Will 2009 be the year of the ccTLD???
As most of my readers have gathered by now I really like the ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) space and it seems as though I am not alone.
Rick Latona had this to say after the Traffic DownUnder show had finished “Clearly the .au names were popular which shouldn’t have been a surprise considering we were in Australia. This only confirms my theory and supports my decision to focus solely on ccTLDs during my own show in Amsterdam this coming June. More on that coming soon.”
I look forward to seeing what Rick has planned for the ccTLD market place next year.
Also Ron Jackson from DN Journal headlined one of his latest posts with this “Year’s Biggest Country Code Sale Takes a Spot Among the First Three on Our YTD Top 100 Domain Sales Chart” read his report on recent ccTLD sales here
To get an idea of just how big the ccTLD market is, take a look at this map of all ccTLD,s made up by John Yunker from Byte Level Research
You can even order prints of the map to put on your wall if you so desire!
Please note this info about the map below-
Each ccTLD is sized relative to the population of the country or territory, with the exception of China and India, which were restrained by 30% to fit the layout. At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest type size used reflects those countries with fewer than 10 million residents.
(Click on the image below to maximise)
Timo Reitnauer | Nov 29, 2008 | Reply
The ccTLD has always been there. In my opinion it’s just now that US (or maybe English speaking in general?) domainers start looking beyond their own nose and realise that it’s not all about the gTLDs. I predict the the same for IDNs in the future.
David | Nov 30, 2008 | Reply
Absolutely agree. With most domainers coming from the states where the COM is seen as the defacto US ccTLD as well as the top gTLD, investment has concentrated in this area.
However in the meantime the ccTLD’s have been quietly doing their thing with end-users pushing the registrations.
Remember without end-users domainers are nothing! Wish I spoke Indian & Chinese languages…
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Hi David,
I could not agree more, there are still HUGE opportunities in countries such as China & India.
In regards to the language challenge, India has English as one of its main languages so I have not found
it to be a problem (our people that write content for us in India are better writers than I am)
So I have a big focus on India at the moment and keep picking up great Indian .co.in & .in names every week.
Who knows I could be wrong about this but in 5 – 10 years or even less I will find out.
Regards
Ed