Is It Worth to Buy Domains with the New .co Extension?

[speedo]

by Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips.com

"This post is part of the Friday Q&A section. If you want to ask a question, just write a comment below.

Colby asks:
Just got a notice the .co domain is now available. Do you think this is going to take off?

A small bit of background information: In march of this year a company called CO Internet S.A.S announced that they would start managing domains with a new extension: .co. As of today these domains are already available, and you can get one with most big registrars.

Given the similarity of .co with .com, many people are claiming that .co domains might go mainstream, so trying to register premium domains with that extension (e.g., weightloss.co) could be a good idea. That is basically what Colby is asking.

One thing I know for sure: .co or any other extension they come up with will never take the crown out of the .com. If you want to build an online business, getting the .com version of your domain is a priority.

The next question is: will .co become a viable alternative to .com, as .net and .org are? We can’t say yet, but I wouldn’t count on it. We have seen many new extensions appear over the past years (e.g., .us, .tv, .biz), and none of them managed to establish itself. In fact, most of these extensions are associated with low quality, malicious and spam websites.

The .co extension has the advantage of being similar to .com and easy to remember, but I am not sure if this will be enough to make it go mainstream.

I for one won’t be buying any .co domains. My policy with domain names is the following: if the website I am building is a serious project (e.g., a startup, a blog with a big potential, a company website) I always go with a .com, even if I need to spend some money to grab a good domain. If I am building a mini website, on the other hand, I consider the .com but also the .net and .org versions of the domain I want.

Another point to consider is that there are more extensions to come shortly. If you remember well, ICANN announced last year that any company with enough infrastructure (i.e., money) could launch and manage its own extension. Extensions like .sex and .music are already on the way.

What will the consequences be? Only time will tell, but I suspect the confusion that will emerge out of all of this will only increase the strength of the .com extension. In other words, when in doubt people will type the domain followed by .com.

But what do you guys think. Will the .co extension establish itself as an alternative to the .com? Will it reach the same level of the .net and .org extensions?"

So guys, do you agree or disagree? What is your opinion?

PS: I know there are existing threads on .co domains, but I think this required a separate thread.

[bimo]

.com is and always will be a domainers first port of call. it's the normal, and i can't see .co making it easier... it's just like taking the ending off domains such as .co.uk and .co.jp. Though it is novel, the only real company i can see wanting it would be fantastico ( fantasti.co ) as it would just make sense to me, whether they acquire it or not would be their choice. The only people placing hype about it are hosting companies and registrar's but again, most of the users online prefer .com and are aware of .com, i know some people that aren't even aware of domains like .tv

[EvaPablate]

Yes, .com is very popular among popular and it is easy to pronounce and anyone can easily talk about, in my views domain name should be those good domains which are easy to pronounce first, easy to remember...