The domain name extension .co is experiencing a growth in popularity and coolness, with both startups and popular established companies adopting this suffix for their brands.
With powerhouses like Twitter (t.co), 500 startups (500.co), Vine (vine.co) and even WordPress using .co domains, this two-letter suffix has built a reputation for being the favoured option for innovative brands.
In fact, the official .co website (http://www.go.co) says it has “a growing .COmmunity of innovators and entrepreneurs”
“Since launching in 2010, more than 1.5 million .CO domains have been registered by people and companies in more than 200 countries. From startups and small businesses to big brands and multinational corporations, .CO is where big ideas belong on the Web,” the website says.
So how did .co get to be such a big commodity? In an interview with Memeburn, .co CEO Juan Diego Calle said brand association is a key factor.
“I think the fact that companies like Twitter are launched products on DotCo, a firm like 500 Startups is built on DotCo, or Angelist is Angel.co — I think that brand association with those companies has really propelled DotCo to the level where it’s at today,” he said.
Another factor that many industry experts have cited is the similarity to .com, with just the “m” separating these two domain name extensions visually.
While .co was originally launched as the official country domain for Columbia, it has been taken up by companies all around the world to such an extent that Google decided to treat these domains exactly the same as .com options.
Since then, the price of .co domain names has also increased, with many major companies snapping up one-letter domains in the same way they would a rare one-word .com domain.
As Sociable.co pointed out, the owners of most of the one-letter .co domains are “household names, hinting at the popularity of the .co brand”
“Amazon is clearly a fan, owning three single letter domains – a.CO, k.CO, z.CO,” Sociable co-editor Piers Dillon Scott writes.
“Go Daddy nabbed x.CO and Startup America and Overstock got S.CO and O.CO respectively. Perhaps most significantly, two of the biggest online companies, Google and Twitter…got their single letter .CO domains.”
With all of these major companies, and thousands of startups registering .co domain names, it is clear this extension is set to be one of the hottest commodities online.
What’s more is that it shows there are plenty of domain name options available, so you can find the perfect fit for whatever type of website you want.