Where do you see .CA five years from now?

[Irish31]

Simple question, right?

I've often thought about this, since it is about five years since I started investing in the namespace myself. No one likely knows for sure, especially with the times we are living in now. But pull out that crystal ball of yours and let's hear some opinions on where we think the direction of our homelands online prefix is heading my fellow canucks!

Personally, I think another five years will be enough time to have .CA permeate through the advertising networks in Canada to the point where everyone knows of .CA and "most" will be using it as the preferred extension of choice (over .Com) for most information and purchases.

Will that bring big companies calling? Will that bring more speculators and investors? Will that bring more lawyers and UDRP's and the like?

Who knows?

[hugegrowth]

I believe .ca follows the trends of .com, only we are a few years behind.

more internet and mobile use will create more demand for .ca
more businesses will need a .ca
more investors will enter the market (seen recently by more people joining dnforum)
more people will want a .ca for a personal site
there will be less good names available, especially in .com, which drives people to other extensions
prices will continue climbling like they have been.

2008 was a breakthrough year for .ca, but overall domains are picking up again despite the economy. Still lots of competition in the TBR. Country code domain sales are up acccording to DNJournal's latest sales report. They said they used to have trouble filling 20 slots with ccTLD sales, now they have over a hundred in the latest report.

Ron Jackson at dnjournal also noted he is personally getting more sales and interest in his .info, .biz and .us names. Years ago he thought, like many, that the supply of good .com names would get smaller and smaller, driving people to other extensions. He thinks that might be starting to happen now, and I'd agree it's a trend that should continue and help .ca too.

As long as the internet maintains it's importance in news, social and business interaction, domains will be important. The key is really that the internet and email stick around, and continue to need domains to function.

[onlinestoreca]

Whenever I wonder about whether I am wasting my money renewing names, I ask myself if the name that I am renewing will EASILY sell for $50 in 5 years, so I can at least get back the money invested. Of course, that is extremely subjective, so I also use other tools to try and confirm my gut instinct.

I love looking at the TBR lists from the past that someone posts here once in a while, and past years "Top ccTLD sales". It gives you a more "above the forest" perspective, and you can see the progress.

I don't think we will ever gain on .com in terms of price. I think we will always be looking at ??? 5-10% ??? Simply because of the market size. I also think that since we have a smaller market, there is a point when the number of .ca's will tail off. We can't really have 30 million .ca domain names, with a population of 30 million, the numbers don't work very well. I'm surprised that we have reached 1 million as quick as we have.

I do believe that the importance of a good domain name is still nowhere near understood by the business community. I think the Top 100 Sales List for ccTLD prices in 5 years will be up 300 - 500%. However, that doesn't mean the low end sales will increase that much.

-jmho! and I would love to reread this in 5 years...

[katherine]

I think .ca growth will remain modest in comparison to .com and other ccTLDs, because of the restrictions.
Honestly I find that the extension is undervalued but the pool supply of end users is limited to the cozy Canadian market.
There is room for growth though.
1M domains for 30M inhabitants is not a high penetration rate when compared to European TLDs.

[fwdtech]

I do believe that the importance of a good domain name is still nowhere near understood by the business community.

This is the only area that I feel CIRA should be "investing" their efforts on.
We started our online presence in 1999, and until about 2004, preferred .com.
However, a critical change has developed because of google.CA, which is the default shunt for Canadian IP's.
Our .ca sites show higher in google.CA than in google.COM.
Unless a Canadian business has global intentions, then .ca should be their main website, with .com, etc. forwarded to their .ca.
Most major corporations have dedicated .ca sites already (i.e. dell.ca, gm.ca, toshiba.ca, tostitos.ca), while some redirect to a .com (kraft.ca) and some redirect to a directory of their mother .com (hp.ca, ikea.ca), which is somewhat lame.
The top Canadian SEO designers understand this value, and over time, this critical understanding will trickle down to the smaller corporations and their web designers.
Bottom line, nowhere to go but up for .ca as an investment.
(It's interesting how many real estate investors and realtors are domainers, as the principle of availability is the same, i.e. Mark Twain: "Buy land, they're not making it anymore.")

[Anthony Ng]

However, a critical change has developed because of google.CA, which is the default shunt for Canadian IP's.

That is why I use google.com/ncr.

[Poker]

Where do you see .CA five years from now?

in 2014

[Banned: theinvestor]

That is why I use google.com/ncr.

Learn something every day. I never knew that.

What does ncr stand for?

[onlinestoreca]

No Country Redirect - just a guess...

[Jacksplat]

That is why I use google.com/ncr.

Thanks for that. I had no idea there was a solution to being stuck with that damn redirect. I've actually used proxy when I really needed results not specific to my own country.


As for .ca in 5yrs ?

I expect good things. So much I'm still holding when a reasonable offer comes in. The ressesion does make me wonder a little but we have to remember that after every ressesion there is always that rush back up. Canadian business is making there presence with our ccTLD more than ever but I do find they are happy with even 4 word domains with no real cash value. I see big corps using them all the time in advertising campaigns.

