Canadian companies using .com

[Banned: theinvestor]

I have noticed that there are some canadian companies that do not even own the .ca. They simply own the .com and in some cases the .com and .net.

So here is my question...

Do some companies here in Canada...even though they are large ..do not care about .ca ?

Some of these companies make millions per year...so are we heading to a point in the future where these companies will want to capitalize on owning their .ca ? Or is it possible...that we will never get there in the future.

Why is it necessary to own the .ca? Is it because they may be missing on that traffic that may be coming to the .ca instead?

Comments appreciated.

[onlinestoreca]

I believe that it's because the old grey haired board of directors in these companies consider domain names a worthless, minor detail, especially .ca. Their brand names and advertising are so big that anyone can find them easily on the internet.

In five years they might be advised by some advertising agency to buy the appropriate domain names. In the meantime the advertising agencies are pushing social networking sites, and rightly so.

I find that the domain names have the biggest value for the money, for a business. Once you own the name candy.com, you get free, TARGETED, traffic for life. Even if type-in is only 5% of your traffic, how much is that premium traffic worth?

Of course it helps significantly to advertise the name, get it ranked, etc., which are all easier with a generic name, but you also and most importantly have the most memorable internet candy site. It's not JoesCandyStore.com or was it JoesCandyShop.com? People will easily remember how to get there, how much is that worth?

I believe that relative to a company's advertising budget, the price they are willing to pay for a premium generic domain name, is grossly undervalued. Most companies haven't even considered buying the generics. Maybe in another 20 years when today's "30 somethings" are then running these companies.

Or maybe we are all speculating wrongly here, some days it sure feels like it...

[NostraDomainus]

Imho, .ca is not all it's cracked-up to be, and the domainer speculative bubble is alive and well with the .ca after-market. That is to say, I see alot of wishful thinking with .ca holders vs. actually sales. Check the .ca sales section here and some of the high prices people are asking vs. receiving any offers. Even then, look @ the low .ca prices and not many offers/sale being made there either.

Canadians web surfers are as habituated to .com as they are .ca, pride aside. Quebec seems to like .tv; PM Harper .me;

Now, while I do not disagree w/ buying .ca to protect your online presence, I agree it's because of a lack of business knowledge to such - that's why most of us domainers work from home, and not for companies (per se) - most companies don't have 'Domainer' positions in their business model. I still see businesses creating a name first and checking the web 2nd - so last millennium. Even alot of tech managers I work with dont know much about domains.

Then relative to a bag of chips - you tell a non-techie business person a generic can cost $XXXXs of $ - it nearly blows their minds. Domains and web presence is still largely an unknown area to some people. Even then, to explain the economies of scale savings to some business in making good $ off a solid web presence/web investment - some people don't even wanna hear about it.

Those who can break-thru and reach a knowledgeable end-user or pitch an open ear the value of domains - often make the higher end sales. (Please note, I am not one of them - I still hold my .ca and work on web development and my pitch.)

A company wanted to buy vmail.ca for $600 and when I explained it's worth more, despite being a tech company - they thought $600 was enough to buy a new computer - they didn't even put 2+2 together to see how a name such as vmail could make them alot of turn-key money as an easy to market brand for a growing tech-service such as vmail (voice/video/virtual mail). Anywho, I digress.

So, to your Question - do they care? Yes and no. Some companies don't know better, and ignorance is just ignorance. Those who know about domains are often the businesses whom do own the .ca - those who know about domains and then don't buy the .ca, I guess to some degree they don't care. Some days I wonder about many jobs in the world - and say to myself and others: Seems like businesses don't pay people enough to care most time.

Look @ how corporate greed @ the elitest level has left an injustice to society with millions of people being endlessly ripped-off - would you care so much about the company which did that too you? Worker/management relations are pretty low imo right now across the corporate world.

In the end: If the name is a TM, I'd say leave the .ca - if it's a decent generic, I say buy it and see what happens. It's yours to speculate over like we all do

Best of Luck & Success in All Your Endeavours!

[Anthony Ng]

Please remember that some big companies don't even need a .COM or website AT ALL. They just don't need the traffic, or any sales from the web, search engines, etc. So for them, .CA is just another gimmick that may not even be worth more than a laptop.

