Don’t Hate The Extension, Hate The Lousy Domains; Godaddy’s .Expired Co Auction Shows You What Crap People Registered On Day 1

2011 August 24
by Michael H. Berkens

Yesterday as many of you know was the day that the first day that .Co drop auctions closed on Godaddy.

Thousand and thousands of non-renewed .Co domains dropped and were on Godaddy.com auction platform.

What amazed me was these were registered on the 1st day of .Co availability.

With an almost unlimited selection of domains people still registered crap.

So many horrible domains.

Domains I wouldn’t have registered in .Com much less .Co

Typo’s, misspells, trademark infringing domains and domains that simply don’t make any sense.

Its shocking considering on the 1st day of registration the whole world was basically opened to all and so many chose what would be described as pigeon shit by Rick Schwartz, yet these domains would be an insult to the pigeons.

So lets not blame the extension but those who register really bad domains in any extension.

The lesson is if you register mymotherusedtobemarriedtothemob.xxx and don’t sell it, don’t blame the ICM next year, blame yourself.

Here are just a few examples:

bakofamerica.co
randmcnally.co
sarah-oliver.co
lekkertravel.co
urgentpropertysales.co
keralatour.co
razorsedge.co
cinima.co
electromenager.co
grubbellis.co
bingg.co
kfcmalaysia.co
mashkanta.co
szeed.co
abhishek.co
twiffer.co
saleisland.co
shopwildplanet.co
travelsteamboat.co
kaczynski.co
detectivess.co
premiumironentrys.co
zornia.co
globalopolis.co
bancomer.co
kitenhaus.co
vibramovil.co
alotofgames.co
liveclothing.co
gurukul.co
cougers.co
policybazar.co
camiseto.co
ivia.co
chocolat-frey.co
spiro.co
equitax.co
qrlaw.co
bookyourwork.co
estetik.co
bestipadapps.co
paymentech.co
blueshieldcalifornia.co
yogamama.co
kwanglee.co
caribbeangold.co
calstateconstructionloans.co
coatedconveyorrollers.co
buisness.co
wwwweather.co
mycardmyway.co
tdameritraderothira.co
teambuilding4good.co
lomaximoproductions.co
toddhouser.co
tellfaxemail.co
9ku.co
runic.co
maruti.co
musiquepub.co
interfootbtofromto.co
hrmglobal.co
zionglass.co
hipermercado.co
doctorsuk.co
redoxsignaling.co
rqlaw.co
nextbesting.co
concorsi-pubblici.co
aduana.co
fearnet.co
lightening.co
ultimateentrepreneur.co
displayrolls.co
hublotreplica.co
yahoomobile.co
homecontentsinsurance.co
divertimenti.co
cityofmoscow.co
mahnam.co
pinkpound.co
focusoncustomersuccess.co
zahrani.co
wwwamericanexpress.co
paysagiste.co
valhalla.co
bankislam.co
linkinn.co
xboxstore.co
bizzo.co
jordanriver.co
blairportraits.co
androidcommunity.co
ocenet.co
peintre.co
chiron.co
hire-car.co
videoproducers.co
koldugmesi.co
lexjet.co
tanjong.co
dijaya.co
global-manufacturers.co
cancunbeaches.co
isatel.co
peruvianconnection.co
oddsguide.co
eagames.co
worldofcoca-cola.co
carinsurancemustang.co
donatecarca.co
qooza.co
taxibid.co
eastpak.co
minmax.co
conquistadorapts.co
absworkout.co
muezzapure.co
carhireportugal.co
buy-and-sell.co
ontargetccw.co
printerchips.co
ahmedbinzayedalnahyan.co
gleconsultants.co
digitaldigitalacar.co
robinsonpropertymanagement.co
elasticity.co
photovoltaicpower.co
abcdefg.co
warmtiles.co
sinusrelief.co
212fashion.co
thequeenofthefruits.co
difesapersonale.co
superexpress.co
traviangames.co
stainlesssteelwater.co
jktech.co
unseen.co
rrado.co
schuheonline.co
maarsindia.co
californiahomebuildloan.co
derealestate.co
bionade.co
tipicon.co
goldenstatecommercialloan.co
ruskniga.co
sheilaswheels.co
finacialaid.co
highdog.co
insurancehomemotels.co
photo-school.co
storyvillestudios.co
indianoverseasbank.co
8kmedals.co
cicso.co
htcphones.co
i-pad.co
caribecruise.co
albertamortgage.co
tama38.co
agentbox.co
buddhabelly.co
burgan.co
cbtestforco2.co
kiss925.co
criket.co
8888sports.co
nikkeibp.co
central-islip-lawyer.co
sharelynx.co
performancetransformation.co
egitim.co
amirkhan.co
yeelee.co
tysonfood.co
parkmobile.co
cheapangeles.co
personalinjurynowinnofee.co
summerholiday.co
taxattorneystexas.co
reisestudio.co
dizifilm.co
recycleoldmobilephones.co
sherwin-williams.co
sedoparking.co
cassidyturley.co
vagaa.co
erpssearch.co
micrus.co
nr1brand.co
cerrejoncoal.co
cheaplifeassuranceuk.co
schoolhighyou.co
traneairconditioners.co
rentacoffin.co
worldofwar.co
siacargo.co
xmradio.co
miramax.co
culinaryartsschoolsinchicago.co
iwas.co
jupiterislandtradingcom.co
mobilephonerecyclingcompare.co
bryanwatson.co
bugleme.co
crystalscompleteestatesales.co
everythingbaby.co
ctrlwake.co
urbanfarmer.co
52pk.co
bargin.co
5c5c5c.co
gwinnetthomefinder.co
amcmo.co
foxsport.co
georgebush.co
financecalc.co
cyprusmall.co
14er.co
natur.co
webtretho.co
carinsurancequoteinstant.co
cheapinsuranceukbreakdownuk.co
homebudhealthdepotinvestmentset.co
homeequityloansarizona.co
fishhawk.co
arizona-real-estate.co
barginhunters.co
abckj123.co
bucketlistassist.co
gdbulkco8.co
nestviewdrive.co
piperjaffray.co
allez-allez.co
envirophone.co
innerlightworkshop.co
ferramentas.co
sonicdrivein.co
divinelight.co
espnthe.co
olamonline.co
benelli.co
yigdigs.co
ipragaz.co
68 Responses leave one →
  1. 2011 August 24
    Kevin permalink

