.co domain extensions are coming very soon (general availability starts on the 20th July), and https://.co decided to kick-start things by auctioning off the single letter https://e.co domain name last month. With the first bid starting proceedings at a sizeable $10,000, the price escalated to a massive $81,000, with increasing bids forcing the auction to continue longer than it otherwise would have. See how the auction developed here.All the proceeds are set to go to the charity of the winner’s choice, and it’s proved to be something of a success from a promotional standpoint, helping to cement the popularity of the .co extension and get the winner’s company, B52 Media, many links from popular news sites.

But is it a clever marketing and promotional strategy for businesses that can afford it, or is a risky choice? How much would you be prepared to pay for your preferred domain name?

Luckily, you don’t need to make that decision; you can pre-register your own .co domain name for just £19.99 with Heart Internet, saving you a healthy £53,809.97!

Many people are taking advantage of .co names that are only one or two letters long to use as short URLs for reposting to sites such as Twitter (with Twitter itself registering https://t.co to advise users of unsafe sites). There’s also a good chance to get the domain name you’ve always wanted, as most desirable names and common words have already been registered under older extensions such as .com. Registering your preferred name with a .co extension also stops others from gaining your traffic through typos of .com, and prevents people trying to sell yourname.co to you at a massively over-inflated price.

With just eight days to go before public availability, make sure you pre-order your .co domain name as soon as possible to be in with a chance.