Category: Domain Names

This post originally appeared on Mizalla.com

We all want attractive domain names ending with an ideal dot-com extension, but unfortunately it is almost impossible to grab good ones anymore. Unless you’re willing to pay an overpriced amount to an owner who’s keen on selling, chances of registering good domain names with 4 or 5 letters have faded and the good ones have all been purchased. This triggered the creation of senseless names for projects, sites and services. Take for instance Oyogi, Hooka, Zlio, Thoof or Heekya and Oooooc.com.

Shortly afterwards, the internet gave domain name lovers extra and new options. We’ve seen the obsolete .cc, which was supposed to be the alternative of .com, and the idea of .ws as the new “website” extension, but the whole internet was about websites and the suggestion did not make it far. Others thought that .mobi will dominate the mobile world, but this also did not work.

I personally collect domain names. I’ve managed to buy around 75 of them and most are dot-com, dot-info, dot-co, dot-mobi and a handful of European extensions. 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 around the world, and mainly the US, suddenly started preaching about that new extension, telling everyone about their chance to grab names they’ve missed from dot-com. I am one of the early adopters who have decided to invest in this, so far I’ve bought 4 dot-co domains, my latest is EDLP.co which stands for every day low prices. I payed a mere $11.95 for it. However, other companies have acquired for much higher figures, e.co was sold for $81,000, o.co for $350,000 and Twitter paid around $500,000 for t.co.

The usage of .co comes as a pleasant surprise in Lebanon. I have spotted companies using the .co extension lately, below are 2 examples, Klynn and Rosso Nero. I am not sure who else is using them, but we’ll have to wait and see as the .co extension is still not very popular in this part of the world.

Some believe that the .co extension will be another failure like all the ones before it, and that registrar companies who are heavily promoting it (take godaddy for instance) will be the only winners. Google has also confirmed that “it will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted”. However, there are a few thoughts that come to mind when considering .co domain names. Will this sudden transition confuse the general public? Will they mistake it for a typo? On another note, some people made lots of money out of typos (check my previous post about the .cm scam).

What do you think? Are people being too negative about the new .co domain extension? Have you bought one? If so, how are using it? Let me know.

It is also worth considering that .CO is the country code top-level domain assigned to the Republic of Colombia. It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., a strategic venture formed between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar Inc. , available to the public as of July 20, 2010.

So? What do you think? Are critics being too negative about the new .co domain extension? Have you bought one? If so, how are you using it? Let us know in the comments section below.

This spring, Mizalla.com invites you to discover the best way to shop that is faster, simpler, and smarter than anything you know. Dozens of local stores with hundreds of your favorite brands will soon be available anytime, anywhere.

I bought my first domain name in 1995 or 1996, cannot remember that, but clearly remember paying $200- for it and it was bought thru Data Management (ISP in Lebanon). After a while I moved to Network Solution and some other registrars like 123domains and CheapNames and ended up with my domains spread between Netsol, Dotster, Godaddy and Bluerazor.

At the beginning, I was not interested buying a domain for my first name or last name, actually I never even thought about it and when I did, it was too late to get its dot-com.
I ended up having krikor.info for my blog and lately I offered myself krikor.me / krikor.co / krikor.us and for my last name I have ohannessian.info which is also used by some of my family members for email addresses.

Where krikor.com and krikor.net are owned by a guy living in the US. I tried to contact him since many years and asked if he is interested in selling krikor.com since the domain is sleeping and not used, but I never got an answer, even a negative one.

There is a 3rd company competing with us getting krikor domains, it is a German company krikor.de and they have registered so far .org / .mobi / .eu / .asia / .at / .biz

krikor.co.uk : owned by V. Tchelbakian.
krikor.fr: owned by Krikor Kouchian, a French musician.
krikor.nl: owned by Krikor Momdjian, a Dutch painter.
krikor.com.br: owned by Dikran Topjian

Some available generic krikor domains: .cc / .tv / .ca / .ws / .es / .it / .am / .fm / .nu / .tel

1. iPhone.eu – registered in October 2006 by the company Virtualisers
2. WordPress.eu – registered in April 2006 by the company Parknet
3. Twitter.eu – registered in April 2006 by the company World Index Limited
4. Digg.eu – registered in April 2006 by the company Besite
5. TechCrunch.eu – registered in August 2007 by ???
6. Zune.eu – registered in May 2006 by the company Register.com
7. SecondLife.eu – registered in December 2006 by the company Yggdrasil Beheer
8. Typepad.eu – registerd in June 2006 by the company Kausani Enterprises
9. Flock.eu – registered in April 2006 by the company NEW MEDIA GROUP
10. Jaiku.eu – registered in March 2007 by ???
11. Blognation.eu – registered in May 2007 by ??? (oops)
12. Linkedin.eu – registered in April 2006 by the company Vinitsia.com
13. MovableType.eu – registered in June 2006 by ???
14. Plaxo.eu – registered in April 2006 by ???
15. GoogleApps.eu – registered in November 2007 by the company Xel Media

Thirteen years ago, Josh Quittner wrote an article in Wired that almost made me richer than Donald Trump.

He wrote about how many domain names were up for grabs, including McDonalds.com.

Inspired, I sat down and registered hundreds of them. I was about to hit the ‘buy’ button when my office mate persuaded me that it was somehow unethical. Persuaded, I only ended up buying one or two generic terms.

Shoot.

Anyway, a decade and a half later, boom over, domains persist. Many are worth a fortune, tens of thousands are worth a semi-fortune.

Why are they still worth so much?

For a long time, clueless surfers would type a word into the address bar of their browser, figuring it was some sort of magic search engine. Type “gloves” into the address bar of Safari, and yes, it will take you to www.gloves.com.

But Firefox and others are wising up and connecting that spot to the search engines. Type “gloves” into Firefox and you’ll automatically go to the number one result on Google. Research shows that the number of people who accidentally end up on these sites is going down. So why the value?

I’m going to argue that it comes from two things.

1. Commitment. Because there’s ony one “dot com” TLD and no serious contenders, there’s only one neighborhood for business online. You’re either on Fifth Ave. (or Rodeo Drive, your choice) or you’re not. If you build a site at mexicansugarskull.com, you’re making it really clear to the surfer that you care about this topic, that you’re here to stay and that you can be trusted.

2. Focus. Similar, but not quite the same. By having a domain that matches what you do, you are able to focus the attention of the surfer. They know what to expect before they get there, and you can spend less time explaining yourself. The web already offers too many choices–this way, your site doesn’t have to.

I think this can help lead us to some useful strategies. If you own domains:

* Reinforce the idea of commitment. Don’t use generic photos or standard layouts. The incremental effort to make your domain look like it sounds, to demonstrate your commitment through your actions, is very small, but worth it.

If you don’t own a domain that’s a perfect match (and that’s most of us):

* Make up for the fact that your domain is imperfect by using design, testimonials and other substantial cues to remind people just how committed you are.
* Don’t hesitate to create multiple domains for your efforts if you think it will help your visitors focus.

Over the last few weeks, Squidoo has launched a number of new domains to take advantage of this focus impulse: Squidbids, Squidvids and Squidwho, to name a few.

I’ve been amazed at how quickly people ‘get it’ when they visit each domain, and how productive the effort has been. The internet has taught people what to do when they see a domain. It’s not just an address, it’s the first bit of marketing.

One last bit of backward thinking: if you’re looking to start an online business, consider finding a great domain and build the business around it, not the other way around. If you subscribe to the snapnames newsletter, you can see which interesting domains are about to be sold for not much money. No guarantees as to how effective this service is, but it’s a neat way to think about what to build next.