Why ccTLD extensions actually sell If you don't think country code top level domains are a worth investment then this article will convince you otherwise.	2.0/5.0 (2 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Andrew Wietlispach December 01, 2008

First you may be asking yourself, what the heck is a ccTLD? The term itself means “country code top level domain.” So what exactly does that mean? Basically, every country has its own top level domain. The United Kingdom has .co.uk, Russia has .ru, India has .co.in, Europe has .eu, and so on and so forth.

You can easily find a large list of countries and what their top level domain extension is by searching Google. You can also find a domain registrar to register these different domain extensions at by searching Google. Now that we’ve gone over the basics you may be wondering why you were searching your favorite webmaster forum and see that names like SMS.gy (Guyana) sell on sedo for $1,300.00, or better yet, Forex.nr (Nauru) selling on Afternic for $2,000.00. I mean honestly, the population of Guyana in 2008 is only roughly 750,000. Out of that many people, how many actually have the internet? Also, how many are actually going to visit SMS.gy? Probably not many!

The main reason someone purchased this domain in the first place was not to target Guyana citizens; it was to develop the domain for search engines and target people all across the globe. Considering the term “SMS” has thousands of searches each day, you could take this short brand able name and make it rank number one for a dozen terms. Accomplishing this would make your $1,300.00 back in no time.

On top of that, a couple years down the line you may find someone in a nearby country wanting to purchase the domain for double what you paid for it. Believe it or not, there is actually a large market and high demand for popular keywords that use ccTLD extensions. Words like security, casino, poker, sex, forex, stock, and proxy are almost a guaranteed sale in any extension. If you are looking to register domain names in ccTLD extensions then lookout and try not to register less common dictionary words – these normally will not sell. Your keywords should be popular in multiple languages and get thousands of searches on a daily basis.

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