[DNP]

Canadian domain name registration study

According to a study by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), 70% of Canadians would rather do their online holiday shopping on dot-ca websites than on dot-com sites.

Just over 1,000 Canadian Internet users completed an online survey administered by The Strategic Counsel, a Toronto based market research firm, between November 14 and 20, 2001. The survey was commissioned by CIRA to gauge Canadians' attitudes and perception of the dot-ca Internet domain space.

Other survey highlights relating to Canadian Internet users' attitudes are provided below:


81% agree that Canadian businesses and organizations should use dot-ca for their websites;
71% prefer to use dot-ca website services, rather than dot-com services, because they know dot-ca is Canadian;
73% attribute dot-ca websites to Canadian organizations and companies;
81% attribute dot-com websites to American organizations and companies;
90% believe it is important to have the dot-ca domain as a resource for Canadians;
96% believe it is important for dot-ca domain name registrants to meet certain Canadian presence requirements.

Dot-ca domain name registrations grew from 60,000 to 275,000 when CIRA has assumed responsibility for dot-ca domain names on December 1, 2000. It took 10 years for dot-com to reach 800,000 registrations in Canada. On 2004/11/29 CIRA had 474212 domains registered: that's almost 50000 Canadian domain name registrations a year.

"The dot-ca domain space has seen unprecedented growth this past year and is quickly becoming the Internet domain of choice for Canadians", said Maureen Cubberley, Chair of the CIRA Board of Directors. 'We've always believed that Canadians prefer dot-ca sites for online shopping and services. These survey results are very encouraging.'

[Banned: theinvestor]

Wow, appreciate all the feedback guys.

Some really amazing points here.

DNP: That survey was done back in 2001? I bet those numbers are much higher now.

Nameslave: The reason i even brought up the discussion was because there is a canadian SEO company that is making millions per year and is not using .ca. Also many other companies...but my main reason for the discussion was because shockingly even a company in SEO didn't own their .ca name and it's not being held hostage. It is reg fee.

Onlinestoreca: Great points and i agree with you! People type in .ca because they expect the material to be targetted to Canadians. If i want to shop for a product at bestbuy. I wouldn't visit the .com, i want canadian prices. Although if you notice that example...it asks you when you go to .com if you live in Canada or U.S. So you can be redirected if that is the case.

Nostra: Believe it or not...the big sales that are happening in .ca have been private for the most part. There have been many sales that were known to the public but for the most part the reason there is competition amongst domainers is because their is
a large presence of end users who know that .ca is valuable for their business. There are also many companies out there who maybe are not aware of how valuable it is to own a .ca. Maybe that's the main reason some companies do not own the .ca..you have to be educated first.

I do agree with you though ...there are some companies that do not understand the value and that was the case with vmail.

[ShaunP]

81% agree that Canadian businesses and organizations should use dot-ca for their websites;
71% prefer to use dot-ca website services, rather than dot-com services, because they know dot-ca is Canadian;
73% attribute dot-ca websites to Canadian organizations and companies;
81% attribute dot-com websites to American organizations and companies;
90% believe it is important to have the dot-ca domain as a resource for Canadians;
96% believe it is important for dot-ca domain name registrants to meet certain Canadian presence requirements.

I have a hard time believing those stats have any validity then or now. They seem incredibly slanted. The survey must have been done at a meeting of .ca name holders and CIRA employees.

[Banned: democrat]

These are some superb points. No one really knows the value of domains but it's catching on and when it does, brace yourself

Nostra, and you others. Much respect for some amazingly thoughtful insight.

[Gerry]

wow, for a minute there I thought I had gotten lost and fell into a .mobi thread.

[hugegrowth]

Sure, some companies in Canada don't care about owning the .ca if they own the .com. But many companies do own their domain in .ca and use it in advertising, from what I see. And I see more .ca in use year after year. It used to give me a kick to see companies using .ca, but now it just seems normal.

[whitebark]

Take a gander at Canada's top 500 companies and you will have your answer. It's .ca.

