Some Reflections On My Adventures In .COM.AU and .CO.NZ

Bondi Beach Australia

Hello from Australia! This has been a very exciting week starting-out in Auckland, New Zealand, then making my way to Melbourne, and then back to New Zealand tonight! Whenever I’m in another country I always pay careful attention to the domain names I see on billboards, in magazines and on the side of cars. It only takes a few minutes of being in another country for me to notice how my perceptions of .COM domination, while true, are very US-centric.

In New Zealand I would say that about 90% of the domains I saw ended in .CO.NZ and the same has been true in Australia for .COM.AU. While I have been to Australia and New Zealand many times before, it is always a nice reminder of how going global often means going local.

Now does this mean you should dump all your .COMs and replace them with .COM.AU? No. The liquidity is still the strongest in .COM, but for anyone that thinks .COM owns the world, think again. Every country has their own ccTLD and in many cases this TLD completely trumps .COM in the given country. Go to Germany and you’ll see .DE everywhere, Italy and .IT, Spain and .ES.

There are Domainers in all of these markets, placing their bets just like the rest of us, on domains that might catch the eye of an end-user or generate passive income. While the market for a .COM.AU or .CO.NZ is significantly smaller than .COM, there is a market and if you’re building a business that targets this part of the world, owning a domain in this TLD makes a lot of sense. A great example was talking to a few people here about Kayaking.org. They said that if they were looking to go kayaking in New Zealand they would trust kayaking.co.nz above kayaking.org, and it makes perfect sense.

What I think is so exciting about coming to this side of the world is that the Domain market is still in its infancy. While I don’t think these TLDs will ever reach the scale of .COM (not enough people here!) there are some great opportunities and for investors building global brands, ccTLDs offer a great way to really connect with people around the world. It may sound counter-intuitive but sometimes you do have to go local in order to go global. So don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that anyone reading this should go-out and buy all the .COM.AU and .CO.NZ domains they can find, what I am saying is that if you really want to connect with people here, having a brand on the TLD they see every single day can give you a nice advantage and connection with the market.

Okay, it’s 30 degrees today (celsius) and it’s time to begin the day’s adventure. I hope you’re all having a great week and hello from down under!

(Photo Credit)

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton