Shouldn’t Registrars At Least Mention That .Co Is The Country Code For Colombia?
I know .CO has done a great job of branding itself as something other than a country code, along the lines of .Me.
Nothing wrong with that at all.
Brilliant effective marketing.
But I couldn’t help but notice that the major registrars promoting .CO domains don’t even mention that .Co is a ccTLD, or more precisely the country code for Colombia.
Here is what Godaddy.com, has to say about .CO:
“Co Is the first truly global, recognizable domain to come along in years”
“Understood around the world as an abbreviation for “Company,” “Corporation” and “Commerce”, .CO is easy to recognize, simple to remember and flexible to use. It offers international recognition in a fresh landscape where you can still choose the name you want, not just settle for what’s available.”"
“.CO is meaningful, memorable and intuitive for people around the world”
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Ok no problem with any of that but nowhere on Godaddy.com page promoting .CO do I see any mention of what .CO truly is which is a country code for Colombia.
Domainers are quite familiar with Domains, TLD’s, ccTLD’s but the general public, well they are pretty much completely ignorant on these matters.
I think some mention of what the domain extension actually is should be disclosed to the non-domainers who might be acquiring these domains.
I can see where a end user would register a .Co domain not knowing what is represented and down the line be upset he didn’t get that very basic information told to him.
I think its a legal problem waiting in the wings.
Network Solutions.com page on .CO domains likewise doesn’t say a word about .CO begin a country code:
“”It’s the beginning of the .CO era!
::Find the domain name you’re looking for when you use the newest domain extension. With a .CO domain name you will have more choices in branding your online presence with a truly global, recognizable and credible option for a Web address.
“”With a .CO, the possibilities are endless and new opportunities arise. Associated with the words “COmpany,” “COrporation” and “COmmerce,” it’s the perfect platform for today’s socially networked individuals and entrepreneurs to create .COmmunities, share .COntent, and to .COnnect, .COmmunicate and .COllaborate online.
What will you create with your .CO?
The Key Benefits of .CO
- .CO is a truly global, recognizable and credible domain.
- .CO gives businesses and brands the chance to create a worldwide footprint.
- .CO is relevant to individuals, businesses and organizations.
- .CO is meaningful, memorable and intuitive to use for people around the world.
- .CO appeals to today’s socially-networked individuals and entrepreneurs.”"
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I agree… the promotion of .CO is quite deceptive.
Frankly speaking, is it that important that .co means Colombia. I am ever more surprise when you mention that most domainers do not understand about TLDs and what they mean. Wow??!!
Completely agreed! As well, people should be aware that .ly is the ccTLD for Libya!
mp/m
Why ruin such a great “$moke and mirror$” publicity campaign/launch/story with the truth ?
At the end of the day “End Users” will have the last word, as it has with all the other extensions including much better positioned ones .
.mobi who? .info who? .tv who? etc etc
I give it about 18 months to 2 years for the irrational hoopla to last or till the next “big Thing” (extension gtls or c.c ..whatever)…
Nothing kills an extension’chances for long term success/survival faster… than “the best domains/keywords” falling in the hands of short time *speculators” worse even if they are foreigners to the c.c.
(*of the non-developer kind)
Hats-off to the promoters, fantastic Marketing campaign.(non-sarcastically)
they just want to make money.
as early as possile
because they cant make money next year 
Exactly,
Investing in a countries domain extension when that country has a government that is barely 10 years old with “guerillas” in the mountains plotting to overthrow? What will people do if the “new” Columbian government decides to change the rules and only let Columbian citizens own the .co extension??? I would walk carefully in the .co space.
Registrar’s that neglect to mention the extension is Columbian are asking for trouble. Many .cm’s were dumped because of problems dealing with these countries registries. Try and change the nameservers on your existing .cm’s; I’m still waiting….. Buyer beware.
Best. Vive la Revolution!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100722/wl_afp/colombiavenezuelaunrestdiplomacypolitics
I am not sure where the actual source for the google comments are coming from, but i have read that google will recognize .co for international use, much the same as .tv and .me
here is a link to the article http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use
Agree with chandan, the registry and the speculators need to make money as soon as possible before this extension takes it’s rightful place on the scrap heap of domain extensions.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but everybody knows this is the truth.
Just another NOT .com
Show me ten developed .co sites and maybe I’ll have a different opinion.
Show me one that shows up in a top ten search result too and I’ll be impressed.
.co is an international enterprise and i don’t think it matters that .co stands for Colombia. Are you insinuating that there is something wrong with Colombia that it “needs” to be mentioned. That’s a pretty rough suggestion.
