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.
It’d be funny to see all the chargebacks and requests for refunds they get, once registrants realize what they’ve actually bought!
I don’t think I’d take a .co if it was free. I’m serious. I don’t udnerstand why some fokes buy up the chit theyh buy
Not to mention that the list of domain suggestions/alternatives provided by GoDaddy contains .CO results only.
Who knows, might be I this might helps me sell all my domains. shit, .co is so expensive and I don’t want extent them if I can sell them…. ….
it’s nothing more than a typo..
Somebody actually wants a .co domain?
Everyone, including ICANN know the real reason why anyone would want a co and that is to bank in on successful, developed websites and the fact that slips of the finger do happen.
Of course, Godaddy knows this too. Their main audience is AMERICANS not COLUMBIANS.
Well think about this: Many popular browsers already have domains stored as part of the “autofil.” This typosquatting is really a thing of the past. People are getting lazier and only type in the first few letters of where they want to go and they just let Google or firefox do the rest.
Heck, I should start my own domain blog.
As a side effect, your Premium Listings aren’t getting as much attention on the site. They still show up as available as premium, but there’s not a big banner at the top of the page for your .com because the person selected .co instead.
*
LOL
GD is using a lot of iffy tactics lately, for example, adding unwanted items in your cart. If you don’t check and remove, then you get charged. Then you have to call or email your rep to get it removed and get a refund.
Beware!
*
what is co by the way for?
Well at least we know 1 thing for sure. When all this is said and done years from now, we will learn from .co whether a new extension truly entering the race is even viable. They are throwing out all the stops, and I’m not sure what more could realistically be done in an attempt to force .co down the public’s throat. I’m not casting my vote here, just saying this is a pretty extreme example of a new extension launch. Interestingly, If it fails we will learn that new extensions will fail, because what more could they do? If it succeeds we only learn that it is “viable” for a new extension to succeed.
Some of you owning generics in the .co will see huge gains in future. You see your all stuck that .co is just for the US. Look at where people are registering these names.
Even if it becomes at worst- the 3rd most popular ext. then it will be worth some big bucks.
I don’t see this change sticking. As the first comment said, I can’t imagine all the chargebacks they’ll be getting as people go through the entire order process, only to realize the great domain they just happened to find available was…wait, a .co? WTF?
The question is: How much did .co pay them to do this? It seems beyond comprehension that they could have hatched this plan by themselves.
It makes sense because GD overwhelmingly targets new regs by average folks responding to their ads. When Joe Average searches for a domain there, he probably has no idea that every worthwhile .com is locked up. Or that there’s an aftermarket. So if he doesn’t register *something* then GD has nothing to upsell which is the bread and butter of any registrar.
And let’s face it, .co is probably better than trying to shove a .biz down his throat which will be worthless SEO-wise. (Although I personally still can’t type a .co domain. Muscle reflex always puts the ‘m’ at the end.)
That’s because all the good .COM are gone! lol… Oh, and anyone notice how Moniker selects domains of ALL extensions before you click “Register Selections” and buries the exact domain you searched for in the list even if it’s a dot com. Lots of annoying and ridiculous things going on… don’t get me started with Snapnames…
How long will it be until .co starts to give away free domain names for a year (and hope for renewals), like .info did?
.
probably GoDaddy makes huge profits selling .CO domains at $30 each
OMG! George K. is sooo right! This could be an interesting scenario for GoDaddy. I think it’s a louzy way to get money from the unsuspecting peeps out there. They will soon have to have a Refund button on their website next to the picture of Jillian Michaels.
I think it’s a bit irresponsible of GoDaddy for doing this. First of all, some people who are not paying attention and not too saavy might register a .co thinking it’s a .com. As others mentioned GoDaddy earns a lot more from people reging these. Second, there are inherent dangerous in owning cctld’s which is what this is. .co stands for Columbia, not company. If the government of Columbia wanted to shut down any .co website for any reason it could. bit.ly was shut down for a while by Libya for no reason at all, just because they wanted to. Thankfully it’s back up now. There should at least be some disclosure that .co is Columbia’s tld when those people are registering.
Which one of us will be the first to get an email from a newbie GoDaddy .co owner accusing us of “stealing” *their* .com domain name, due to this promo?
