine whether a TLD is successful?
My answer is always the same; from whose perpective and by what measure.
What I mean by that is a domainer is going to looks at an extension and consider it successful pretty much by the aftermarket.
Is there an active aftermarket for an extension where you can see resales of domains occurring on a regular basis for increasing prices, domainer will consider the extension a success.
But if you look at a TLD from the perspective of the sponsoring registry its a whole different ballgame. A registry can be highly profitable running an extension which a domainer wouldn’t touch.
Consider the .Biz registry, most domainers consider the extension a failure as there are not a lot of aftermarket sales and prices haven’t increase, but the registry by all accounts is making money, so from their perspective its a success.
Others like SEO guys might consider any extension where they can get a good domains for cheap ranked by a search engine a successful extension.
I could go on but again its a matter of the perspective of the person looking at the extension that will determine whether it is successful.
By what measure, is again individual. I know domainers that would be thrilled to register a domain for $30 and sell it for $100 all day long and be quite happy while for others its not worth their time that’s why I say “by whose measure”
To Mike’s point non.com might be worthless and useless to some (like me) but when the consumer can not get what they really need and want – they settle for a non.com for $20-$50 for a few years before they realize they are valueless and non-brandable. Who cares – multiply $50 times say 500,000 non.com registrations per year – that is $25M – and speaking just for myself – just for helping folks new to the Internet live their “Land Rush” lie.
Question for Mike:
Mike, having his own registrar, might be able to give us some insight as to what kind of initial investment for the .xxx, .biz, .co and some of the other registries was made.
I also registered some .tv at the time and it was also in the second position in the godaddy list as the .co right now, I don’t remember for how long but it wasn’t too long. Let what happens with the .co!
@ Em John
You say:
“Everything starts with how deep pockets are. So essentially your logical argument stops where the buck begins. Generic .com’s are way, way out of the price range for most companies and the average joe and the availability is so sparse. So I would rather get a web presence buying location.co for $5000 rather than location.com for 1 mill. ”
I can truly tell you of 100 top domainers who own literally tens of thousands of .com domains that are clearly strong brand/prodservs domains and AFFORDABLE.
How many companies do you know that spend, oh… $10,000 a year in advertising online, or newspaper, magazine, whatever traditional ad/marketing medium that’s available to them?
Even the smallest businesses, if they were smart, would designate at least 30% of their startup cash in advertising. If they don’t have $1000 to advertise/market their business, then… God Bless them… I wish them luck.
But more realistically, most new businesses understand that a great portion of their investment is going to their advertising budget. Let’s just say on average, a yearly ad budget is $5,000. I can tell you with confidence that most companies can get a good .com prodserv generic for under $5000, leaving enough for them to waste on banner ads and traditional ads.
The problem isn’t that all the “good domains” are costing millions of dollars. That’s just not true. I own domains that clearly define either individual or corporate prodservs, and after contacting hundreds of businesses to make them aware of this, they respond with “I already have my domain name in my company’s name “xdjudcompany.com” and your domain just describes what my company does… it doesn’t promote my company’s name! ”
In other words, there is still a majority of businesses that DO NOT GET IT about generic domains. And that’s with .com domains that will sell for $500-$5000, easily within most companies’ ad budget.
I’m not going to fall for the trap of promoting my domains here as an example of what can sell for under $5000 and clearly define a company’s prodservs. So all I can tell you is that your statement of my “logical argument stops where the buck begins” is not applicable in real world domain sales.
If we cross that barrier of ignorance in the general populace about what domains MEAN for promoting a company’s prodservs, then the .com domains willl be selling like spring water on a popular hiking trail in Oklahoma.
The problem with all the new extensions like .co is that investors are still trying to find some killer generic word, and own it, and then hope that everybody else “buy’s into” the new extension. So essentially, you’re trying to sell TWO DIFFERENT CONCEPTS at the same time. If the majority of domain investors can’t get hundreds of companies contacting them to buy their .com generics, what makes you think a company (ENDUSER) will be chomping on their fork to get that juicy steak of your .co domain?
So, as I stated before — once the .coms start selling hot, and they can for under $5000, then I’d be looking at other extensions. For now, if you buy domains in a non .com extension, you’re just promoting the domain in the .com. So…
1) You find a domain “xyzblahblah.co” (a .co domain top generic word) Wow! This hot word/phrase is available and I now own it!
2) Now I need to promote the extension “.co” ALONG with the fact that OWNING this domain is a good idea for the ENDUSER”
I’ve been buying domains since 1995, and investing in them since 1999. One thing I learned, and it’s undeniable:
THE ENDUSER IS THE FINAL PROFIT BASE FOR A DOMAIN NAME. If the domainer wants to be the ENDUSER then they’ll develop the domain, and take the time and money to make it a success (Go El-Silver). If you can’t convince the ENDUSER to own a .com version of their prodservs for $5000 or a portion of their annual ad budget, then how will they buy into a new extension that they most likely never even heard of before?
Personally, I DO LIKE the .co extension, and I’m very close to picking up a few domains in that extension to cover my butt, just like I did with .cc, .ws, .biz, .us domains that I’m still in love with, and have been renewing for over six years now.
The only other extension I know for a fact has public recognition power is .org domains. Ironically, most top non-profit organizations have purchased their appropriate domains and some backbranded .orgs to their benefit.
