Do people use .co domains? are they worth buying?

I’m thinking of buying a .co domain name, and just wondered if they’re worth buying or not. They’re quite expensive (£30) per year for this one i want. I never seem to see many around.

I think yes. I seem to recall Matt Cutts saying that google treats .co like .com and there are certainly some good opportunities to get good domains that are .co still.

All top level domains are treated the same by Google - the Columbian .co domain is no different from the international .com domain except that it belongs to Columbia and so that country can dictate who is allowed to use it and how much they have to pay.

As Stephen pointed out, .co belongs to Columbia and is a local domain tld similar to .co.uk, .co.nz and .com.au. For me, if you’re marketing to Columbians, use the .co, if you’re marketing to the UK, use .co.uk, use .co.nz for Kiwis and .com.au for Ozzies. If your market is international, though, use .com (if you can get it). It’s all in who you’re marketing to.

Regards,

DK

Right i see, well my site is marketed internationally, it’s targeted at everyone around the world, and unfortunately .com is not available so would you say .co is the next best option? .net and .co.uk are also taken.

What about .biz? Of course, the biggest problem with registering any duplicate domain name is that it is a duplicate … and that can confuse people. If you market “website.co”, there’s a very good chance that people looking for your site will type in “website.com” and go to your competitor’s site. Is that what you want? Can you be sure that all your marketing isn’t going to give someone else a load of free traffic? Could you register a different domain instead and get the .com address?

Google may associate your site with Colombia rather than the US. Even if the content is in English or not Colombia related. It’s a possibility.

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You can use Google Webmaster Tools to specify a geographic target, irrespective of your domain extension.[/FONT]

The problem with using any country specific domain for international use is that the domain is actually owned by that country and there is at least a slight possibility of their deciding to re-purpose their domain at some future time and cancel all existing sub-domain registrations on their domain as part of the process. This is more likely where the country currently make their domain available internationally where they may decide in future to impose restrictions that limit their domain to use within their own country. You could end up losing a domain that you have worked with for several years and have to start over with a different domain.

Has that actually ever happened? And if it did wouldn’t there be a huge out cry. I don’t think the internet community as a whole would allow a country stealing a domain.

So far it hasn’t happened but it could at any time because each country OWN their two character top level domain name.

Unless you pay the hundreds of thousands or millions to get your own top level domain you can only ever lease a sub-domain from the owner. If Columbia decided to stop leasing something.co then they are entitled to do that as they own .co and you are only leasing something.co - it is the furthest thing possible from stealing - you complaining and forcing them to continue to make it available after they decided they wanted to work things differently would be much closer to stealing.

Everything ending in .co belongs to Columbia and they can place whatever restrictions on how those domains are used that they like. They are only making it available internationally now because they don’t have a big enough need to use it locally.

Other countries already apply restrictions on how their domains are used - in Australia the domain authority specified second level domains and restricts who can lease domains in each second level for example to get a .com.au or .net.au you must have a business registered in Australia.

Never use .co domain if you are not thinking to market your site in columbia rather go for .com which will work in every country.

… and that means that you’ve got to rebrand your website to a name which IS available.

Regards,

DK

Yes, I do agree with most comments that many people confuse .co to .com and type .com to the end of the domain. Hence, say unless you have a small letter word with .co say redirecting to a main .com site it is ok, but have not come across any good .co marketed sites. I am not saying that .co is not useful but it has its limitations. Say you are getting a good short letter word(hard to find in any extension) or you need a specific word I guess you should try out other .com domains. As another user also pointed out, the registration charges are also on the higher side, so finally its up to you to decide.

I have not yet bought any .co because they are bit high in prices and also I’m not sure if it would be good for SEO or not.

.co is to be treated as new generation domains. But they are costly as compared to .com and .net

No they are not. Columbia has owned that domain since domains were invented.

That is absolutely untrue and the guy your saying is wrong is right. Do your research. .CO is to be treated as a new generation of domain and stands for COmpany not COlumbia. knowledge is knowing an answer to something and not assuming you do .

All the two character domains belong to countries. Comumbia may be promoting it in the way you claim but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t belong to them or that they can’t change their mind in the future.

All international domains have at least three letters.

Do your research and don’t just believe what the promotions say.

Official record of ownership of .co domain: http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/co.html - it belongs to Colombia as specified there. As nothing is more official than that page if you see anything different claimed elsewhere then it is the other page that is wrong.