Domain Investment Strategies – Part 3 of 5

I thought I’d get down and finish this series, or at least get the next part out there for the people who do respond to my blog posts. 😉

Here’s my next strategy – ccTLDs or Country Specific Extensions.

.DE and .CO.UK are already a success, the local usage and significance have ensured they have their place in the sun. Locals love them, both in ads and recall, so much so that sometimes a local ccTLD is the one that’s advertised even though the company might also own the matching .com

My own favourite is .IN (big surprise there). There are 100s of reasons for this, but the primary reason for me is the fact that I understand the local market very well. That plus the fact that aside from a huge local market with low penetration there is a global acceptability of the extension without any marketing to that effect makes this the best investment opportunity in my books.

What I’m trying to say here is that local knowledge will hold you in great stead when it comes to domain investment in cctlds. You could invest in other cctlds but you better be upto spec with local sensibilities and inclinations.

Of the current lot of ccTLDs that people have had success with aside from the three already mentioned are .ca, .com.au, .at, .cn and to a certain extent other cctlds like .dk, .pl, .ch .ws, .jp and even .cc.

And of course certain ccTLDs which have global marketing like .TV, .ME and now .CO and are treated more like gTLDs by Google.

In ccTLDs you have to look at size of target market, local viability, internet penetration, while globally marketed ccTLDs don’t face these specific parameters per se.

The one aberration is the .US extension, which inspite of having a huge local market with high penetration suffers from a lack of local adoption as the extension of choice of most Americans is the .Com, which is hugely advertised locally and hence has top of the mind recall, hindering the .US market.

One area that is completely ignored and thus still a viable proposition is the top 500 keywords in exotic ccTLDs, you’ve all seen the sales, however infrequent and you know what I mean. For example Insurance / Casino / Cars are keywords you won’t find available in any ccTLD. This is a still unexplored avenue, but it comes with it own set of risks, so you must be careful when investing in these.

To wrap up, ccTLD investing is not for everyone and to ensure you get a decent ROI you must do your due diligence. Though if I were to pick one extension to recommend as an excellent investment vehicle, it would be .IN. Let me know what you think and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you care to throw at me.