Martin Koss – thinking out loud…

… or should I say the .CO Domain Exploitation BAND-WAGON?

Here we go again… The next wave of exploitation is upon us.

While the .co domain gold rush was gathering pace, we (after making initial enquiries) were under the impression that you had to have some connection with the phrase of the domain you wanted to buy in order to be eligible to actually buy it.

How silly we were to think there would be any ‘policing’ of it. After all, if it means someone or some company was set to rake in a few million, who the heck gives two hoots who buys your brand name or a domain they have no connection with, whatsoever?

Well, as it has turned out: No-one.

No-one policed the purchasing of the .co domains and no-one will police all the tricksters who will now turn around and sell them to the highest bidder.

The ‘restrictions’ on buying the domains were complete and utter bull-shite – just like everything else on the web. It was open to being exploited – and it is being.

For frigs sake – can’t we trust anyone?

It seems anyone with twenty quid can buy a .co domain. And many people did – with no intention of using them. They just knew it was Internet Gold Rush phase 4,875.

A couple of things you should know about the .CO domains:

- The .CO domain relates to COLUMBIA? Not the UK, not France or Germany or Australia or the USA. COLUMBIA?

- If Google ignore the country code then the domain becomes non-geographical which means it is extremely unlikely to outrank any country specific domain in your own target country.

- When did you see a .TV or .ME or .EU domain outrank a .co.uk in the UK, a .de in Germany or an .fr in France? They don’t because they are not geographically targeted.

Think about it.

However, many people will sell them and many will queue up to buy them.

Here’s an email one of my clients received from someone who saw the opportunity and has obviously re-mortgaged his house to buy a shed load of .co domains in order to sell them to the highest bidder (ps: all spelling mistakes are his, not mine):

I am the owner of www.DoubleGlazing.co and am in the early stages of listing my domain for sale when I looked up the term DoubleGlazing on Google and found your website.

Duh! If we were that easy to find, do you think we need a new domain?

I had planned to develop this into an affiliate site for double glazing companies, but other projects are currently encompassing my time.

Bull… Do we believe he ever had any intention of using it? Nope!

DoubleGlazing.co is very descriptive, and could be used for your main site, a redirect or a trade extension to complement it.

Really? ‘Very Descriptive’. This guy needs a dictionary! Use as a ‘redirect’ and get slammed by Google. Great idea. Look, buddy, if these domains were so hot, how come you got your grubby palms on it and not a real Double Glazing firm?

The braod search term “Double Glazing” got 135,000 local(UK) searches and exact search term of 40,500 last month alone.

Like as if we don’t know that. Amazing source of market data – now if Only I knew how to use Google…

The term is extremely easy to market, the name itself will give you the edge on your competitors, and would be very presentable and professional on business cards, stationary, and other forms of major media, such as television and newspaper.

If its that easy to market then why waste our time?

I wanted to be courteous enought to ask someone who will actually utilizes this term with their own services. If you have any interest in owning my domain DoubleGlazing.co, please let me know.

The courteous thing would be to not exploit the .co domain thing in the first place.

If this email was a bother to you, I deeply apologize and will move on elsewhere. The sale is now open to offers (although, I do have a price point in mind).

I hope no-one buys them!

Personally – I hope anyone who has bought crap loads of these domains will be left with them (and an empty bank account) and prove, once and for all, that trickery, scams and blatant exploitation has run it’s course and no-one is stupid enough to think a brand new domain is the answer to all their business dreams.

For frigs sake – the guy can’t even spell!

Seriously, if you can’t make your business work with the domain you’ve already got – what difference is a new domain going to make? Duh?

UPDATE: I just found out that the guy who owns DoubleGlazing.co wants £1,500 for it. Hmmm. £1,500 for a domain that isn’t even indexed by Google. That has no authority. Has been registered for about a month and cost the guy about twenty quid. Well, I have 2 words for the tricky little dude and the second one is ‘OFF’. All the leading Double Glazing firms in the UK have well established websites that rank consistently in the top few slots on Google – why on earth would they see any value in the new domain?

 

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