When I buy a .com, why am I not told what it stands for? There is no “this means commercial” tag with its advertising. .co has been marketed for global acceptance such as .com, .org, .net etc. If you are still making dark associations with Colombia and that’s why you “need” to be told it’s “Colombia”, please don’t. This is not Libya or a country without economic viability. This is a wonderful fantastic country that has 50 mil. people and a proud culture. .co is a business, and this has been a great collaborative effort between Colombia and the US.
Does .co have any restrictions?
In order to register a .ca domain you have to have a physical address in Canada or they will take the domain away from you.
Maybe that’s not the case with .co but I’m not sure I want to have to worry about what Colombia might to.
How about .cn domain for China. Didn’t China impose some retroactive restrictions or start limiting registrations to China based registrants?
I would think the .co registry should be legally obligated to let it be known that .co is JUST a country code… same for .cm, .tv, .me etc.
Also, search engines may treat them as country specific meaning that no matter how much you develop the domain you won’t show up in Google.
I give .co about three months to play out so as long as speculators get in and out (just like .mobi and .me) they might make money otherwise they have expensive dogs in their portfolio.
I speculated in .mobi, made money then let the rest drop. Probably the same scenario with .co
Speaking of .me, anyone paying big bucks for .me any more? Nope. That was quick.
@Em John
LOL That’s a mighty strong endorsement of dotCo. Care to step from behind the curtain?
“I agree… the promotion of .CO is quite deceptive.”
Or just smart
Would it benefit the .co marketing machine or the registrars to mention to the general public that it is the country code for Columbia?
I very much doubt it, if anything it would dilute their chances of squeezing big bucks out of it.
David:
Not really an endorsement but perhaps more of a defense to counterbalance the offense. Sometimes “The Ugly Protectionist” needs to be reigned in a bit.
I believe it is important to watch the general public’s usage and accapetance of dotCo (and I’m not talking about domainers or those companies directly approached by dotCo). DotCo has three things going in it’s favor that many of the upcoming new TLDs will not 1) A great crack team with Juan, Lori, etc, 2) Major registries promoting the daylights out of it and 3) No competition.
As I’ve written before, the general public is never as logical as we’d all like to believe. IMO, all of the current reasons to utilize dotCo will matter little to them. The public bought into dotCom because it was first and they had to. It wouldn’t have mattered what the TLD was. The ccTLDs gained traction because Nationalism and identity matters much to many people and some countries associated dotCom closely with the US during an ear it was losing popularity 2000-2008 (regardless of one’s political affiliation, I noticed this everytime I was overseas during that period).
Basically, DotCo was released in a vacuum and enjoyed many advantages the upcoming gTLDs will not. It’s the end of an era and if the general public does not begin developing it en masse (and I”m talking Mom & Pops) it spells disaster for the new gTLDs as an investment and in the aftermarket. The good news to all of this is that the days of dotCom being recognized as a genuine alternative investment (outside of the domain industry) has yet to begin.
@Em John
I agree and your passion is obvious and impressive. Why the identity cloak?
Em John , it has nothing to do with the “wonderful fantastic country” of Colombia. Country codes don’t have the same value as .com or even .net domains for many reasons, one being that many search engines only include country code domains in search lisings in their own country. So having a .com may not get the site listed in many countries including the United States. Most people will remember “.com” even when you tell them another extension. I have several domains and mostly “.com” a few “.us” and only a couple “net” “info” “org” and no other country codes. I highly recomend against using country codes unless you live in that country.
I just also accidentally also gave another reaosn why “.co” is not a good domain name. I wrote, “So having a .com may not get the site listed.” When I should have wrote “.co” this shows even when one wants to type “.co” the habit is to add the “m” and people will vist the equivalent “.com” site. Real problems for “.co”
Here’s an interesting observation:
I just did a Google search for “.co” and the Google results is showing a list of major “Company” results (maybe Google view the .co extension more in the favor of a company rather than Colombia).
I think its funny that so many domainers who dont believe in .net/.org buying .co like crazy.
If you want a great alternative to a .com I dont see any better option than .net or a relevant ccTLD
Yaron, Id actually recommend .org if natural traffic and comfort are the goal ; )
I think .net was trumped years ago in terms of use/value.
Have told you many times, when you buy dot co, you are supporting the corrupted co govt.
How much money is giving back to the people of columbia?
Em John
“”.co is an international enterprise and i don’t think it matters that .co stands for Colombia. Are you insinuating that there is something wrong with Colombia that it “needs” to be mentioned. “”
Not at all, just saying that is what in fact it is, nothing wrong with it but I do think somewhere on the page where the registrar is selling the extension it should be mentioned.
Rob
“”I would think the .co registry should be legally obligated to let it be known that .co is JUST a country code… same for .cm, .tv, .me etc.”"
In this case I think it should be the obligation of the registrar that is actually selling the domain to ITS customer.
