.co domain names have already clocked up some impressive registration stats despite only being in the general release period for two days. Here are some interesting statistics:
• 257, 246 .co domain names registered so far
• 100,000+ names registered in the first 25 minutes
• 1 in 10 .co domain names were registered in Asia
• 55, 093 .co names were registered in Europe
• 47.9% of .co names so far have been registered in North America
• 350 of the world’s top 500 brands pre-registered their names before general release
• 3 out of 4 people surveyed associated .co with .COmpany, .COrporation or .COmmerce
• $350,000 – the amount that Overstock.com paid to secure O.co
• 905 .co’s have been registered in Africa
.co names are now officially in the general release period, so you can register your .co domain name now without any delay, just as you would register any other domain name.If you pre-registered your .co domain name with us and are waiting to see whether you’ve secured it, you can expect an email from us within the next couple of days.
Side note… when accessing my new .co domain (mydomain.co) it shows the default holding page, but randomly i accidently typed “mydomain.co.” with the extra dot and it loaded a heart holding page??? is that new?
Hi Neil,
This is an issue which we’ve now resolved (as we’re used to having ‘.co.’ in the middle of a URL) – thanks for bringing it to our attention.
The .co domain is a chance for businesses to build a single global identity. This presents challenges on how you optimise your site so it appears correctly in the search engines for each country, given that Heart’s IP addresses will be recognised as being in the UK. What words of wisdom does Heart have on how to meet this challenge?
It really depends on how you want to use the website. Is it a brand name people already know and will search for? If it is (e.g. Disney) people will find it through brand searches.
If the site is targeting generic keywords, I don’t think it’s possible to optimise a website for every single country, you would need to have it translated in to each country’s language. What you can do is optimise your site for your target markets using Google webmaster tools and having sections of your site for each market. e.g.UK, France & Germany.
Thanks for your reply Matthew. For anyone else reading this thread, the following links are worth reading on dealing with this:
https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=2e4a18ce0e707a0e&hl=en
https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html
So, in theory it is possible to host on Heart’s server ip addresses without being penalised for having a non” target country” specific ip address, although I also read of people who believe they have appear to have lost traffic because of this.
As my business (https://www.reallyeasycat.co.uk) provides hosted ecommerce solutions around the world now, I have steered towards having servers in each country of operation. And believe me, the level of service compared to Heart is radically inferior. Hence why I am askign for Heart;s take on this, as I would prefer to host all my servers with Heart.
Oops, type in there….amendment to my website address: https://www.reallyeasycart.co.uk
whats the best redirect to use to send a .co to an existing domain? I’m confused by the advice out there regarding framed and non-framed redirects. Advice would be appreciated.
Hey Matthew
Could you please provide me with the source of the data for this article? I would love to get an update as to how many .co’s have been registered to date.
Thanks !
The stats were on this site just after launch https://www.cointernet.co, I’m not sure if they are still on there or if they have updated them since though.
Matt
Hi JMac
Have you thought about a 301 redirect?