This is a mobile play. Short domains are better for mobile (since people have less to remember/type). Smart money will bet on .co’s being used more and more by companies for the mobile address of their site that they promote via advertising.
GoDaddy’s cut of each .co registered must be very high.
People are missing the point of brute force marketing. When the 800 lb gorilla says something is relevant, it’s relevant. End of story.
With enough time, promotion, end-user registrations and website build outs, GoDaddy becomes a TLD kingmaker. I may not like it, but that’s one of the perks that comes with status and power.
Bet against GoDaddy, or pick up a few choice dotCO domains to hedge your bet. If GoDaddy is successful in selling this strategy, a few months down the line, you probably won’t be picking up those dotCO domains at reg fee.
@ George Kirikos
Which one of us will be the first to get
an email from a newbie GoDaddy .Co owner accusing us of
“stealing” *their* .com domain name, due to this promo?
—————————————
Hilarious,
I recently did get a cease and desist letter from a
.Co for a Aged Domain we own, Guess what! …
I think this has to be the marketing
scam of the decade, although puffery
is legal and expected in sales …
To Motorcycle Bob ….
as Hillary would say..
Shame on you!
Why all those negative forecasts about the extension’s future? Seriously, you’re describing the worst scenario possible, so bad that it is very unlikely to happen.
I said it before about six months ago, those $30 renewals are going to add up mighty fast.
There was a huge marketing campaign behind .Co and I would go so far as to say they used some black hat marketing tactics to get people to buy into that extension.
Certain domain blogs went way beyond the normal reportage to really push that extension, which immediately set off red flags in my mind, wondering what kind of vested interest they had in that extension or what the payoff was for them?
I personally would rather hand reg a .Com any day, than pay for a premium .Co
While my account manager at Godaddy is a great guy and has been incredibly helpful and I have nothing but praise for him, Godaddy to me has shown repeatedly how unscrupulous they
are, by the ridiculous underhanded up selling tactics they repeatedly try to pull. They are going to try to push any extension that they can make money off of, so I think it’s false hope for those .Co owners to think .Co is somehow been pushed to the top of the heap.
A lot of .CO missed out on s.
Everytime I search for a .com, it is taken and I get discouraged and left.
Now, just about every search is available. That is the real reason for the switch. Godaddy is smart for doing this. Makes natural sense.
As I have said before,
.CO is your new king. Get the good names before they are gone.
We are where .com was 20 years ago.
Interesting point. Oh wait, no it’s not. There weren’t any other viable extensions besides .com 20 years ago. Now that there are 20 bazillion other TLDs available, .co will most certainly not be the new king.
And for all these newly found .co’s, wonder how many important emails will be misdirected to xyz.com instead of xyz.co. Again, it’s really, really tough to leave off the ‘m’.
We live in a free market economy. And no one extension can be dominant. Choice and opportunity is the name of the game. And those that keep holding on to the old and want to just protect their .com domains will be the losers. You got to adapt to the times and .CO is the new .COM and actually better. shorter is better now days.
Godaddy just doubled their value in this one simple move.
Godaddy wins huge with this. Now I will actually find a domain that is available.
Before the search field served no purpose since I could never find an available domain.
And just another hint, .CO is a huge winner as well. heeheeehee.
I plan on developing most of my .co domains.
However, if anyone wants any of my .co the prices have just doubled.
I have already sold 2 .co domains for over many many many times reg fee but now they have at least doubled in value.
Why? you ask. Well before, only 60,000 people knew about .CO but now 25,000,000 people will know about the .CO s. Translation, .CO is going to skyrocket in value.
Times are changing.
.CO is the new king on the block, .COM is the old
stick with the old and you will be shuttered out like a heina in the jaws of a new lion king.
“.CO is your new king…We are where .com was 20 years ago.”
———-
How’s the weather in Colombia? I hope that’s all you meant.
All Godaddy needs to to is add a pair of shoes to your order and force you to call them to remove the shoes from your cart, and they will be fine.
Einstein, that is so old, get over it.
Google already slammed you on this.
