Just wondering what people think, is there any value in vanity ccTLDs? I don't really see anyone doing this much, like rich.ri.ch, say, using a Swiss .ch domain. I am sure you could do something with the .ie domain too.

I can think of some ccTLDs where you could make some pretty major keywords out of a domain name you registered (like, if there was a cc .ce, which there isn't, registering "insuran.ce"), but was wondering if there is much point in this, like whether there might be any sell/lease value in there. Any thoughts?

m

The .ie is not a "vanity" ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

beaut.ie
pix.ie

I think there is some value in them, however the problem here is that everyone pronounces them like Pix dot ie instead of Pixie as Marcus Mac Innes found out and now hates

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They can work well

I've had some very interesting feedback from some of my domains, particularly isquattedyour.eu (read it out loud)

I've also got monetise.it and I did have prox.ie for a while - though I couldn't find any use for it and let it drop

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Name hacks can be good for marketing. But the main use of a ccTLD is business. If one name hack is successful then you tend to see others trying to use the same approach. Flickr has inspired a lot of wannabes. However having a name hack domain and a viable business site are often two very different things.

Regards...jmcc

That pretty much sums up a lot of the web 2.0 wannabes John

While there are some viable businesses out there, there are also a lot of "me too" style services that don't seem to have any revenue potential

Having said that, a good generic name regardless of the TLD or ccTLD is always helpful

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Yep Michele,
I've been looking at some of them - all flash and no data. Many of them don't even have a unique selling point but are just jumping on the whole social networking bandwagon. A lot of them are repeating the mistakes of the past because they don't have any understanding of the past and do not appreciate how easily a competitor could take them out.

It is but a lot more work has to go into marketing a generic name. With something like flickr, which is essentially a typo, the business would also have to be careful to own the correct spelling of the domain.

Regards...jmcc

So what do you think? If you had a decent "hack" of a domain name that was a high-frequency keyword, what do you think might be the potential for monetising?

I am guessing you would still need, at the very least, to get some traffic going, which again means content. Seems meaningless to have the name by itself.

I mean, the long-term attraction of insuran.ce might be to sell/lease it to insurance.com, or whatever, but the question is whether THEY have any use for it, esp. without any traffic. Incidentally, it probably varies from country to country, but I believe that not all countries allow anyone but their own citizens/companies to register country domains, TLD or otherwise, so you would not be able to sell such a domain probably... So is there any point...?

I don't think you can make much from the names unless you have content on there OR can find someone who really wants the name

I've got a couple of .gg names that are cool to look at, but totally useless without content

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No. People do not think in terms of domain hacks and any traffic might only be from typos.

The .ie is a managed ccTLD and you have to prove entitlement before the domain is registered. It is not as restricted as it once was but a significant connection to Ireland is required when the registration is not based on a trademark or other right.

The other factor is that the .ie ccTLD is still small (around 92K or so domains) and the natural traffic that occurs in .com does not translate to .ie. The usage of .ie for websites is also very high so the branding is quite good. This is different from .com and other gTLDs where usage is not quite so high. With .com, people are more likely to type in a website URL thinking that it exists. The same thinking does not generally apply to managed ccTLDs. The cost of a .ie is also higher than .com and this has kept a lot of the speculative registration element out of .ie ccTLD. The higher cost almost forces people to use their .ie domain.

Regards...jmcc