Dot com or die?	2.0/5.0 (5 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Barry Goggin February 18, 2009

Many domainers have lived by the mantra “dot com or die”. They are sometimes locked into .com for legitimate reasons and sometimes from personal beliefs or assumptions. When should you look beyond the .com world? Can ccTLDs make money?

ccTLD can make money

ccTLDs can and have made money in the past with significant sales reported. Development done correctly can also bring income. Rick Latona’s recent post regarding ccTLDs calls attention to his interest in these domains as investment vehicles. In fact he is bringing T.R.A.F.F.I.C. to Europe for the first time with T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs 2009 to be held in June in Amsterdam.

Why do people not focus as much on ccTLDs?

So much has been written about .com domaining that people feel much more comfortable putting their hard earned cash down on .com domains.

Some ccTLDs have restrictions that make it harder to obtain or sell domains. Residency or other restrictions may limit the number of people who can hand register. Similarly this limits the market to those who can legitimately hold these domains. This is not true across the board however and some registrars help by providing local documentation or contact information.

The foreign language barrier can also keep people from investing in ccTLD domains. In some countries, domains in the local language fare best and a lack of familiarity with the local language can be a problem. However many countries do business in English and so there are still plenty of opportunities even if you are not familiar with the local language.

Domain development of ccTLDs

Domain development requires a specific skill set or access to people with those skills. Chief among these are:

• familiarity with the local market
• familiarity with local language
• familiarity with idiomatic use

Even when English is the language in that country, local language use and terminology can be quite different e.g.  American English/Australian English. Using local idioms and language help the local readers feel more comfortable with the web site.

If the domain owner does not have the ability to develop the web site in this manner, the most common solution is to hire someone in the same country as the ccTLD. This person can then generate content that will be more familiar to the local reader.

SEO (search engine optimization) for ccTLDs

• It is best to set the geo- location in Webmaster tools because Google factors location into its search engine results. A search in Google in Australia can give different results to the same search in Google USA.
• Football searched in America will give American football results whereas in England will produce results related to soccer aka football.
• It is important therefore to target the correct terms for that location and it is important to test searches from the local version of the search engine.
• It is often advised that the ccTLD be hosted in the appropriate country. I cannot tell you whether this makes a large difference or not because I have not tested it.

ccTLDs continue to be a good investment for the savvy domainer. Pairing up with a local developer can help you create a web site with a steady income and good resale value.

You can read more about Rick Latona’s views below

Why I’m betting the farm on ccTLDs - Why country-code domains have value and what they should mean to your domain business.

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