Why should I even be looking into .us domain names?

[Setatimaier]

I'm new in this domain name business and I'm quite curious why should I even bother looking into .us names?

I'm listening but could you give me/us your top reasons why...

Is it profitable?
Are businesses into buying these names?
Is the .us for the long term?
and so on..

Thanks!

[money-raker]

Definetly profitable (for some anyway) you just need patience and commitment to going after end users as forum sales will get you by, but very rarely make any good sales on the forums, sold 1 i got for $50 for $1200 to another domainer recently.

Business do use them, you will se a lot of foriegn companies using them also.
Dont get me wrong, theres not many big companies use it, but lots of the big companies have there .us domain, so some importnace there.

.us is definetly a long term investment, or a short term if youre really good at getting end user sales, i dont really go after end users very often, as i'm in it for the long term, years, not months so todays sales dont play any part in what i value my names at.

and .us is growind daily, by numbers of names registered, and by pages being created on the cctld. Theres 1 big change we need and it involves someone else getting the contract to run the .us cctld ext.

Last but not least .us is the OFFICIAL country code for AMERICA, lost of other domainers say .com is, but well, they are all wrong.

When i go after an end user i always play on the .us being the oficial contry code for america, as it does make those patriotic companies have a little think about it

Good luck if you decide to invest in .us, no time like the present

[draggar]

Money-Maker is right. Not a lot of .us sales going on but you can pick up some great keyword.us domains for not much and then turn around and sell them to some US based end-users for a good profit.

When it comes to savvy end users and developers, it's not so much about the domain (well, it is) but a great approach to SEO will beat out an expensive .com any day (unless the .com has a better SEO strategy).

The same goes for .info and other ccTLDs (plus .org and .net since they will sell for a fraction of what a .com could sell for).

[theoretical]

I'm not sure I'd be investing huge sums into the aftermarket for .US names quite yet but I've spent quite a bit of time researching available keywords. There are still one and two word keywords that get tens, even hundreds of thousands of exact match searches a month available for registration. Drop auctions are also a good place to snatch up prime keywords. Because of the availability of reg fee names, the aftermarket hasn't really gained too much steam, but as reg fee names start to dry up, and they are, the aftermarket will grow.

.US is easier to get indexed in the US because of the geo targeting that is inherent in the extension. I've seen numerous .US names creeping into the top ten results of major keyword searches. I've seen advertising by local companies on TV and I've seen PPC advertising for .US domains. There have been some nice .US aftermarket sales too (cheapcars.us sold for $9k for example, parts.us is at auction now on Sedo for $6.5k), but again I'm not putting much weight on those. All of these are positive signs that seem to be improving fairly rapidly.

Some negatives - type ins are rather low in general, but not non-existent. Aftermarket prices have historically been low and there are existing sales figures that it will have to overcome in order to really be "investor grade" material. The branding that neustar is doing is rather poor. .US shouldn't be "the next .net" - in other words "I couldn't afford the .com". It should aim to be the "premium brand for the US".

I made the mistake of selling some of my good .US domains recently for well south of what they'll be worth in a couple of years. I'll be holding onto the rest of my names until I get offers I can't refuse

Of course, I'm not doing as much advocating for it as I should quite yet as I'm still acquiring names and don't want any more competition... I'm also developing several names now because they are just too good to pass up.

Recent .US registrations:
Spelunking
PoolFloats
Loungers
ResumeSamples
OuterBanksVacationRentals
KissimmeeHotels

[money-raker]

Yes,

There are lots of good names dropping/available

I got these of the drops the last few weeks,

BankWire.us
Unsecured.us
Regulated.us
SecureLoans.us
CompanyInsurance.us
DataSafe.us

and 100's more.

LocalModels.us
LocalLeads.us
LocalLove.us

so still plenty of opportunities to get in on some good names.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by theoretical

Of course, I'm not doing as much advocating for it as I should quite yet as I'm still acquiring names and don't want any more competition... I'm also developing several names now because they are just too good to pass up.

Shhh........

[mark]

and there are restrictions on who can register a .us domain. see below:

http://www.neustar.us/faqs/index.html#who_can_register

[Setatimaier]

Originally Posted by stevo

Shhh........

Haha Thanks for the quick response everyone..but this just got me curious. There isn't really any competition for the .us domain names, this mean that demand right now isn't that high right? I wonder when it would really increase because it would be nice to see the domain name you want available but you also want to see some competition, which means that there is demand for this and eventually push prices up.

Hopefully the demand, especially with US companies, increases in the coming months or years. So I guess now is the right time to invest in it.