They empathically said that .CO is a global domain and treated as such. Either you are very misinformed or uninformed. Plus type site:.co on google search and you will come up with 151,000,000 sites already using .CO
I’m reminded of a classic episode of “All in the Family”, when Archie Bunker thinks he has bought an Omega watch (fast forward to the 3:00 minute mark or so):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3bFLx787Vg
🙂 (punchline at around 4:15)
It’s an interesting move by GoDaddy since they have been pushing this pretty hard in the past few weeks. It of course opens up thousands of more domains to be bought. The only problem I have with it is they need to make it a little more clear as some may not notice that it’s not a .com when doing a quick search and checkout. I guess that would be their fault though. I don’t see .co taking off anytime soon.
“Plus type site:.co on google search and you will come up with 151,000,000 sites already using .CO”
Wow that’s amazing. Oh wait, site:.cc gives 902,000,000 results.
Lol George, thanks, pure nostalgia.
“It’s a million dollar racket, Mr. Peterson, all over the country.”
There are winners and losers in every game. I bought about 300 .cos. I sold one typo that made nothing and it paid for 2 years of 300 (generic) .cos. Not bad.
Received $15,000 offer on a LLLL.co generic, but my asking price is north of 100k. So far so good.
Imagine when in 20 years there are
90,000,000 .CO registrations and
90,000,000 .COM registrations
people will say why do I want a .COM when I can type less with a .CO stupid.
short is more; less is more; less is better,
remember! folks.
Godaddy reafirmed what I always believed.
.CO , right now, is more valuable than .net or .org
my straight up assessment.
ever since buying my .CO domains couple months ago,
I have not regretted a single day.
Everyday, there seems to be more and more positive news with .CO
You have to remember that this is a very rich extension. 1 million registrations = $30,000,000
I don’t care what anyone says, that kind of money is going to influence a lot of people.
I bet you we will see nationally televised .CO advertisements soon.
one last point before I leave you schmucks
remember 1-800- numbers when that was the only free number
well now 1-877- number do you recognize the difference?
my point. checkmate.
This is THE BEST news for us dot-COM owners.
As more people get our names in .co extension, it will help us:
– get more offers from these folks
– get more traffic to out dot-COMs as the .co names are developed
I love it.
Great 🙂
Yeah that makes sense. Since 1-800-Flowers is taken, I’ll just settle for 1-877-Flowers.
After all, only a schmuck would instinctively use 1-800 instead of 1-877.
Or 1-888.
Or 1-866.
Or…
Night all.
@ Robert Peterson
(quote)one last point before I leave you schmucks(unquote)
——
Mr Peterson you are sooooo clever,
your are just wonderful, NOT!
10 comments in 1 post the only person who
could beat that dry mouth ramble has a
first name that starts with J …
You wouldn’t know him (cough) would you!
LOOKOUT HERE COMES ANOTHER BARRAGE,DUCK!
Really a great change.I think it will rock the future web.CO is a good one.But more cost.That’s the only problem.
One of your extreme .co fans tell me something – why underneath the search does GoDaddy still talk about .com prices? Why does that part link to a price list of top extensions – which does NOT include .co?
This is not only going to cause confusion, but it was rather shoddily done and IMO may even be GoDaddy trying to pull one over on customers given that. The $1.99 deal with purchase of other product plastered on their front page doesn’t even apply to .co domains. You who think .co is a legitimate extension that will become huge should be really upset about how they’re going about this promotion – without professionalism.
While I am not a fan of .CO for English domains and still view Spanish .CO as a CCTLD, it will be interesting to see how the public accepts this marketing tactic. Godaddy spends a lot on marketing so it will be interesting. Remember, the country of Colombia has no “U” in it. Columbia is a city in South Carolina.
I think godaddy realized that 99 out of 100.com searches ended up in Already Taken!
So the next most closest is the .co and still plenty of names available.
BTW, Some comments above say only US people are register .co. Thats not true. Many people here in south asia also intrested in the extension. but what prevent them from registering a .com is it’s price.
@kandy: “Many people here in south asia also intrested in the extension. but what prevent them from registering a .com is it’s price.”
Did you mean to type “registering a .co” but accidentally put an ‘m’ at the end?
Wow. I can’t believe all the comments on this article.
1. The change won’t last at GoDaddy. Looks like a cheap bait and switch ploy. People will complain and/or traffic will drop or be redirected. You can try and force .co on the average man on the street/lead a horse to water but you can’t make him buy a .co/drink 🙂
2. Seems like people are realizing the hype of .co and this is probably the last spike in “value” of .co.
Good luck with your SPECULATIVE investments in .co.
