TRAFFIC Vancouver 2010 – Day 1 – ccTLDs Are Taking Over The World!

Okay – so as you know I’m a HUGE fan of ccTLDs so it should come as no surprise that I was very excited to attend the first seminar at TRAFFIC Vancouver – ccTLDs are taking over the world, is North America immune?

The panel consists of Ken Hansen from Neustar, Ron Jackson from DNJournal, and Steve Smith from Webnames. Great information from some of the top experts in the industry – another reason why YOU need to be here at TRAFFIC!

Ken started-off the session talking about my absolute favorite ccTLD – .us!

– 1.5 million names registered (0.5% of US population)

– Many good .us names are still available.

– .us can be great for natural search results

– Secondary market activity is growing – more and more .us sales.

Examples:
AirFrance.us
Skatell.us
LaserBeamLevel.us
AutoLoans.us (ranked above AutoLoans.com in Google)
ClubMed.us
Hitachi.us
Transamerica.us
StingrayBoats.us

Ideal market is the small to medium-size business is the perfect target for .us.

When a US company wants to get a domain and the .com is not available .us is an excellent choice and great for branding/marketing.

Still – .us does have a long way to go and growing awareness with both Domainers and end-users is one of the key to growing this TLD.

What is holding back .us?

  1. Presence requirement
  2. Adoption and use of the name in advertising (this has increased over the last few months)
  3. Not a popular extension with Domainers (no type-in traffic)

Now it’s your turn! Share your opinion – do you like .us? Do you think the .us TLD will continue to grow? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton