.Co now second search option.

About 24 hours after promoting .co to the top of its search box, domain name registrar GoDaddy has switched back to .com. But .co remains the second option for people searching for domains at the world’s largest domain name registrar.

GoDaddy frequently runs tests, such as changing the prices of domain registration a couple bucks up or down to measure the effects. Moving .co to the top of the list was just such as test, yet it was certainly an aggressive one. It replaced a domain that costs about $12 a year with one that’s $30. .Co is also very close to .com, which could have led to confusion. I’m sure customer confusion was one thing the registrar evaluated during the test.

A big lift for .co this weekend as world’s largest registrar promotes .co to top of search box.

[Update: .com is now back as the default option. This was a test by GoDaddy.]

You might be in for a bit of a surprise if you visit GoDaddy today. This is what the search box looks like:

That’s right. The default search option is now .co at GoDaddy.

This is a huge win for .co since GoDaddy registers about half of all new domain names registered. It seems like a smart move for GoDaddy. Most domains people search for are taken in .com. So GoDaddy users are more likely to see their domain as “available”, not to mention .co domains cost about three times as much as .com domains to register.

I have no idea how long this change will last. Yet this isn’t the only good news for .co this weekend. Overstock.com, which recently featured o.co in a TV commercial, is getting ready to rebrand its international sites to o.co.

Facebook acquires FB.com domain name.

Ending months of speculation, it’s now confirmed that Facebook has acquired the FB.com domain name.

The whois record for the domain name just updated to show Facebook’s name and nameservers for the domain name.

George Kirikos first noted back in September that the domain name had sold and speculated Facebook was the buyer. After doing a little digging he also found that Facebook was in a trademark dispute with American Farm Bureau over the term FB. American Farm Bureau was the seller of the domain name.

I contacted the American Farm Bureau back then and they said they sold the domain name (but wouldn’t confirm it was to Facebook) and were still in an unresolved dispute with Facebook. As of this evening the dispute still shows as unresolved at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

I have some speculation that American Farm Bureau did not know they were selling the domain name to Facebook when it sold it. It sold it to an intermediary that works on behalf of a number of corporate customers including Facebook.

I’m tired of hearing about the next [insert a company or product name] killer.

It seems that every week another “something killer” product is launched.

There have been dozens of supposed “iPhone killers”.

And a nice handful of “Google killer” search engines.

And today comes word of what’s being referred to internally at Facebook as the “Gmail Killer”.

I’m actually amazed that Facebook could release a Google Gmail killer, since I thought that Google was supposed to have already released a “Facebook Killer” in the form of Buzz. Facebook should be dead already. Oh, and it should prepare for another assassination attempt.

There sure is a lot of supposed killing going on out there. But the thing is they never kill what everyone says they will. They rarely make a dent. The real “killer” applications out there tend to take the general public by surprise. Like the iPod, which basically killed every existing MP3 player in the market. The iPod was truly a killer product. Sadly, the word is so overused these days that the term has lost all meaning.

Now, back to working on my DomainQuestions.com killer…

[The original version of this article was titled "Let's Kill the 'Killer' Moniker". As Mr. Berryhill pointed out, that was a poor choice of words given that Moniker is the name of a domain registrar. I certainly would not want the registrar killed.]

Company files complaint over four letter domain name. It’s not the first time.

Apple Inc. filed complaints with World Intellectual Property Forum this week over two domain names it feels are typos of Apple.com.

One case is against Appl.com and the other is against apple.com aplle.com.

On the surface it would appear that Appl.com is a generic four character domain name. Yet the pay-per-click ads on the site mention the electronics maker.

Earlier this year Apple filed a similar complaint that included aple.com as well as appl-e.com and apples-stores.com. The company dropped the complaint after the registrant transferred the domain names to Kilpatrick Stockton, which is presumably Apple’s law firm. Yet someone dropped the ball, as the domains aren’t yet forwarding to Apple.com. In fact, aple.com still forwards to a parked page.

But someone at Apple or the law firm knows what he or she is doing. After winning a case for wwwApple.com earlier this year it forwarded it to www.Apple.com — and even inserted code to track the typo visits.