.CO Domain Names – Good Enough for Google – Good Enough for You

Posted by on Dec 22, 2011 in DotCO, SEO | 1 comment

The internet used to be a simpler place. Nearly every web address ended in .com, .net, .org, .edu, .mil, or .gov. Now we are used to seeing a variety of international and new top-level domains. With new domains such as .xxx and .tv constantly being released, it can be a struggle to determine which websites are trustworthy. While savvy internet users may understand the differences, the general public probably does not.

How, then, can we determine which domains the public will trust? The average person is most likely to trust things he or she is used to, including domain endings that are seen every day. Years ago, .tv struggled to gain clout because people weren’t used to seeing it and most major players on the internet were not using it. Names like .xxx have unwholesome connotations. One top-level domain that has avoided these problems is .co.

.CO is different. The suffix .co used to mean that a website was located in Colombia. Today, any commercial enterprise can buy a .co site. Here is a list of advantages of using .co domain names:

  1. .CO sites are more plentiful than .com sites. They haven’t been around as long, so there are more left to choose from. There are still plenty of exact match domains left.
  2. .CO sites are often cheaper than other domains because they are not in as much demand.
  3. .CO is not penalized in Google search results. For SEO purposes, there is almost no difference between .CO and .com.
  4. .CO looks like .com. An uninformed user may not even notice the difference. It is not as obvious as .xxx or .tv.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about .co domains is that they are quickly gaining recognition because they are being used by major companies. Twitter has purchased t.co to use as a link shortener. Google has purchased g.co for the same purpose. As the average internet user gets more and more used to seeing these domains, they become more trustworthy and more valuable. This makes .co sites a great investment.

At DotCO Law Marketing, we have chosen to get into the .CO game early. Every one of the websites we build for lawyers to advertise on ends in .CO. Our homepage is a .CO site. We trust this domain so much that we even named our company after it.

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