[zerokarma]

.ca domains will continue to grow, at what rate is anyones guess though

I suspect there will be long term steady growth for many of the reasons mentioned above, no availability of good (.com/.net/.org), more companies requiring a Canadian presence, more personal websites, etc...

If you pay attention to advertising (TV, Radio, Print) you will see that .ca domains are being used more and more frequently among small to large companies. This increased usage among the mainstream media will only increase its exposure over time and will help with demand as the average person becomes more and more aware of it.

I think its difficult to say a specific number of how many .ca domains in total will be registered 5 years now but I think it is safe to say it will be easily over 2 million or most likely more.

[fwdtech]

They say that there are 500,000 words in the English language, and about 200,000 in French.
Add in compound words, phrases, corporate names and taglines, hyphenations, typos, and provincial extensions - it's difficult to believe that there will be less than 2 million in the future.

[impressivedomains]

Simple question, right?

I've often thought about this, since it is about five years since I started investing in the namespace myself. No one likely knows for sure, especially with the times we are living in now. But pull out that crystal ball of yours and let's hear some opinions on where we think the direction of our homelands online prefix is heading my fellow canucks!

Personally, I think another five years will be enough time to have .CA permeate through the advertising networks in Canada to the point where everyone knows of .CA and "most" will be using it as the preferred extension of choice (over .Com) for most information and purchases.

Will that bring big companies calling? Will that bring more speculators and investors? Will that bring more lawyers and UDRP's and the like?

Who knows?

I think .ca will take off in the next two years
but only if you have quality domains to sell,there may be only 30million canadians but we dont have the repeat domains like the .com.net ect, ie Canada CaNaDa thank god. kredit.de just sold for above a million dollars and yes the english germans and french have the highest rate of country code usage but canada is up there and as people use .ca it will become second nature and the .com craze will die out.PS still bugs me when i see canadian companys using.com,s.

[DomainSpace]

.ca's have come along way. Back in 1998 when all where focusing on .com a couple people I knew where grabbing the .ca's for free because they had either a canadian # corporation or had 2 addresses in different province... Needless to say in 2000 when it was time to open the system up they and a limited few others had positioned themselves really well. Remember that was now 10 years ago and even though it's taken a lot longer because of the .com focus like a lot of other things people focus need to look at the end user and what the market is doing. Look around and most advertising that has stickiness is either a .com or a .ca

I personally think we are just around the corner -2 years or whenever this economy shapes up overall... People are already questioning there lifes what to do, where to go etc... and like the .com sell off after the bubble some great names came to play. Now again money will play a role and those positioned with extra cash will be able to pick up some more steller prospects.

Lastly I think fwdtech said it best ...
"Buy land, they're not making it anymore." exactly.... Quality Domain = Quality Land!

[$ideline]

Canada has one of the highest % of the population online and broadband internet is the standard as opposed to the states where dial up is still quite prevalent. Also Canada is pulling out of this "recession" faster and stronger than other countries. Although we have a small population of 30 million, we have some of the most financially stable organizations operating in our country. We have corporations with excess capital during a recession - that's almost unheard of. Canada may take longer than other countries when it comes to trying new things but often times we end up doing it better which is why I believe .ca will be a more stable commodity than .com - .com's were registered like they were going out of style with many horrible domains being registered simply because they were of the coveted extension - not .ca - quality .ca's are still readily available and I think because of the refined style of Canadians we will not see the large amounts of garbage registrations.

5 years from now, I look forward to reading this thread and sharing our moments of success with our .ca sales over the years. I see us telling our tales of large figure sales and I'm going with a number of 3.5 million .ca's regged as of 2014. Right now I hope you are seizing the opportunity to stake your .ca claim and I look forward to doing business with you

[PeterMan]

I see the popularity and use of .ca domains for Canadian companies growing substantially... Hopefully that will increase the demand for the lll.ca's that I am hoarding ;-)

[Anthony Ng]

I envy those who have the patience and resources to hang on to .CA domains since Y2K. It's been more than 8 years, and if you have not already picked up some good sales (some did), I would say it's a loooooong shot at best. It's like sitting on an idle train, waiting for it to take you to Wonderland, only to be stuck there for God knows how long. (And you dare not leave the train, afraid that the engine would start any time.)

[katherine]

I can't believe I had held .ca domains since 2000. Time flies. .CA was my first landrush actually. Not many sales and I have had a better ROI with other extensions.

[Irish31]

I think most of us that are holding .CA are by default going to want to project an overly optimistic view of the future, since it will only benefit us.

But do we as a group collectively believe that some of the "big money" that other ccTLD's are enjoying will eventually come to .CA? And if so, why? Just more time = more exposure?

Are you seeing any tell-tale signs that this is going to be the place to be half a decade from now? Or will it be a case of too small a population, too frugal of a business segment to really reward the investments made?

[fwdtech]

Are you seeing any tell-tale signs that this is going to be the place to be half a decade from now? Or will it be a case of too small a population, too frugal of a business segment to really reward the investments made?

Canada is not short of savvy businesses with deep pockets.