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Are .co Domains Really International? Is this article correct?

by Ducksauce
33 replies
A .co domain is for the county Columbia, Godaddy, the biggest registrar in the world, claims it is an "abbreviation for COmpany, COmmerce & COmmunity." :confused:

I found this article below, it is a bit out of date in the fast world of Google though, I am wondering if people have real life experience at using it as the .net, com, org etc have all gone.

Google approves .co domain for international use | News | PC Pro


Thank you helpfull folks.
#article #correct #domains #international
  • Profile picture of the author Suthan M
    I have seen a couple of .co sites..

    I find it weird that there is not a "m" at the end of it.. It will suck more if there is a .com exactly as yours, as people tend to remember your .co as a .com and might be going to your competitors site..

    I personally dont use it.. and i think a COMmerce site is definately .com :-D
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  • Profile picture of the author Ducksauce
    Yeah, it would suck 100%, but I have found a niche that all are gone and I am 99.9% sure I can rank on page one, with over 50k exact searches for my target country a month.

    I figure that people wont care if my customers are coming from a search engine.

    I am worried that the search engines wont like the .co
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    The .co domain extension is for sites registered in the Republic of Colombia, not the American county of Columbia.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Mike Baker View Post

      The .co domain extension is for sites registered in the Republic of Colombia, not the American county of Columbia.
      Actually, the .co domain is for anyone who wants to register them and Google has accepted them as a top level domain, same as .com, .net and .org.

      I have numerous .co domains that are high in the serps for their keywords. You still have to do the SEO, but they're treated no differently than any other top level domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author flyinghammers
    Brands such as Amazon, Twitter, and Google, AngelList, Overstock all use .co.

    .CO is quickly becoming the hot new geeky TLD in Silicon Valley:
    We are 500. (No, really… we
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Overstock.com has rebranded itself as O.co. They have been running commercials everywhere.

    Pretty sure they wouldn't have done that if search engines didn't like .co or if .co was limited to Columbia.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Overstock.com has rebranded itself as O.co. They have been running commercials everywhere.

      Pretty sure they wouldn't have done that if search engines didn't like .co or if .co was limited to Columbia.
      Yes ... they paid a fortune for that domain name and what a beautiful domain name that is
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Ducksauce View Post

    Thanks very much for posting this, Ducky.

    Read with interest (and I'll look further, too).

    I hadn't realised, until reading that, that .me domains (Montenegro) were treated as a TLD rather than as a country-specific extension by Google. This interests me a lot, since I happen to own rather a lot of them! I'd been thinking of them as domains for things for which SEO isn't relevant to me, but maybe that was a pessimistic outlook. There are still all sorts of interesting word-tricks you can do with the .me extension in a url, and the best ones haven't all gone, yet. Oh dear, I feel another domain-buying spree coming on ...
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  • Profile picture of the author flyinghammers
    .CO domain names are $18 at both GoDaddy and Namecheap. Is there a cheaper alternative?
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  • Profile picture of the author warhammer
    Originally Posted by Ducksauce View Post

    I found this article below, it is a bit out of date in the fast world of Google though, I am wondering if people have real life experience at using it as the .net, com, org etc have all gone.

    Google approves .co domain for international use | News | PC Pro


    Thank you helpfull folks.
    Yes, it's correct, Google confirms it here.

    Google seems to love this extension.
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  • Profile picture of the author abubakar89
    yup they can be treated as .com or .org or .net ........... but you need to add geo targeting in google webmasters tools
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    • Profile picture of the author othellotech
      Originally Posted by abumadni View Post

      but you need to add geo targeting in google webmasters tools
      Which confirms they're still viewing it (quite correctly) as a ccTLD !

      You can use any domain you like, if you're prepared to do the work with geotagging ...
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        Originally Posted by othellotech View Post

        Which confirms they're still viewing it (quite correctly) as a ccTLD !

        You can use any domain you like, if you're prepared to do the work with geotagging ...
        Incorrect. You cannot geotarget a cctld. You can only geotarget domains Google considers generic.


        Best answer - Gary Illyes (Google Employee)
        Hi Jon
        A .co domain is technically still a ccTLD, but we allow webmasters to select geotargeting for them in Webmaster Tools, so you can choose to explicitly target any country that you want. We made this change last August, as far as I remember.

        Cheers
        John

        From a Top Contributor in Google Forum
        I can geo-target my .co domains in the Webmaster Tools panel. If it wasn't a generic TLD I would not be able to do so... case closed.
        Google's goal is to return the most relevant and useful sites in response to a user query. As a result, the results we show to a user in Ireland may vary from the results returned to a user in France.

        If your site has a generic top-level domain, such as .com or .org, and targets users in a particular geographic location, you can provide us with information that will help us determine how your site appears in our search results. This will also improve Google's search results for geographic queries. This data supplements our existing information, and setting a geographic target won't impact your appearance in search results unless a user limits the scope of the search to a certain country. See a full list of domains Google treats as generic.

        Sites with country-coded top-level domains (such as .ie) are already associated with a geographic region, in this case Ireland. In this case, you won't be able to specify a geographic location.

        Geotargeting - Webmaster Tools Help
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  • Profile picture of the author warhammer
    @abumadni

    You need to add geo targeting in google webmasters tools for .co, as you need for .com, .net and .org. There's no difference.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    .co.uk is United Kingdom version of .com

    .co.au is the Australian version of same.