    OMG that list is beyond hysterical. Thanks for sharing Mike!

  2. 2011 August 24
    Abe permalink

    True, but what begs more of a question is why a pro like you is even looking at these lists? :-) )

  3. 2011 August 24

    There will always be crap – but then there are also some great CO domains the dropped. I personally like the triple premium LLL co domains.

    Heres a list I just posted with some recent sales:

    utilities.co $1,506
    weddingplanner.co $1,505
    tweets.co $780
    hoodie.co $773
    exercising.co $411
    wagers.co $408
    copiers.co $371
    crave.co $350
    symphony.co $350
    southern.co $305
    beg.co $280
    nda.co $256
    printshop.co $255
    455.co $255
    powerboats.co $205
    imb.co $205
    dok.co $200
    tots.co $171
    ripped.co $162
    finejewelry.co $156
    bestrates.co $156
    afa.co $155
    dim.co $155

    I picked up 1 from this list ;)

  4. 2011 August 24

    A Pigeon Shit Convention with “So-Called” domainers.

    I have spent years trying to explain what constitutes a legitimate domain.

    It is not that they were late to the game, they just REFUSE to listen to what works.

    Now what would you call the folks that BID on the Pigeon Shit?

    And Mike, you may be right. This would even piss off a pigeon. I think there should be a pigeon union or something to combat this terrible injustice. ;-)

  5. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Abe

    There was some gold in the lists, some I got some I missed (i hate Godaddy’s auction system but that’s another matter for another day)

    I saw pays.co go for like $50

    Are you kidding me.

    Also there were some other nice names see Chris comment above

  6. 2011 August 24
    razorblade permalink

    ‘Now what would you call the folks that BID on the Pigeon Shit?……’

    I’m still trying to work out what you call the folks who bid $200,000 on a .mobi…

  7. 2011 August 24

    Love it – Back to the Censorship

  8. 2011 August 24

    ffrankly, no more crap than what seen recently in some auctions :)

    however, I’m sure that some of these domains will find a buyer!