Michael, what about .TV? Most “regular” people don’t know that .TV belongs to the tuvalu islands, they just see it as a abbreviation for the word “television”.
Ask people what .com stands for and I’m pretty sure 90% don’t know that either.
I totally agree with you – it should be stated what .Co is and what it presents, but does it really matter to the end-user? Geotargeting isn’t an issue, the .Co registry is making a ton of money and the end-users are happy with their domains.
What I don’t understand is how they can market .Co as a meaningful, memorable and intuitive extension for people around the world when a lot of countries don’t have english as their primary language. Go to france, spain, italy, germany etc etc and ask people there about .Co and what it possibly means. I am pretty sure they won’t be able to tell you. .TV on the other hand, that IS what I call a globally recognized word/term!
.Co is for the columbian people, it’s good for typo-hunters or people trying to protect their .Com. It’s not what I would call a worldwide domain, but merely a “branded” product / extension that’s on a current hotstreak.
Let do a simple math here:
400k co domains registered by 100 people- you called that success?
There are billions people and all of them know dot com.
Anyway, $30USD for a co domain to register is way tooooooo expensive for the columbian family.
Somebody was mentioning getting a list of quality .co sites that rank in Google. Check out any of these:
Bimmer.co
Pappas.co
IWNY.co
Flipping.co
tmc.co
now.co
turkel.co
challenge.co
getsighted.co
angel.co
David:
One of the more accurate takes on public consumer habits. There was no other choice than .com 20 years ago. There really was no marketing campaign necessary. .co marketeters have blazed a trail and now it is up to the public to decide and that will ultimately make or break it. I believe it will come down to “like” and “dislike” more than anything and if it catches, people will be registering it by imitation. It’s funny with all the banter that goes on, domainers essentially have little control whether .co will take or not.
And yes, there is no competition for this new TLD. That will take it quite a ways while it is being pushed at every major registrar.
Mr. T
Networksolutions.com doesn’t have a big ad on the front page of its site for .tv, it does for .co which if you click it takes you to another full page of info on .co domains, but does not mention that its a country code.
Same for Godaddy.com, they have a huge ad for .co domains on the front of their site, if you click on it, it takes you to another page that talks about .co domains.
But to answer your question if they do have a full page ad for .TV domains on their site (not sure either registrar does) it should somewhere say on the page that the extension is and stands for.
So far, these 2 are ranked #1 on Yahoo for the keywords:
GetSighted.co = get sighted
IWNY.co = iwny
I can’t speak for other registrars, but this is another example of Godaddy and Bob Parsons hypocrisy.
When .TV was making GD money it was ” a globally recognised extension”,number 2 in the drop down and Bob even had his own .TV site,then when Bob wanted a piece of the premium pie and Versign told him where to go, he could not wait to point out .TV is cctld of Tuvalu,Now .co is flavour of the month, no mention of it actually being the cctld of Columbia,and again we have another “Globally recognised extension”.
In my opinion any registrar should disclose the meaning of any TLD.
People can use it how they want, but CO is the ccTLD of Colombia. Anything else is marketing.
Brad
And spare a thought for the poor people of Columbia!
They’ve been “sold out” and exploited.
Nic
@RW – not over here. GetSighted.com is #1 and so is internetweekny.com. The .Co’s are in the #2 spot
@Michael – I agree. The registry is just hiding the info because they know that if most end-users knew it was the ccTLD (of Columbia) the extension probably wouldn’t reach the same popularity level.
@Mr T, thanks. Well, at least it shows that .CO names will rank at Yahoo (and Google … I saw a few indexed over on Google, but not on the first page).
.CO = Waste of Money!!
.CO= Failure
.CO = Hype
.CO = Dumb
.CO = Marketed to Domainers!
.CO = Next year DROPS will be Over 50 Percent
.CO = Typo of .DOT COMS
.CO = If you develop, people will want to keep typing .COM and lose traffic to .COM
.CO = Will Fail
.CO = NOT EFFECTIVE MARKETING
.CO = Make Money by promoting To Domainers
.CO = IS TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME IF U DEVELOP THEM!!
I chose to avoid purchasing the .co, but then bought 3 .co domains this past week because of deceptive marketing. Now I regret buying these domains. Before reading this article, I found out that the .co is the Colombian country code. If I knew that beforehand, I would have avoided the .co altogether.
It really unethical that registrars would deceive people, leaving out that the .co is in fact the Colombian country code. I refuse to buy another .co. Three is enough. It’s better to buy .com domains because everything else is too hard to move. I tried a dozen times to try and move a .net that bears a good name, but struck out every time.
If you want to make money, .com is the only way to go. Unless you have premium domain names in the other extensions, it will take a mighty effort to move anything other than .com domains.
