Both prior and subsequently after the release of the new gtlds there has been plenty of speculation on how their existence would impact the demand and ultimately the value of the existing tld’s most notably the .com domain names. The debate mostly split into three camps, those that thought they were a terrible idea with absolutely no mainstream marketing credibility within the general public, with the assumption being they would have little to no resale value with the majority ending up as glorified parking sites never to see the light of day.
Then there were those that were completely against their release as they felt they would dilute the value of their existing domain portfolios and then last but not least there were the few investors that welcomed the diversification and expansion of the domain market and keenly and consistently have followed their release with overall positive press.
My attention though when looking at the top 100 domain sales YTD 2014 is the sheer amount of country code tlds that are in the top 100 and how much they have sold for.
The combined sale value of the top 10 cc gtld up to July 14th 2014 has been $1.9 million, excluding the sale of sex.xxx which sold for $3 million this is almost 4x as much as the top 10 generic tlds excluding .com. So the question I find myself asking – is why is this surely a .net or a .org has more appeal than a domain name that’s reach and appeal is essentially limited to it’s own country’s boundaries?
Country code tlds have long been seen as the second cousin to the generic and more globally recognized .com, and in many ways even the .nets and .orgs. It has always been assumed that if the .com was available for your chosen domain and within your price reach that would be the best bet for your money but with the likes of Game.cn claiming the 10th highest domain sale spot this year with a highley respectable price tag of $512,307 can it really be claimed this is still the case?
The rise in popularity of the country code domain is a momentum that has been growing in the local marketing world for some years now. As more and more retailers turned their attention from the traditional brick and mortar style revenue model and realized the big gains there was to be had by increasing their online presence more and more country code domains were bought up by big box retailers who strategically tailored their marketing to their targeted local audiences. The likes of Office Depot, Staples and even the self proclaimed king of online retail Amazon all own domains with country code specific tld’s, even Google have joined the party, with www.google.co.uk, www.google.com.au, www.google.fr etc.
One things these guys all have in common is they all have big marketing budgets, they invest heavily in brand awareness and poof all of a sudden it becomes second nature to the general public to type in a cctld against a domain name, and not just for the big names who advertise on television and radio but for all domains they regularly use. In light of this the default .com argument becomes a little weaker every day.
I recently read an article by Shaun Mcgowan the owner of www.carloans.com.au, an Australian car loan company. The essence of his success story was how swapping his domain name for an exact match domain more than doubled his traffic literally overnight, the domain ended up paying for itself and he was able to expand his business literally off the back of buying an EMD. Whilst the story itself has some interesting points and elements it was one of the feedback comments that caught my eye and got me me thinking.. “Why didn’t you just buy the .com version”? Great point but what made the author of the comment feel the .com version would be more valuable?
www.carloans.com.au is an exact match domain with an Australian country code tld, Shaun Mcgowan’s company is based and is specific to Australia so really in this case would have the .com version been more valuable or indeed more profitable the answer is probably not but the perception is still there that the .com equivalent would be a more valuable asset…
With the Chinese online population now exceeding 600 million, this is a perception that is going to be continued to be challenged for some time to come. Eight out of the top ten country code domain sales this year were .cn domains and it is predicted we will continue to see this trend increase over the coming years.
One of the biggest criticism the new gtlds have received is that the general public are simply not used to typing anything other than .com at the end of a domain name…. Maybe just maybe though the rise and rise of the country code domains might just be telling us something and yes if those big box companies join the .club, .game, .guru bandwagon and we start seeing billboard campaigns, regular television and radio advertisements our automatic propensity to type that .com may just be challenged a little further..Who knows maybe that .com bubble will burst after all?
For the full list of today’s expired domains, pre release auction domains and thousands of high quality dropped domains please go http://www.expired-domains.co.
Clare Coggins
Comments on this entry are closed.