My .LA dilemma! Has anyone had any luck selling .la domain(s) yet?

[Keidi]

Hello, I bought four .la domains (decent keywords I think) last July and still don't have any idea about their value (if any).

GoDaddy kicked off a nice marketing campaign promoting it as “the internet address for Los Angeles” and “the first city top-level domain”. I just wonder how many people, especially in LA area are actually aware of it. How many would still think Laos?


I will truly, madly, deeply appreciate ANY information!

Thank you

 

[Maxwell]

To tell you the truth, most people I know don't even know Laos is a country. I also know people who see LA in a context of being a state abbreviation and say "Los Angeles". So, for the majority of the population to associate the letters "LA" with something other than Los Angeles, is something I'd consider to be very unlikely.

As for awareness of the TLD, on the other hand, with you being from the US, and, presumably, a domainer as well, I'm sure you have come to discover that very few Americans are aware of the .us TLD; given the dominance of .com. Therefore, the likelihood of .la being recognized, being a non-dot-com, is something I'd consider comparably unlikely.

What you have to keep in mind is Godaddy's incentive to tell you all these exciting things like how it's the "first city top level domain"; they don't want to sell you a unique and advantageous domain name, they want to sell you a domain name you'll pay over $50 a year to maintain, as opposed to a dot com, which will only get them $10 or so.

And then there's the up-sell. If you're so excited to own the .la, why not register it for three, four, or five years? Or the cross-sell; such as to sell you email forwarding services, or hosting services for your great new website.

I wouldn't put much if any stock in it. Remember, if you're trying to attract traffic, you have to appeal to the masses. The masses know dot com, not dot la.

 

[katherine]

Nodaddy is in the business of selling domains, they have pushed .co .me and many other TLDs in the past, then they quickly move on to something else, before you even realize they dumped a useless thing onto you.
And .la has been on the market for a long time, something like a decade I think. It clearly hasn't picked up. They are just bringing up an old corpse. You see, there is a lot of house cleaning and liquidation with the new TLDs coming.
There is no market for .la, just the occasional fluke here and there. That holds true for almost any extension.

 

[Biggie]

gobdiddly has brainwashed newbies, enticed them early with leathered up images of DP


so anything they market now, will be swallowed up like candy

imo...

 

[Keidi]

You're right, it does not appeal to the masses. I just think, however, that some local Los Angeles companies might be interested in them (if marketed correctly), considering that all extensions under given keyword are taken...

Good thing is I paid for only one year registration.

 

[Eurorealtor]

I had one domain .la only. I sold it for reg fee. Otherwise I was gonna drop it. Doesn't mater how nice the domains sounds or fits to the Los Angeles, no end user will go for it IMO.