Using .cctld for US states (e.g .al for Alabama, .me for Maine)

[gave denfoV]

follow up from an off-topic fork at https://www.gpwa.org/forum/poker-al-...me-217040.html

I own several .al names and a few cities like Birmingham .al . I think it's a great idea to use them. Granted now that I have them for sale, I'm biased but then I had the choice of registering so I thought it was a good idea back then. Personally I wanted to do small sites with city info and directories, but you need to be a local for best results and there's a limit on how many sites you can concentrate at the same time.

What do you think? The .com are clearly better but probably cost 10-50 times as much too .

I think that when people see Birmingham .al, Sacramento.ca or Boston.ma they don't think of cctld but of the state abbreviation. Soon or later Google will treat them all like global tlds.

[universal4]

Thanks for posting this, I am hoping this can be a good discussion.

I personally think that for the Joe Average, like you previously mentioned, I think for them the trust factor is not there. I think if they catch the extension, many would have more of a distrust of the unknown.

They have been conditioned to know the .co.uk means England, and I think many will know that this is for a different country, and they may even question which one.

I personally think that those who would use .al for alabama and me for maine is low enough that this will not change that trust factor, and in fact may later have an adverse effect.

I could be proven incorrect on this and businesses all over the state of Alabama will by them up, but I still have doubts.

Now from a geographoc standard and what google does with country targeting, that is another factor to consider before investing a bunch into names.

Now for targeting a niche within those countries, I think it is great and will work out in favor of those taking the route. In your case of selling the poker name, anyone even remotely considering should be begging you to take the money quickly before you raise the price....oops...lol

Some might say then armed with this us yanks should buy up the .us names, but to be honest, I actually trust them less than just about any extension that is currently available today. (I have personally seen more spam and crap from that extension then any other extension out there - except for the collective .com/.net)

Now for targeting geographic areas that are close to the countries represented by their own extension, I see that as a vianble market too.

Time will tell.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

I think that when people see Birmingham .al, Sacramento.ca or Boston.ma they don't think of cctld but of the state abbreviation. Soon or later Google will treat them all like global tlds.

I don't think Google will ever do that.

.ca is for Canada and is administered in Canada - to circumvent that and pretend it's for California makes no real sense.
So it is for .al .ma and all the country extentions. They are claimed and not US facing.

Instead I think that you may see the rise of the specialised domain extentions where you can have a word as the TLD.
(see http://www.titaninternet.co.uk/domains/gtlds.cfm for some current ones).

So Alabama might be .bama, while Maine doesn't need to shorten and could be .maine etc. Each state will come up with an extention for localised use. It might take 3-5 years but I could see waterparks.cali or casino.vegas being easy to remember destination sites,

[gave denfoV]

I don't think Google will ever do that.

They already do for many, I believe that the list will include every cctld soon.

https://support.google.com/webmaster.../1347922?hl=en
Generic Country Code Top Level Domains

Google treats some ccTLDs (such as .tv, .me, etc.) as gTLDs, as we've found that users and webmasters frequently see these more generic than country-targeted. Here is a list of those ccTLDs (note that this list may change over time).
.ad
.as
.bz
.cc
.cd
.co
.dj
.fm
.io
.la
.me
.ms
.nu
.sc
.sr
.su
.tv
.tk
.ws
[/QUOTE]

.ca is for Canada and is administered in Canada - to circumvent that and pretend it's for California makes no real sense.
So it is for .al .ma and all the country extentions. They are claimed and not US facing.

Instead I think that you may see the rise of the specialised domain extentions where you can have a word as the TLD.
(see http://www.titaninternet.co.uk/domains/gtlds.cfm for some current ones).