[ShaunP]

Take a gander at Canada's top 500 companies and you will have your answer. It's .ca.

Top 15 Canadian Companies, using Google to search for company name;

Royal Bank www.royalbank.com
Power Corp www.powercorporation.com
Manulife Financial www.manulife.com
George Weston Ltd. www.weston.ca
Encana Corp www.encana.com
Imperial Oil www.imperialoil.ca
Suncor Energy www.suncor.com
Petro Canada www.petro-canada.ca
Onex Corp www.onex.com
Scota Bank www.scotiabank.com
Toronto Dominion Bank www.td.com
Magna International www.magna.com
Husky Energy www.huskyenergy.com
Bombardier Inc. www.bombardier.com
Bank Of Montreal www.bmo.com

1 in 5 .ca

[Banned: theinvestor]

I am not even talking about whether they are advertising the .ca or not.

I was simply just referring to those few large companies out there...and ..it's really more than a few..that do not even own their .ca.

The fact is most canadian companies do own the .ca ...whether they promote it or not is irrelevant..because trust me ..it receives traffic. There's a reason they own it.

[ShaunP]

...The fact is most canadian companies do own the .ca ...whether they promote it or not is irrelevant..because trust me ..it receives traffic. There's a reason they own it.

Whether they promote it or not is everything, not irrelevant. If they are using .com mainly, then the .ca is probably just a defensive registration. I doubt companies that have the .com could care less about the traffic the .ca gets. We have to be realistic when we talk about the .ca space. When we formed our development company, the first thing we did was choose a name, register the .ca ... then go buy the .com in the aftermarket, and use the .com for our online identity and email.. the .ca was just to stop someone else from getting it.

[Gerry]

So here is my question...

Doing my best to follow along with this thread. Whether it involves me owning a .ca or not is irrelevant. Trying to decipher the points made.

What is the primary question/concern?

There were many questions posed in your original "here is my question..." so I just want clarification.

[Banned: theinvestor]

Initial Question

Do canadian companies care about owning the .ca ? The other questions after it...are based on the same question.

[Gerry]

Do canadian companies care about owning the .ca ?

Gotcha.

My question is, are the people/companies of Canada aware of the .ca namespace?

Again, no matter the extension, awareness comes before usage.

If the .ca Registry is prohibited from contacting the potential end user (I know dotMobi is prohibited) then the awareness needs to come from other sources. That awareness usually comes at the expense of someone else's successful ad campaign - as in IF a major brand like RBC started plastering their .ca domain in all major promotional and ad materials.

It seems that the hugely successful ccTLD's (.jp, .nl, .de) are in smaller countries where there is also an accompanying national pride in their own domain extension. It is damn near impossible to sell or find a buyer for a great dutch word in a .com.

Still, even with the RBC dot ca example I used, Canada is a huge nation with many different loyalties and allegiances. The same seems to apply to the .us namespace. Plus, many huge companies in Canada are also multinational.

So a ccTLD is not a done deal in terms of widespread usage. Just because it exists does not necessitate or mandate usage.

[whitebark]

Top 15 Canadian Companies, using Google to search for company name;

Royal Bank www.royalbank.com
Power Corp www.powercorporation.com
Manulife Financial www.manulife.com
George Weston Ltd. www.weston.ca
Encana Corp www.encana.com
Imperial Oil www.imperialoil.ca
Suncor Energy www.suncor.com
Petro Canada www.petro-canada.ca
Onex Corp www.onex.com
Scota Bank www.scotiabank.com
Toronto Dominion Bank www.td.com
Magna International www.magna.com
Husky Energy www.huskyenergy.com
Bombardier Inc. www.bombardier.com
Bank Of Montreal www.bmo.com

1 in 5 .ca

You were obviously using google.com and not .ca

huskyenergy.ca
scotiabank.ca
manulife.ca
shell.ca

It's when you get to the second and third tier companies that you see .ca used more often.

[ShaunP]

...You were obviously using google.com and not .ca...

says it all doesn't it

* bolding on google.com by me.

[Zoobar]

All of the companies listed above own the .ca with the exception of td.ca

All of the companies that own their .ca use the name with the exception of magna.