    .co.co is the Columbian .com.

    .co is an international domain like .com
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  • Profile picture of the author KirkMcD
    I always thought they would be good for typo domains. After they came out, I started to notice how often I forgot to type an "m" before pressing enter.
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Evans
      I have a few .co domains. They are top level as mentioned but quite impractical when people assume you to mean ".com". - spoken or written despite it making more sense as a common abbreviation for "company" in contrast to "com".

      The origin / intention of if makes little difference. In the same respect ".TV" is assigned to Tuvalu, yet it's used by television companies...
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      • Profile picture of the author warhammer
        Originally Posted by webcore View Post

        I have a few .co domains. They are top level as mentioned but quite impractical when people assume you to mean ".com".
        It's all just a matter of getting used to it. Especially people from countries with .co.xx ccTLDs like UK or South Africa are already accustomed to the ".co without the trailing m"
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  • Profile picture of the author Dayne Dylan
    Banned
    I'm a bit confused, if you own a good .co name, do you have to go into Google Webmaster Tools and target the United States only or leave it blank?
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    • Profile picture of the author warhammer
      Originally Posted by Dayne Dylan View Post

      I'm a bit confused, if you own a good .co name, do you have to go into Google Webmaster Tools and target the United States only or leave it blank?
      You have to treat it exactly as a gTLD. What would you do if you bought a .com or .net? gTLDs are by default assigned to no country, therefore they target the whole world. If you want to have a gTLD target US, you need to set it on GWT. That applies to .CO as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dayne Dylan
        Banned
        Originally Posted by warhammer View Post

        You have to treat it exactly as a gTLD. What would you do if you bought a .com or .net? gTLDs are by default assigned to no country, therefore they target the whole world. If you want to have a gTLD target US, you need to set it on GWT. That applies to .CO as well.
        So if I want it to get indexed, and be seen all across the world including the USA, just leave it blank?
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        • Profile picture of the author warhammer
          Originally Posted by Dayne Dylan View Post

          So if I want it to get indexed, and be seen all across the world including the USA, just leave it blank?
          Exactly. You can try for yourself for the first time. Just add a .co to GWT and see what the default setting is.
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris Silvey
        I have a few .co domains and after trial I find only one good use for them and that is a 301 shortcut to your long string .com domains which many of the high end retailers do.

        The bad side of .co domains is human nature. If there is a .com equivalent , most likely you will be sending your traffic to your competition. I find myself out of habit navigating to my domains and I tend to put a M at the end.

        In my opinion it is worth the hunt for a good .com domain name.
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        • Profile picture of the author warhammer
          Originally Posted by Chris Silvey View Post

          I have a few .co domains and after trial I find only one good use for them and that is a 301 shortcut to your long string .com domains which many of the high end retailers do.

          The bad side of .co domains is human nature. If there is a .com equivalent , most likely you will be sending your traffic to your competition. I find myself out of habit navigating to my domains and I tend to put a M at the end.

          In my opinion it is worth the hunt for a good .com domain name.
          OK, but human nature can change. We aren't robots, we're humans and able to change when new events occur.
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  • Profile picture of the author erichammer
    From my reading, you do need to tell Google to target a .co domain to the international market through Webmaster tools. What's interesting by the way is that this can get confusing because a similar sounding ccTLD was actually completely banned by Google -- co.cc.

    Eric
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  • Profile picture of the author Dayne Dylan
    Banned
    I guess I'm confused on this, I'm not sure what to do. The last thing I want is for it to get banned, I've built up a nice content site on it.
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    • Profile picture of the author warhammer
      Originally Posted by Dayne Dylan View Post

      I guess I'm confused on this, I'm not sure what to do. The last thing I want is for it to get banned, I've built up a nice content site on it.
      But is it already indexed? What do you see if you type site:yourdomain.co on Google? If Google hasn't found it yet, just submit it manually.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dayne Dylan
        Banned
        Originally Posted by warhammer View Post

        But is it already indexed? What do you see if you type site:yourdomain.co on Google? If Google hasn't found it yet, just submit it manually.
        Not indexed yet.
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        • Profile picture of the author warhammer
          Originally Posted by Dayne Dylan View Post

          Not indexed yet.
          OK, submit it manually and in 5-10 days it will be indexed.
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  • Profile picture of the author cbnet
    I understand .co is not Columbia country specific. Some time back it was but now it has gone international.
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  • Profile picture of the author cbnet
    So what is the final conclusion of this whole discussion. Is .CO extension Columbia specific or a generic TLD like .com & .net

    Has any one got latest information on it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by cbnet View Post

      So what is the final conclusion of this whole discussion. Is .CO extension Columbia specific or a generic TLD like .com & .net
      There's no ambiguity about this - it's simply factual: there are three domain-name extensions which were originally geo-targeted, that now rank exactly the same as all the TLD's, and those are ".co" (originally for Colombia), ".tv" (originally for Tuvalu) and ".me" (originally for Montenegro). No secret about it.

      Google approves .co domain for international use | News | PC Pro

      (I wouldn't use one, myself, but that's for a variety of reasons which are nothing to do with SEO at all.)
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  • Profile picture of the author cbnet
    Thanks for resolving doubt about that .CO is no longer related to Columbia. It is a world-wide extension now.

    Please clear one more doubt about .CO : "Whether from the perspective of Google ranking and Organic Traffic .CO is at par with .com, .net and .org"
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