So Alabama might be .bama, while Maine doesn't need to shorten and could be .maine etc. Each state will come up with an extention for localised use. It might take 3-5 years but I could see waterparks.cali or casino.vegas being easy to remember destination sites,

We might see that but people are not trained all their life to see .bama, they are trained to see .al and .ny and .me and .ca. That's the truth. Using them is a great hack, not designed but it matches perfectly the state abbreviation. Say you're a lawyer in Los Angeles and register lawyer.la (good luck!). If someone from Los Angeles sees the listing on a search engine, wll they think Laos? Or LA that they have heard it all their life?

As I said, it makes no sense to invest $500K on bigcity.st /cctld but up to $10K, why not? I have personally used .al for Alabama and had no problem ranking in Google. Many searches used to include "al" in the referrer. Things change, but a few $1000 will not bankrupt you.

See .sc being used http://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3A...ZI&form=MOZSBR

One example of .ms http://www.rcsd.ms/site/default.aspx?PageID=1

Anyone not living in US, this is http://www.valpo.edu/studentmailserv...ressformat.gif how mail looks, IN (in this case) is for Indiana. People are bombarded with that tens of times a day.

[gave denfoV]

Thanks for posting this, I am hoping this can be a good discussion.

I personally think that for the Joe Average, like you previously mentioned, I think for them the trust factor is not there. I think if they catch the extension, many would have more of a distrust of the unknown.

They have been conditioned to know the .co.uk means England, and I think many will know that this is for a different country, and they may even question which one.

Lawyers.la
www lawyers.la/
Find lawyers and law firms serving in Los Angeles.

What would Joe think of this ^^ ? LA is for Los Angeles, not Laos to 90+% of people in the targeted area. Or LasVegas.NV, it's obvious.

Now for targeting a niche within those countries, I think it is great and will work out in favor of those taking the route. In your case of selling the poker name, anyone even remotely considering should be begging you to take the money quickly before you raise the price....oops...lol

With names never know Rick. Now you turn down a huge offer and than can't sell it for anywhere near that. Or the opposite can happen. You should know if you've been online for a while. First, I couldn't sell a name for $1500 but 6 months later sold it close to $8000...and that's because I needed the money fast.

Some might say then armed with this us yanks should buy up the .us names, but to be honest, I actually trust them less than just about any extension that is currently available today. (I have personally seen more spam and crap from that extension then any other extension out there - except for the collective .com/.net)

Expect that .com is our .us, people are conditioned this way. "United States" is barely mentioned in daily conversations, just as "Asia" is barely mentioned, say in India.

[universal4]

lawyers.la
Well if Joe Average really fell for this, Joe would think Louisiana, not California.

Plus, discussing speculation on the domain names is much different then discussing whether Google is gonna treal a .la name as Laos, California or Louisiana.

Personally, I really do think Google knows what countries the extensions are for, and will give geographic ranking in the correct countries.

Rick
Universal4

[gave denfoV]

lawyers.la
Well if Joe Average really fell for this, Joe would think Louisiana, not California.

Fine, let the page title decide since it can go both ways. Los Angeles is called LA, and so is Louisiana.

Personally, I really do think Google knows what countries the extensions are for, and will give geographic ranking in the correct countries.
Rick
Universal4

You are mistaking how Geo-targeting works. If Google decides, a certain cctld ranks the same as .com, all over the world. Meaning there's no handicap because that name is supposed to rank higher in China or Western Samoa. The list I posted says that Google treats those names just as .com, meaning they can rank anywhere just as the .com (people can make it so the traffic is confined to a certain country via Google Webmasters) https://support.google.com/webmaster...er/62399?hl=en

[hublot]

I think you're basing a lot of your case on *if* google does this.... but not what the current situation is.

[gave denfoV]

I think you're basing a lot of your case on *if* google does this.... but not what the current situation is.

Maybe, but I am using a .al name for Alabama and it works really well.

However, as I said before, we all know that domains are speculative in nature and we need to keep in mind the price. if the price is $250,000 then a million questions can be raised. But if the price is $4500, then more risk is assumed. It's obvious. Boston.com could cost north of $1 Million, Boston.ma, maybe $10,000 to $20,000.