  9. 2011 August 24

    To be fair, most if not all of the premium names were taken or reserved. I am no dummy I wanted a car.co, truck.co, train.co, airplane.co – they were all taken. So fine I will settle for a bike.co – but damn that was also reserved. Out of frustration I attempt to resgister bangkok.co and of course it is taken so I settle for the next best thing BANGCOCK.CO. I really did. Hahaha

  10. 2011 August 24
    Don permalink

    A pigeon just flew by by window and said the people that bought these names a year ago ate the corn out of my shit.

    Don

  11. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Razor

    Nice cheap shot, but there really is a huge difference between when Rick bought flowers.mobi before the extension even launched, than registering domains that don’t have a chance.

    You see when you invest in domains you are taking a chance, or your just throwing your money away on something that doesn’t have any chance of success.

    Flowers.mobi was a shot.

    It turned out to be a bad shot but it was a quality domain that had a chance of success (until the iPhone came out)

    So lets look at the new .XXX extension.

    So Frank as we know got some potentially great domains, like live.xxx and free.xxx to name a few.

    He paid $x,xxx,xxx for the domains he got.

    He took a chance.

    Now as we sit today, I’m going to say he got 20 potentially $x,xxx,xxx domains each for the cost of them all.

    Now if Frank registered 1,000 really crappy .xxx domains like the ones I placed into the post, that’s a whole different ballgame.

    So we don’t always win in our investments.

    I’ve made some bad one’s myself, plenty of times, but give yourself a chance to win.

    Buy quality, not total crap.

    Give yourself a chance at success.

    You may not always win but you won’t always lose.

  12. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Uncle

    Why settle?

    Yes your right the top of the top, cream of the cream is reserved by the registry.

    But did you see the domains listed by Chris above?

    they were all available on day 1

    There were NNN.co and LLL.co domains available on day 1.

    You could have placed landrush applications for the better domains before GA.

    It would have cost you $200 instead of $30.

    and your wouldn’t have wound up with a totally worthless domain.

  13. 2011 August 24

    Great post, Mike.

  14. 2011 August 24

    This is what I picked up:

    blur.co $12
    geos.co $12 (for personal dev)
    honeybee.co $12
    bonafide $67
    vse.co $17
    whips.co $12
    filmmaker.co $12
    indoorgrills.co $12
    studentcreditcard.co $12
    nycinsurance.co $12
    scratchandwin.co $12
    harem.co $12
    earlybird.co $12
    sultan.co $11
    kitsch.co $11
    surfinglessons.co $11
    druckerei.co $11 (De. for printing)
    eisen.co $11 (De. for iron)
    studenthealthinsurance.co $11
    weiterbildung.co $11 (De. for adult education)
    dharma.co $11
    learntoread.co $11
    stadt.co $11 (De. for city)
    moonlight.co $11
    motorcity.co $11
    camerabags.co $11
    bookworm.co $11
    eire.co $11
    grande.co $11
    immobili.co $11 (It. for property)
    surfen.co $11 (De. for surfing)
    documentaries.co $11
    partnervermittlung.co (De. for dating)
    bankruptcy-lawyer.co
    btg.co $95
    tucsonrealestate.co $11
    quickie.co $11
    paradis.co $22
    miningjobs.co $12
    musicnews.co $12
    dui-lawyer $12
    pebblebeach.co $12
    baufinanzierung.co $12 (De. for mortgages)
    kingsize.co $40
    aspenrentals.co $12
    gent.co $27
    skatepark.co $12
    wanderlust.co $12

    Like Michael said…lots of crap but quite a few gems in the auction.

  15. 2011 August 24

    @MHB:
    One of your best headlines ever.

  16. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    David

    Mucho Gratis

  17. 2011 August 24

    I bought my second dot co today on a drop. My company does stump removal so I figured stump.co ( I see stump company when I see the domain) for under $20 will be a sound investment. End user pricing. If you’re wondering (and you’re probably not) what the first one was, it was bobo.co a name for my new start-up. I loved the the rhyming and the way it flowed.

