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Ask HN: What are your thoughts on .co domains in 2013?

5 points by akaak ↗ HN
Is there _still_ an advantage in finding a somethingN-A-M-E.com or N-A-M-Esomething.com rather than a N-A-M-E.co? I know http://2013.go.co/about/ has been promoting .co domains and wanted to see what you think for a business facing or consumer facing startup?

some old posts related to .co on HN

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2209859

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1595573

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219989

8 comments

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speedyapoc
I would still never be able to use a .co domain for my product, even though a neater domain could be created compared to what I can get with a .com. Much of my user base consists of the non tech savvy, most of which would interpret it as a spelling mistake and visit the .com site instead. Unless you can incorporate the ".co" into the name of your product ("o.co" and overstock.com comes to mind here), I just don't see a .co being viable.
27182818284
If they're non-tech savvy, don't they just type into Google/Bing/whatever their browser page is set to? The non tech savvy (albeit smart) people that I know didn't know you could use the Internet without Google. I.e., even when using Facebook, Facebook would be typed in as the search query.
xauronx
To get to OUR OWN WEBSITE, my manager goes to his yahoo toolbar and types "google", find google on the search results, then types in the google search bar "companyname.com", then finds us in the results list and clicks it.

yeesh.

27182818284
It is getting less and less all the time. I think most non-tech people just type into their omnibox, so even when mistyping the domain they generally see it in the top search results. Also, the .ly did just fine for a number of startups. If bit.ly and others have a .com, I don't even know what it is.
VonIgelfeld
Now a days attracting traffic is more about providing good content to consumers than it is finding the right domain name. sure domain has something to do with it, but as long as your domain somewhat applies and you're using wise advertising techniques, then it doesn't matter if you're .com or .co
akaak
Agree with you on this point. Website content and inbound marketing efforts certainly outweigh any advantage one would get with a mere .co/.com name.

Depending on the kind of business and website visitors the TLD designation may not matter in some cases. Trying to see what others have experienced with different businesses; whether it be b2b or b2c.

bornonmars
b2c: depending on your users, you may even prefer .co to .com - esp. if you target users like me. b2b: generally careful here - except if you target startups like ours.

So yeh, directly correlated to your target being tech savvy or not I'd say.

akaak
True. My assumption is that .co may be a tough sell for some b2b models. Interesting in finding if that is true or not.