I decided not purchase the .co, but then bought 3 .co domains this past week because of deceptive marketing. Now I regret buying these domains. Before reading this article, I found out that the .co is the Colombian country code. If I knew that beforehand, I would have avoided the .co altogether.
It’s unethical that registrars would deceive people, leaving out that the .co is in fact the Colombian country code. I refuse to buy another .co. Three is enough.
Domains should stick to buying .com domains because everything other domain is too hard to move. I tried a dozen times to try and move a .net that bears a good name, but struck out every time. The end-user always wanted the .com version.
If you want to make money, .com is the only way to go. Unless you have premium domain names in the other extensions, it will take a mighty effort to move anything other than .com domains.
Stick with the .com. Don’t follow the mass because you will lose out in the end.
Excuse my errors. Used an I-Phone to type the messages. Thanks.
GetSighted.com BTW is registered at MarkMonitor, GetSighted.co maybe a problem
NIc
“And spare a thought for the poor people of Columbia!
They’ve been “sold out” and exploited.”
How so?
Do you know what the registries deal with the Government of Colombia is, because I don’t.
Are the people of Colombia any more “exploited” than the people of the United States?
I mean when was the last time you got a check for dividends from .US domain sales
Could someone please explain to me…
how Nube .co (cloud in spanish)landed under Microsoft Corp hands…? like Manna from heaven
TIA
Fecha de Registro del Dominio Tue Jul 20 18:02:48 GMT 2010
The big ? Will .CO work Global ?
Comment by Mr.T
“Go to france, spain, italy, germany etc etc and ask people there about .Co and what it possibly means.
While there are many which (dis)like the new .Co, there is something which should recognized. There a re more than english keyword domains being registerd. Germany is jumping all over the new .Co ! This did not happen with .mobi , .me or other newcomers.
Even more important!? The registrants are not just domain speculators, because there are many longtail and hyphenated names being registerd. This clearly means that A.) There are development projects on plan B.) Google will not be able to ignore relevant content eventhough on a .CO with German language and C.) If this keeps up, Google will have to push the. CO as a Global TLD in there search.
Just a few German non type in domain examples which will clearly be developed!
Rechtsschutzversicherung.co
rechtsschutz-versicherung.co
siesuchtihn.co
sie-sucht-ihn.co
Take in consideration these domain names have all different owners! So clearly a sign of high acceptance of the new .CO .
At last take also in consideration that each domain registerd at German registrars are running 48 Euro each, at today’s exchange rate thats about $ 60 each! So there is clearly more happening then just a few speculators jumping on the new .CO
Just my two cents
lol,
registrars, made so much money on unsuccessfull attempts. hahah.
So suppose if go daddy had 10,000 unsuccessfull attempts on the during land rush perious.
10,000 x (domain attempt registrartion fee) 20 = 200,000
wowaaaaaaaa, any registrars who did the MOST UNSUCCESSFULL ATTEMPTS, MADE MORE MONEY!!!!
without losing a dime, they made money, what a way to make money lol.
Think about it people. Come on!
@MHB,
“GetSighted.com BTW is registered at MarkMonitor, GetSighted.co maybe a problem”
I believe both names are owned by the same company (Transitions Lenses).
Google has already stated that its SE will consider .co an international TLD
of course, all registrars should be onest and say that .co is the Colombia’s TLD, but… there is just ONE of those who register domains that doesn’t already know that???
anyhow, it’s already VERY difficult to find good .co domains… e.g. I’ve just tried (ONLY for curiosity) the availability of two italian words: ami.co and miti.co …but both results already taken
.US domains have done nothing for me. I own some good .us names, but they have failed to garnish any attention.
.com and .info are the only extensions that produced any sales. The $29.99 price tag on the .co is far too much. .com is still the best.
The good .co domains were reserved ahead of time. That gave many companies an opportunity to grab their product names.
Some domainers were able to beat companies to the punch. It appears that loans.co was registered by a domain investor who parked it at Sedo. Loans.com is owned by Bank of America.
It really depends on the market. Some names joined with .co lack market appeal. I found a few .co names that weren’t registered by the .com owners. Two are tourist places, and one is my hometown city.
Agreed with this post, it’s misrepresentation.
It’s also stupid – after .com comes ccTLDs. The internet is going LOCAL.
What’s with the jokester TLDs? US domainers that would buy into .me, .wtf etc and then slag .US instead of harvesting that space. Hilariously short-sighted.
I dont make the rules (it cost me a lot of money trying to change them – believe me) – I just follow the rules set forth by the courts…
To much ACPA case law and UDRP panels (in their own indirect genius way) have implied the .com the only one on the shelf – so where the negative hype about it being a ccTLD for Columbia just adds more temporary credibility (free advertising) – it is just set up for a harder crash than the rest – like .cc.