    My opinion has always been the same. Dot co is OK to use to start a company website but one would be much better off investing in dot coms if they intend to flip.

  18. 2011 August 24

    “..and your wouldn’t have wound up with a totally worthless domain.”

    Mike we must keep in mind, that .co was/is going to be ‘bigger’ than .com (because it’s one letter shorter!) so ‘everything’ regged in .co was/is going to be valuable!! Words making ‘some’ sense or not, at $25+ a pop, didn’t matter! ..and for some, still doesn’t.

  19. 2011 August 24

    @MHB
    Oh man. Do you have to rub it in? I settle every single day of my life.

  20. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Kevin

    “Mike we must keep in mind, that .co was/is going to be ‘bigger’ than .com ”

    Not by anyone except by our friend Robert

    The .Co registry owners never claimed and to this day would not say it was going to be bigger than .com.

    .xxx isn’t going to be bigger than .com either but its still not to say that live.xx or free.xxx or great adult terms are not going to make money in the future.

    Again its a shot.

    Point being if you can take a shot from right outside the 3 point line why would you try to hit the net from the other side of the court?

  21. 2011 August 24
    Same Ole permalink

    bakofamerica.co
    randmcnally.co

    Take it easy on the guy that registered the Winehouse name

  22. 2011 August 24

    Mike, I wasn’t referring to the .co Registry, just the fan boys (ala RC), and their ‘this is the one’ hype.

  23. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Same

    “Take it easy on the guy that registered the Winehouse name”

    Why?

    There is more than 1 person on earth without any understanding of domains and the law.

  24. 2011 August 24
    .Me of course! permalink

    You missed sleepless.co – this could have explained the people’s choice ;)

  25. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Big Lie

    Soon its going back to the banning of you new IP address

  26. 2011 August 24
    razorblade permalink

    @MHB – Not such a cheap shot. When someone self proclaims himself to be a DOMAIN KING, he puts his own calls under scrutiny.

    Now most of his domains he has done extremely well with and has a strong history of selling mega domains at mega prices – no arguments there.

    But while flowers is obviously a great keyword – .mobi never stood a chance, and cannot be isolated to the success of the iphone – there were plenty reasons why it failed so spectacularly – and a domain king should have seen it coming…..so in that sense i would argue it was a pigeon shit purchase..

  27. 2011 August 24

    @razorblade

    You can still be the homerun king and strike out a few times.

  28. 2011 August 24
    razorblade permalink

    @shane

    Agreed.

    But lets call the strike for what it is.

  29. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Razor

    We all make bad calls or what turns out to be bad calls.

    I’m still sitting with 30 .mobi from the launch.

    I didn’t spend $200K on them but still I got some domains that made sense to me based on the extension like 511.mobi (511 is the number you dial from your cell phone to get live traffic updates)

    Now 511.mobi turned out to be pretty worthless but it made sense and had a shot had the extension taken off.

    So in hindsight we all know what we should have done.

    My point is that the domains In my post had NO shot of every making money, no logic behind it, just pure crap.

    So when I see a domainer saying I registered 100 .Co domains and none of them sold, so the extension sucks, then I see the crap registered on day 1, when there was virgin territory I had to say what I said.

  30. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Actually I think Shane makes a great point.

    The best hitter in baseball made outs more than hits 60% of the time

    If you play baseball and only make an out 70% of the time your probably off to the hall of fame with a .300 average

  31. 2011 August 24

    when 1,100,000 domains are registered in record time

    of course you are going to get at least 2%-3% of the bell curve

    that are not good.

    On the other hand there are

    LLL.Co

    are are real gems.

  32. 2011 August 24
    Abe permalink

    @MHB –

    What company with any common sense will want a .co when the .com is owned by someone else? If .co had to be accepted as part of the gTLD it probably wouldn’t pass due to confusion, but its “supposedly” a ccTLD. Money talks but it sure as hell doesn’t tell the truth. Icann does what it is told to do.

    Anyway, scene is going to change. This is the old game.
    Frank took a leap, which is a nice leap and will give him a nice profit, but he is also missing the boat. The data and facts are there.

