.LA gets GoDaddy’s marketing power to help brand domain for Los Angeles

.LA to get another push as the domain for Los Angeles.

GoDaddy announced this morning that it has teamed up with DOT LA Marketing Company and CentralNic to help push the ccTLD .la as a domain name for Los Angeles.

The domain name registrar is offering annual .la domain name registrations for $39.99 and will hold auctions for some premium .la domain names as well.

.LA is actually the country code for Laos, also known as Lao People’s Democratic Republic, a country in Southeast Asia. Google treats .la as a “generic” top level domain name, meaning the search engine does not assume content on a .la domain is targeted to Laos.

.LA has tried to position itself as a domain for use in Los Angeles for over a decade, as evidenced by this archive.org archive from 2000 for www.la. CentralNic took over as the registry services provider in 2007. .LA has redoubled its efforts to brand as a domain for Los Angeles in recent years, but should finally break through thanks to GoDaddy’s marketing muscle and press about city top level domains such as .nyc that are coming soon.

“Expanding to the ‘right of the dot’ opens up a huge range of naming options for people in Los Angeles looking to get their ideal Internet name and brand themselves from a location perspective,” GoDaddy Domains Vice President Rich Merdinger said in a press release. “So, for example, if you’re in L.A. and you can’t get JimsPizza-dot-COM, JimsPizza-dot-LA is an even better option because it tells people what you do and where you are…and there’s a good chance the new name is available.”