I’d buy up .org domains before looking to invest in .co domains. The public will remember a .org domain before they even know what a .co domain is.
It may stay there in second place for a while but in the end it’s the market (not the aftermarket) that will decide the rankings. i.e the longer time it takes till we see developed .co websites the more .co will be unpopular.
Hi, May I throw out a couple suggestions?
1) @ Stephen Douglas, enjoy your comments; absolute genius; this one I printed out and saved! It’s two pages. Everyone, sign up for @ Stephen Douglas’ newsletter, NameProspector.
2) @ .CO registrants, you can create temp pages by directing your .CO domain name servers to ns1.EpikWiki.com and ns2.EpikWiki.com, which will create an informative site based on the domain name, such as, Internet-Television.biz, mine . You can edit the machine-generated text and add other content. There’s even a way to put an Adsense ads with your ID to collect all the Adsense revenue! <== I haven't signed up for Adsense, yet, so I didn't try it. Most importantly, if you add your own unique content, it will likely get your .CO spidered by Google.
It is a good word in behalf of Stephen & Epik, but they are good suggestions from someone who is SEO expert, me, which fit the topic and discussion.
“THE ENDUSER IS THE FINAL PROFIT BASE FOR A DOMAIN NAME.”
The end user is the ONLY profit base. NEVER sell to another domainer and assume all inquiries ARE domainers in disguise, until proven otherwise.
@ Mike
You’re right on. I hoped I got that across in my comment.
However, cash is king, and I’ll sell domains for a profit to further growth of my business and other domain investments, so if I have a domainer who’s smart enough or willing to work on a domain I own, I’ll give them wholesale prices on my non FT domains. Subscribe to my NameProspector newsletter (SHAMEFUL PROMO HERE, 18 yr old Scotch triple owed to Em-Bee..)
Stephen
A neat glass of Blue @ South Beach will suffice
Em-Bee… ohhhh man… you call the shots and the Universe says “hmmm… nice call!” Now I have to leave beautiful PacNorwest for that hurricane ridden, oil-polluted Florida beach? grrrr
J/K – hope Florida isn’t being polluted by BP…
@Stephen Douglas
Many thanks. You are what my old boss would call a “mentsch.”
You shared so much with so few words. Good on you, and thank you for sage guidance. I’m still finding .com’s to register, brand-new, yes, one-word generics, including some we find funny, from deathlessly and godlessly, to cuntables and decapitalized or demerged… if only for the fun of owning these for life, for what, a couple of hundred each?
As for income generation, there is no reason to think that domainists will not benefit from the myriad of two- and three-word domains that are still unregistered, whether to flip (ucch!) or to insert ads and make a little something (times the hundred or thousand domains you repeat it with), or market to targeted endusers.
The original comments of this post are best illuminated by highlighting the reality that, outside of Rolls-Royce generic dot-coms, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE EXTENSION IS, only what you do with it. Erskine said life is a game of cards; It’s not the cards you are dealt, but how you play them, that determine the outcome.
Explain to me how it’s possible that, by 2010, after fifteen years since someone thought of domaineering, no one had bought DarkestChocolate, or CourtesyDiscount, or CrapsAction? All easy dot-coms to think of. Yes, it’s an extra year or two of registration because of the backlog in throwing together a hundred intelligent sentences to throw into each one to get it ranked nicely, and that’s one price.
To put it to a point, we have only let go of one domain for profit of more than 1,000 we’re thrilled to “own,” and that’s because someone offered us 20x what we paid for a DASHED dot-com from our better-domain series. How funny is that? Everyone kept telling us that domains with dashes are a waste. Yeh.
At the bottom of every page of life is, “How excited are you?” Those who are on fire win more, because the hungriest man always wins the race.
This site is a standout, and the comments of Mr. Douglas further burnish your reputation. Thank you twice.
FOLLOWUP:
How did I miss it the first time? Ouch. How many of YOU missed it, or caught it?
This wizard even included his dot-com address licitly, in his name.
Every time he posts, he’s promoting successclicks.com, which I am now heading to, to see what else I can learn from this now-certfied genius.
Whoops, sorry, successclick without the “s” – LMAO – one letter to hit or miss. My bad. Thank God for happy, correctable accidents, ey?
@Dr. Cohen,
Sir, please indicate your comments were not paid for by me… your comments are enough to get my wife to remember why she married me.
Seriously, your comments honor me, and I can’t say anything else but – I like being called a mentsch! Ultimate honor.
UPDATE: The signup for my domain sales newsletter is actually “Titledomains.com” or you can sign up at my blog by just clicking on my “name” on this comment. I do make mistakes, and Louise tried to do me a favor promoting my signup domain sales newsletter, when I gave her the wrong name. (Sorry Louise, my bad!)
Anyone who wants to sign up to receive my premium domain sales newsletter weekly, you can do this at either my blog http://www.successclick.com or at our new domain sales “source”, http://www.titledomains.com.
And don’t forget, if you see this info appearing here, it’s because of the charity of my buddy Em-Bee… who is beginning to stack up top notch scotch, a steak/sushi dinner and something even better when I meet up with him at Domainfest. I love Em-Bee… and I’m not gay.
Thx Em-Bee