  33. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Abe

    In fact end users have bought the .co without owning the .com, you may not do it but its happening

    “”Frank took a leap, which is a nice leap and will give him a nice profit, but he is also missing the boat”"

    How is exactly frank missing the boat?

  34. 2011 August 24

    .Co

    is gaining gound

    when you do a google search: site:.co

    it is now up to

    191,000,000

  35. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    Robert

    I believe this is a year or so overdue but what the hell are you talking about?

  36. 2011 August 24

    I have had some limited success in getting .co’s to rank in google and bing, and I think the prices are right on the drops if u want something to develop out,….less than 1 mile from my office there is a company advertising on a major metro freeway with a dot co address metrooutdoor.co and I think lots of companies may opt for this route. I seem to have won one the above names, curious how quick the transfer occurs.

  37. 2011 August 24
    LS Morgan permalink

    You can still be the homerun king and strike out a few times.

    Or, you could be the homerun king who hit a lot of homeruns in 1963, but now make your living from selling the old memorabilia and the annuities you bought back in the day… but you still continue to delude yourself into believing that you can step up to the plate today and succeed, in spite of the fact that the few times you’ve done it publicly, you’ve shown that the touch isn’t there.

  38. 2011 August 24
    MHB permalink

    LS

    Only problem with that theory is the old guy just sold 2 domains for $4M one of which he picked up like 5 years ago or less.

  39. 2011 August 24
    Alan permalink

    .co=FoolsGold

  40. 2011 August 24

    @Don

    I have not had any problems with ranking well with my .co domain.

    I have a comic con blog – sdcc[.]co – and it ranked #1 for many keywords right around sdcc – which is a huge comic convention and was getting thousands of hits / day.

    It also bumped me up to a PR3 (if anyone looks at that anymore)

    Now, I still rank in the top 3 for certain keywords, so yes there is a chance to rank high with a .CO domain

  41. 2011 August 24
    LS Morgan permalink

    Only problem with that theory is the old guy just sold 2 domains for $4M one of which he picked up like 5 years ago or less.

    You mean Rick Schwartz specifically?
    He can use the money he’s made from domain names to make money with domain names. No one is saying he can’t.

  42. 2011 August 24
    LS Morgan permalink

    clarify:

    “can” should’ve been “has the ability to”. I’d also bet he does a lot of stuff that isn’t public.

  43. 2011 August 24

    Its odd that double hyphenated names were getting regged the first day.

  44. 2011 August 24

    SandCastle.co
    WineMarket.co
    coCASINO.co
    coPOKER.co
    coTRAVEL.co
    coBUSINESS.co

  45. 2011 August 24

    RH perhaps some SEO guys went to get those. Google uses hyphens as seperators.
    You can do some real fun stuff with those.

  46. 2011 August 24

    Those domains belong to Robert Cline….?

  47. 2011 August 24

    Not calling these “good” registrations by any stretch but some of these might have been names of companies, words in other languages, or something similar. For instance “Mashkanta” in Hebrew means “Mortgage”. Doesn’t change the fact that these are definitely pigeon droppings but at least there is some explanation for a few of them.

  48. 2011 August 24

    Now you know what I’ve been seeing. And there is more to come. The big challenge for .co and COINTERNET is getting development underway in the ccTLD. High profile speculator to speculator sales are not development. The .co registry has at least 3500 premium domains that are reserved and they have not made it to market yet. With non-core TLDs, development rates are going to be lower than .com or main ccTLDs. I think that COINTERNET has fumbled the renewals phase in that it removed the drop frenzy from the process.

    The earlier comment about a high percentage (70%?) of drops being reregistered may not work out given the low quality of many of the Landrush registrations.

  49. 2011 August 24
    James permalink

    Up until yesterday I only had one .co name – now I’ve got 4 – tried for 6. Very happy to have got them at the prices I did…that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject.

  50. 2011 August 24

    Love it when you brag that you got a good dot co domain and your dot co is rank #1 on SEO and blah blah blah…

    Don’t forget to save some money for the dot xxx and other gtld coming out and please drop all your dot com which you don’t have faith in them.

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