.ca drops...

[DropWizard.com]

I guess buying french terms is a long shot. (at least for me) Due to the PPC lack of advertisers and the lack of ability to understand what makes their minds tick (besides federal money) PPC has a long way to go just in english canadian appropriate targeted ads never mind in french.

But even translated as group and city don't you think they are too general for effective ppc monetization? I know for those reasons they wouldn't interest me.

Cellular service @ $5 a click only needs a few clicks a year to break even.

Preferably the keywords also have high paying ppc ads. I don't think one word domains in .ca are necessarily great, the words need to have some commercial angle to as many people as possible to make them worth more, or extreme branding potential.

precisely. I honestly think many 2 & 3 word domains are far more targeted and get better ctr and ad rates.

I never said these were premium or anything, otherwise I would have continued bidding after $50 or so... I am not going to actually tell which ones I am seriously after now, am i??

Why not this is a frank discussion isn't it. And I'll tell you the rest of mine. Right after the auction closes monday morning

Also, I am confident that .ca names are going to increase in value in the next 3-5 years so I ask myself, what would a name like this in .com have been worth say, 5 years ago? And what are they worth today? All of those I mentioned would be money makers, I think...

I agree totally. In fact I've almost exlusively been shopping .ca for the last two years. But once again there are names that are of a higher premium today. Why would you bypass these in favour of names you see coming into their own 3-5 years away?????

[hugegrowth]

For a lot of products/services, I think ppc USA = ppc Canada (english), so the ppc world is basically just as far ahead here as in the US. There are some exceptions for advertisers that only can take US customers, but I would think most are able to take Canadian customers too. Many big US companies operate in Canada too, and for the ones that don't we have equivalent Canadian companies.

There are a whole lot of companies that don't even advertise in french, or have french websites, hence the lower ppc and less advertisers. But it is still a relatively big market and advertising dollars are migrating to french internet from tv and newspapers just like with english. I'd rather have a premium french keyword domain than a second rate english one. I've been able to register the equivalent .ca in french of obesity, makeup, lose weight, work at home, online games, music lyrics (has huge search numbers), cold (as in temperature), poem, poems, and more. These would be no-brainers in english and were all available in the past year, some within the last month. If you could sell something anywhere within Canada and weren't operating in french, you would be missing the opportunity to increase your customer base by 50%.

Groupe.ca and Cite.ca are not obvious for ppc, but they are highly brandable. Most of us here would reg City.ca if we could, lot's of potential for a site. Groupe is also commonly used in business and company names in Quebec, just check Canada Google (pages from Canada only).

Generally when I reg I'm just doing a shotgun approach, going through overture with different words I think are popular and seeing what is getting high searches, then checking if the term is still available.

[PeterMan]

I agree totally. In fact I've almost exlusively been shopping .ca for the last two years. But once again there are names that are of a higher premium today. Why would you bypass these in favour of names you see coming into their own 3-5 years away?????

Because I can't afford them

[RazorNF]

I'm on a more limited budget, so what constitutes a "good" name for me these days, is anything that has some existing traffic, guaranteeing myself some revenue... I'll try to snag a few of these each week along with making a go at one or two of the so called premium ones...

But yeah, the pickings these days are getting slimmer and the competition is getting bigger.

[hugegrowth]

Hey DropWizard, you must have a pretty nice .ca collection! I see your name often when checking out names on the cira site.

[amcdonald]

I've geared my .ca purchases to 80% 2 words, 15% one words and 5% 3 words.

Most of my purchases I will develop for PPC. Loving the .ca

[DropWizard.com]

I see your name often when checking out names on the cira site.

Not often enough. I pulled out of the CIRA drops for a couple of years between 2001-3 when you could almost stand on a street corner and get hit with solid one word generics. Dumb. And now it's so competitive I'm seeing weeks when we get outbid on EVERYTHING we go after. And I guess I'm not the first to mention the quality of the drop has declined significantly.

I have a great faith in the .CA extension. I know that com rules the world but the fact is 85% of all businesses are local. I mean can you even think of an international company with a presence in canada that DOESN"T use the .ca extension in their advertising. Even the internationals want to be seen as having a local presence.

I think the yellow page/ domain mall deal is just a hint of what's to come. Looking at the sales at dnjournal for the .ca I think that anyone who has positioned themselves with careful purchases even in the last couple of years will make out very very well.

In fact I think you'll do so well you really should take the summer off and celebrate. I'll babysit the drops for you. NO problem

[hugegrowth]

I rarely bid on any drops, and most of the time don't even check what's available. My budget isn't big enough to go after anything I'd be interested in, and there are so many registrars chasing them that it seems too much of a headache unless you really have the time, money and resources. This is just part-time for me.

There are still quality names availalble to hand reg too.

Back in 2000 I was in on the .ca landrush and submitted probably close to 50 names I was interested in (back then it was all one worders, regging two word terms was almost unthinkable unless they were super premium, I'd love to go back then and get another crack at the landrush). I remember getting the emails back on the results, most I didn't get but I did get a handful of what I consider high quality names. I've even regged some in the last year that are as good or maybe better IMO. But after the landrush the internet bust hit and I stayed out of .ca for the most part until about a year ago, around when domains re-emerged and I could really start seeing the potential in .ca with it's increased use in Canada. Looking at names through Cira in the last year I see many others still regging names, including IREX who did the Yellow Pages sale still grabbing new names up to June '06). Or, names I had on my list that I left til later being grabbed when I go back to check. Gives you the feeling that we are in the last stages of being able to get anything of quality.

And I hope you're right that we'll all make out well with our portfolios in the future!

[PeterMan]

I agree that it is getting pretty hard to compete with some of the budgets that are out there... I still think that .ca is a very good investment, and I plan on saving up a few extra $$ to go after some of the more premium drops in the future, if and when some more premium names drop...

On another note, do any of you .ca enthusiasts know of a site that will generate available .ca names? I like to check names at netfirms or yahoo and get the list of available names with that keyword in it, but I never seem to be able to find this service for .ca domains...

[DropWizard.com]

Do you mean a drop list?

[PeterMan]

No, I guess I went a little off topic with that question... I am looking for a name suggestion tool that will generate available .ca names, like when you search for a domain at netfirms or yahoo domains...

[DropWizard.com]

I've always used domain name analyzer. You can use a list (say cities) along with keywords ( say lawyer or criminal lawyer) and it will search the availability.

[PeterMan]

I've always used domain name analyzer. You can use a list (say cities) along with keywords ( say lawyer or criminal lawyer) and it will search the availability.

Thanks, I am going to try that out...

FYI, I posted a question about OVT on a domain, the domain is actually a .ca ...