I hate to ruin the parade of the .co fans and be the Devil’s advocate but GoDaddy doing this with .co is unlike when they did it with other extensions. The similarity between .com and .co makes is easy to take advantage of the non-educated domain registrant and this decision WILL in fact produce resentment against GoDaddy for those that thought they were registering the industry standard (.com)
Is a risky move on GoDaddy’s part, but if they run with it I would put it down to some board decision to burn trust in exchange for short term gains. GoDaddy is getting to big for its own good if it thinks it can burn trust and not be left scared.
This wont last long. They are going to get some strong customer backlash when people think they registered a .com and actually got a .co.
Not the domainer types but the joe 6-pack types which I think make up most of their business.
@ Rob Sequin
What makes you think that .co is speculative? This is a company run by people trying to gain a market share. If the company works smart (which .co has) it will be successful (already happening). It’s a company, nothing more, nothing less. This is an investment in a business structure and the people who run it. That’s all.
I have .coms but never have been a squatter. I feel bad for those who missed out on selling their squatted .coms for a reasonable price but rather didn’t get a sale at all because of exorbitant prices. Defy the laws of supply and demand, and that’s what happens.
All this fawning over .com has made me hungry…
@Em: Why would you feel sorry for squatters? They’re breaking the law.
Normal domain investors like yourself who deal in non-infringing domains will be just fine. Especially as the scarcity of .com continually increases, supply and demand will force the prices even higher.
@SL
IMO, I don’t think scarcity is the issue. With domains, we’re not talking about physical things like antiques. .co or .net will resolve just as well as .com. .com is essentially a “name” or “brand” nothing more, nothing less, and names can be changed because they are abstract. With a lot of different TLDs coming out, and given how abstract naming really is, I certainly don’t see .com increasing in price over the next 5 years. From a practical perspective, with work I can make any extension successful (see bit.ly).
And the problem with the supply and demand is that the public demands .com, but the owners really can’t supply because the price is out of reach. So the small and medium sized business owners must find an alternative.
Sorry bout the way I used the “squatter” word. I was talking about people who own excellent .coms, have priced them sky-high, and the domain just sits there on a parking page.
I currently own 7 .co domain names. I still consider this an experiment rather than an investment.
yes, it’s an experiment now
a lot of idiots on this board.
Do you really think most people are that stupid?
You, yes, you, the one reading this message is probably dumber than the one registering a .CO on godaddy.
.COM is finished, ka-pish. .COM search is meaningless if all the good names are taken. When the search is meaningless, godaddy is doing the most smart thing which is to release the next best extension the .CO
.CO is simply the new king
@Robert Peterson
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but calling other domainers schmucks and idiots is simply unprofessional and way out of line. We are an industry that is trying to be taken seriously and, while I commend you for not hiding behind an alias, these blogs should never deteriorate to the level of a schoolyard fight.
It encourages me that there is such a large group of outspoken naysayers. This leaves more possibilities for me and others to register and profit from .co domains.
@Robert: Then why is epier.co still available for hand reg?
Be patient though. It will only take another two weeks of allowance so you can afford the $29.99 reg fee.
Must be us no americans .. but i still see .com and second .co.
When i fill in a domain name i get .info recommended as second and .co as third.
Just a FYI
GoDaddy has switched back to .com as the default search option
https://domainnamewire.com/2010/11/14/godaddy-switches-back-to-com-as-default-search-option/
If someone creates a new TLD called .corn (c o r n), with the right font, it would be perfect for another “experiment” like this. 🙂
people .com is GREAT less face however you all holding on to it like your first dollar bill need to WAKE up quickly before .co PASSES you by as well as many other extensions! just because one car porsche is AWESOME like .com doesn’t mean there can’t be many other GREAT cars/domains like BENTLEY or .co! You heard it first hear AGAIn i have told ya!!!
Any chance that Colombia could take back .co domains or put restrictions on their usage? Over time, I think that .com will lose it’s hold and all tlds will be treated more equally.
Hey Robert Peterson aka Robert Cline,
Tell me, why do you insist on spamming blogs with your .Co promotions? Why not just develop your domains
Looks like Rob Sequin was spot on.