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Register Today on DNForum IT'S FREE!OK so it seems like Canada & US are the only exceptions and .ca is running down .com in Canada.
Do you think .us will ever surpass .com in US?
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Do you think .us will ever surpass .com in US?
No. .Com became the default for the US when the internet first became commercial, the momentum is huge.
Every day I am amazed at the growth in 'commercial' use of .CA and I agree that there is a certain amount of pride in using a 'friendly' .CA domain over a more generic, 'big business' .com.
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In Czech if you use .com and not .cz you are considered in most cases suspicious/scammer (not if you are a famous company like Google, Microsoft or Coca-Cola of course)
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in countries where the internet penetration is low and local ccTLD domains are expensive (for example .ki) people type in .com. In countries where the local ccTLD is cheap, it will be adopted by local businesses and thus people are used to see ads with the ccTLD extension, thus type it in as first choice.
most countries
(including u.s. - .com)
you should ask who does not
- countries with very high fees
- countries with restrictions
- countries without infrastructure (tld not working yet)
co.za for South Africa, registration are powering along now.
Fees are ZAR50 annually or about $6.5
Last edited by tractor; 06-24-2009 at 09:03 AM. Reason: ommission
I suggest that every country in the world, except USA and Canada, uses their ccTLD more than .com domains.
See http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ for a list
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Take a look at the top Alexa by country to find out traffic info.
Looks like .de for Germany is about 50% of the top 100.
In France .fr is about 30%
In the UK .co.uk is about 25%
Netherlands had a high percentage of .nl
All in all, cctld's are steadily gathering popularity in Europe.
.jp and .com are about even in Japan
.cn and .com... .cn has a strong momentum in China
.in is on the rise in India
For countries that speak other languages, the IDNcctlds will begin to be used at the end of this year and the beginning of next year. This will change the landscape for countries like Russia, India, Korea, Japan and the Arabic Countries and Isreal. China .cn's already alias to the IDNcctlds.
And Japan (as far as I have heard) will alias .jp's to their native script.
India will be set up for 22 IDNcctlds next year. (different languages)
Disneyland.ca and there is no Disney Land in Canada ;-)
Last edited by Namefox; 06-24-2009 at 05:54 PM.
Two high CPC sites for sale...BankruptcyTrustees.org and BClawyers.org
Not yet...![]()
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In Italy we all use .it
Would a very strong .com domain still be by far the best choice for a directory site for the whole Europe, particularly if it relates to travel?
Or, to put it another way, is .com way better than .co.uk or .de if you want to target the whole Europe and the site is in english?
ok10- From what you described, you will not be targeting a specific country but an entire continent. The best option is a .com. You cannot use a ccTLD of one country and expect to get popular in other countries. When choosing a tld for your domain name, it really comes down to a few basic points:
1. how popular the tld is to the target audience
Some countries are used to using their own extensions. You would even find some people who do not know that other extensions exist besides their own ccTLD , .com and .net. You do not want to use an extension your market doesn't know or heard little about. When you advertise your site, or even by word-of-mouth, the first thing you want the new prospect that sees your advertisement (or hears about your site) to think is: - This is an interesting site, I'll check it out. You do not want the first thing that crosses his mind to be "What is that? Is that an internet address? I never heard of .info. Should I add .cz(or whatever ccTLD he is used to) at the end of it?" I am obviously exaggerating but the point is you want to use such a TLD, that will seem so natural to the prospect that his attention would be drawn to how cool or useful your site is, not the TLD.
2. how comfortable the target audience is with your choice of tld
Out of a choice of TLDs, you should choose the one that the majority of your target audience is most comfortable with using. If you are targeting all europe, there is no single ccTLD that will have this quality, so you will have to go with a gTLD like .com
3. how much trust does your tld evoke to your audience
TLDs usually evoke some sense of trust, or mistrust when used in websites. In Czech republic, when people see someone advertising a .cz , vs someone advertising the same domain but with a .com at the end, they will naturally feel that they can trust the .cz site more than the .com. Even when there is no comparison, advertising a business on a .com and concentrating on the local market makes the prospect feel that the products or services will not be of the best quality. Even me, a domainer to the core, feel that when I see Czech businesses advertising a .com website.
However, the exact opposite is when I know that a business is targeting the entire europe, or world, but they use their ccTLD for their website. It makes me feel that they are not very serious, they lack of basic marketing skills and that they do not know what they are doing. I will not trust them. The best option in this case is having both ccTLD of the countries you are targeting and .com. Or at least have the .com and the ccTLDs of the countries that take up your largest market share
very true. On the contrary, one could claim that .com is gaining popularity in europe.![]()
Last edited by petrosc; 06-25-2009 at 04:58 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Great Comments above....If you can, you may also want to get the .eu to go along with your .com for all the reasons above. While .com is known throughout the world and is the most popular extension, .eu is gaining more popularity.
The reason it appears that .com is gaining popularity is because of the huge influx of new computer users in Europe, particularly eastern Europe.
One can glean a lot by taking looking at the millions who downloaded firefox last year. Still after speaking with many from France, they love .fr and the Germans love .de, etc etc.
With the breaking announcement that .eu is now going to be including IDN.eu within the several months, .eu is going to get stronger as an extension.
So I would recommend getting the .com and the .eu for your business in Europe. Good Luck.
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