- Joined
- Oct 15, 2005
- Messages
- 372
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- 1
Provincial naming has been an end-user disaster right from the onset
Still waiting for a response as to how prov. extensions is a "disaster."
Provincial naming has been an end-user disaster right from the onset
Still waiting for a response as to how prov. extensions is a "disaster."
I know everyone who pays their $20. is entitled to post their thoughts.
But, a lot of members here have been doing this for 10 years, and thoroughly understand the history of the .ca TLD and its wonderful uniqueness. Many of the more experienced members also do web development, instead of just flipping domains, which therefore provides a wider perspective.
This backdoor change is gutless, wrong, and has ZERO merit. (I'm still waiting for a SINGLE reason to be posted that makes sense.)
For the uninformed cynics that are here:
Consider these 2 nefarious organizations, their provincial counterparts, and their respective .ca reg's:
heartandstroke.ab.ca
heartandstroke.bc.ca
heartandstroke.ca
heartandstroke.mb.ca
heartandstroke.nb.ca
heartandstroke.nf.ca
heartandstroke.ns.ca
heartandstroke.on.ca
heartandstroke.pe.ca
heartandstroke.qc.ca
heartandstroke.sk.ca
girlguides.ca
girlguides.mb.ca
girlguides.nb.ca
girlguides.ns.ca
girlguides.pe.ca
girlguides.sk.ca
These organizations are using the .ca system exactly as it should be used - each prov. group can maintain their identity, their own domain, on their own server, as they can and feel. (Sub-domains cannot accomplish this).
This has worked tremendously since before CIRA.
For some capricious, and apparently top-secret, reason, CIRA is now saying that it's no good.
If the Girl Guides of Alberta wanted to create girlguides.ab.ca, they would not be able.
If the volunteer maintaining girlguides.sk.ca forgets to renew, tough (if you haven't received an email with this scenario - our volunteer forgot to renew - then you haven't been domaining enough).
This is the most absurd change possible, and goes against Industry Canada's mandate.
Still waiting for a response as to how prov. extensions is a "disaster."
We were hired to survey a significant end-user base regarding the possible limitations of double dots in web addresses. 38% were either annoyed by, or worse, overlooked the second dot when it appeared after the root domain whereas only 4% struggled with it when it appeared before the root domain. We equated the latter to the awareness of the www-dot format being entrenched in Internet usage thinking.
38% potential traffic loss spells âdisasterâ.
Question: (Paul Donovan, Living Productions)
I have been involved with domains back when John and his team were working on it and the days when you wanted to get a domain and you had to take a bc.ca situation. Thankfully, now of course, we donât have to go that route but over the last few years, ever since weâve moved away from that billity, I have been trying to get a domain that somebody in Ontario has the on.ca on, refuses to answer their email, has no actual website, and keeps renewing every year but yet, I want to try to get the dot-ca or even a bc.ca. Is there any situation in place to help us clear up this ancient system and â no bad intention to you John and your team â I understood where you came from those days, but these days, everybody is going dot-ca without the provincial registration and when youâre trying to get a domain name that is an active real domain name, and the registrant doesnât respond, and you canât do any negotiation, what can we do? Is there any process in place? And, sadly, when I email CIRA about this, I donât get any resolution to my question either.
Search for domain kkc.ca failed.
01114 The domain name provided conflicts with at least one other registered domain name (e.g. xyz.ca conflicts with xyz.on.ca). Registering this domain name requires permission from the Registrant(s) that already holds the domain name(s): kkc.bc.ca. Contact CIRA for more information.
We were hired to survey a significant end-user base regarding the possible limitations of double dots in web addresses. 38% were either annoyed by, or worse, overlooked the second dot when it appeared after the root domain whereas only 4% struggled with it when it appeared before the root domain. We equated the latter to the awareness of the www-dot format being entrenched in Internet usage thinking.
38% potential traffic loss spells âdisasterâ.
Was your survey directed at "print" or "TV" marketing? Because you were earlier referencing SEO, and now mention 38% traffic loss. With few exceptions, most of the traffic being generated by the DNF members is EXCLUSIVELY online, so old-school marketing is irrelevant.
IMO, the search engines prefer third-level-domains over sub-domains.
In my own experience, all things considered equal, GEO rankings usually do better with exact keywords, i.e. toronto.lawyers.ca vs lawyers.on.ca for the query "Toronto Lawyers", hence torontolawyers.ca (not that toronto.lawyers.ca couldn't rank along side them with some elbow grease). Again, not my sites, just an example.
Again, a step in the right direction and personally not saddened by the demise of provincial extensions... site owners, end users, and domainers will benefit from this over time IMO.
Why should a domain owner give up this right?
lawyer.toronto.on.ca
lawyer.vancouver.bc.ca
lawyer.calgary.ab.ca
etc.
Unless there is a referring link, especially when the domain isn't ranking well, a percentage of first-time visitors will screw it up. To me that's a pretty serious concern (disaster if it gets anywhere close to 38%). In the case of the survey, the URL was equally available in other mediums, which is not as uncommon as many think, at least I have to assume many of us either own sites or work with clients where ranking for the money words is near impossible out of the gate yet driving traffic via other mediums in the interim is both cost and results effective?
I'm all for pure web-based marketing but sometimes "old-school" marketing is the secret weapon and I don't say that lightly... we recently handled the knowledge transfer of a seven figure acquisition for a client who did nothing but old-school marketing. $1,500 four times a year. Granted we did the SEO part and parcel with development and eventually had the site ranked well for the money words, I'll admit, his quarterly efforts were just as effective.
Nevertheless, I'm simply stating that sub-domains are a viable option for keyword rich URLs, and capitalizing on provincial extensions is still among the minority of benefits.
In my own experience, all things considered equal, GEO rankings usually do better with exact keywords, i.e. toronto.lawyers.ca vs lawyers.on.ca for the query "Toronto Lawyers", hence torontolawyers.ca (not that toronto.lawyers.ca couldn't rank along side them with some elbow grease). Again, not my sites, just an example.
Funny you use about.com in your example, they are one of the largest beneficiaries of sub-domains on the web; just mouse over the topics on their home page, or google "womens health" among a plethora of other competitive generic terms.
Again, a step in the right direction and personally not saddened by the demise of provincial extensions... site owners, end users, and domainers will benefit from this over time IMO.
So why do we need CIRA anymore then? If it will open .ca to anyone and eliminate the geo-structure, which was a founding principle of the Canadian segment of the internet, then why not outsource name delegation to NeuStar or Verisign? Shut it all down and save a fortune!
One could argue that, with a basic technical crew and a strong governance model, the .ca registry could operate with just a handful of people, and that the cost could be $2 or $3 per registration, given the volume of registrations now in place.
Take a look at DENIC and compare!
Do you know what is the wholesale cost for a .de ?
This was communicated to registrars early this year.. and for some reason I thought it was communicated to all CIRA members as well...
So basically everything that has been said here so far... except that people can still ask CIRA for a provincial domain name... and CIRA will approve/reject at their discretion. I'm not certain what the criteria for that would be though.