Comments on: Become a ccTLD Detective!

By: Kobe

Kobe — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:46:19 +0000

By better understanding both the search results and search volume in the country you’re looking to invest in you can pick better domains that will most likely appeal more to people in the local market. You should also use tools like Namebio.com and DNJournal.com to better understand past sales in the given market.

By: colin

colin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:43:44 +0000

A lot of people still aren’t comfortable with ccTLD Investing, which I think leaves a lot of great opportunities still on the table!
To avoid wasting your time researching keyword and domain availabilty, FIRST look to see if you can even own/register domains in that ccTLD as a non-resident of that country.

By: Name

Name — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:25:49 +0000

Here’s a tip: as new gtld come online, some will be about US states, like .nj, .ny, .ut, and the likes. We don’t know what will happen but .la, .mn, .pa and .al already correspond to a US state. At least the city.la or city.mn are worth it, and possible loans, flowers, travel, realestate and other local services.

By: Tring Tring

Tring Tring — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:11:36 +0000

I am surprised that people rushed to register co.in when India specific extensions were available few years back and when .in finally opens up, people are tired to register as the cost per domain was 12 dollars.

Costs have now dropped to 3 dollars per domain and a billion people country with predominant English speaking crowd and the only country after China in the world now with more than 5% GDP is being neglected by domainers.

The recent 3G mobile auctions fetched to the government US $14 billion and the Wimax/LTE auctions which just concluded fetched close to $9 billion.

India is now at a critical inflection point in terms of mobile and internet usage and soon mobiles penetration would cross 800 million (from the present 500 million, every second Indian now owns a mobile) and broadband 250 million.

Qualcomm also won few slots for its broadband access in India.

Need I say more!(early bird catches the million dollar doma.in)

By: Mojito Recipe

Mojito Recipe — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:55:33 +0000

I did not know that about .ca.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:17:40 +0000

Invest in what you know. I agree that close to home is best IF there is a market for the terms. Think of the businesses in the country of the TLD that can actually use the keyword domain or advertise on it.

To avoid wasting your time researching keyword and domain availabilty, FIRST look to see if you can even own/register domains in that ccTLD as a non-resident of that country. The example given in this article is misleading IMO because Canada (.ca) has residency requirements for domain registrants. If you are a US resident, legitimately registering .ca names is not possible as far as I know. Setting up a shell corp or presence will take some additional investment. Using bogus whois record information is playing with fire and not worth the effort/risk with so many other legitimate opportunities out there.

Along with the obvious com/net/org and for some people good geos and keywords in info/mobi/tv, ccTLDs do provide some good opportunities. For the best results sticking to your own language is best. Language usage and dialect nuances can make seemingly good keywords in another language near worthless in practical terms. With a domain in your own language you know what it means in common usage today can always develop the name if you don’t sell it if that was your original intent.

By: Samit

Samit — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:30:57 +0000

I agree with the opportunities bit, as you know I went w/ cctlds way back in 2007, when it wasn’t yet ‘fashionable’, can’t complain.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:14:02 +0000

@Samit – you should definitely be looking at the top keywords in the native language. You can do this directly in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Thus for Mexico I wouldn’t pick the top English words but instead the top Spanish words, for France I would pick the top French words.

If you can find .fr’s that have thousands of exact-match searches and a high CPC you know there’s a market there!

A lot of people still aren’t comfortable with ccTLD Investing, which I think leaves a lot of great opportunities still on the table!

By: Samit

Samit — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:47:23 +0000

Partial knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I’ll stick to my own small corner of the world, unless I can get a top 100 keyword in any other ccTLD.

Though even there, top 100 english keyword might be a bad idea unless the country in question has a large bank of english speakers.