.CO is no .COM
The .CO top-level domain is opening up over the next three months, and many are predicting it will soon be on par with .COM in terms of desirability. This belief is even built into the way the domain is being released. There are three stages: one for trademark holders, one for general advanced orders, and then one for every one else. The catch, of course, is the price. There is some variation between registrars, but the trademark holders and advanced orders are looking at a couple hundred dollars a pop for these domains. In return they get a jump on everyone else, as regular priced orders don’t start until July. If people didn’t expect a big demand, they wouldn’t pay the premium for the time advantage. And even after the premium periods, these domains will still be thirty bucks a year, well north of the $7 to $9 that most of us pay for our .COM domains.
Only 10 registrars will be handling .CO domains and they are hoping to hit it big. Mark Boost from LCN suggest that the .CO roll out “has the potential to become the biggest global domain since the 1985 launch of .COM”. David Andrews from domain.com predicts “we’ll see a rush of companies launching or re-launching their brands around their .CO name.”
Okay. I’ll buy that a boat-load, hell a fleet-load, of money will be spent for these domains. I don’t doubt that .CO will be far more successful than, say, .biz. I even believe that there will be an insane landrush and normal folks will be lucky to get obscure things like antiquebutterdishes.co.
But I don’t buy it replacing .COM or even seriously challenging it.
Consider phone-based businesses. 800 was the original US area code for toll-free numbers. As a result, there are companies with names like 1-800-flowers, 1-800-contacts, 1-800-batteries, and so on. Since then, 888, 877, and 866 have been rolled out as well. While 877 and 866 might be questionable, 888 is very catchy. So, where are the 1-888-whatever companies? I’m sure some exist, but it isn’t the same. “1-800″ has meant “call us free” in the US since 1967 and many other countries use 800 as the basis for their toll-free numbers as well. Other prefixes may be just as toll-free, but they don’t have the cache that 1-800 has.
Now think about the Internet. The term “dot com” is synonymous with the Internet. Businesses make “dot com plays.” People going to work for Internet companies say they are working for a “dot com.” The big implosion of Internet companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the end of a “dot com bubble.” The .COM top level domain has been around for 25 years now and is an intrinsic part of the Internet for most people. A few companies and organizations may have successfully branded a .net or .org domain, but by and large it is a .COM world.
The .biz top level domain was launched in 2001 as an alternative to the crowded .COM domain, and as of the end of 2009, there are over two million domains registered within .biz. That sounds great until you consider that there are almost 84 million .COM domains and .COM, picked over as it is, is still growing faster than .BIZ. Even .ORG and .NET are still growing faster than .BIZ. Past is not always prelude, but this shows how resilient .COM is in the face of competition.
Some people point out that “CO” as an abbreviation for company or corporation is more internationally recognized than “COM”. They also point out that a lot of country top-level domains use .CO as the second tier for business (e.g. amazon.co.uk). Both of these statements are absolutely true, but .com remains the big gun domain worldwide. If you don’t believe me, go to some non-US google sites and search for “dot com”. Heck, make it harder and limit the search to the last week. Google China found me 22,700 from the last week. Russia gave me 12,000. Japan coughed up a whopping 295,000 in the just the last seven days. Can you really imagine that global footprint eroding anytime soon?
I may be wrong. I have been before and no doubt will be again. As they say, time will tell. In a few years, we can all look at the stats and see whether .co had the chops to take on the champ. For now, if you want to buy a .co domain, go for it. Domain.com and GoDaddy will be happy to oblige you. I’ll stand by the title of this post: .CO is no .COM.
The current problem with the .com TLD is that there are so many domains registered and the .com domain is so overcrowded that if you create a new company, and you want a short domain name, chances are it is already registered and in use, or you would have to buy it from domain hoarders at a much higher price.
So the new .co domain will bring new air to the domains industry. It may not take over or replace .com domains (since big established companies are already known as dot coms), but for new Internet startups and other new online companies the .co domain will be very attractive and easier to buy.