The world of domaining is much broader than just .com

abstract world map

I recently came across a great interview on DomainSherpa from a few years ago. In a nutshell, Warrick Mulder tells his story of finding success in his local ccTLD for South Africa, .co.za, after experiencing disappointing results from buying .com, .net and .org domains.

Warrick’s story really resonated with me. I was laser-focussed on .com domains prior to a few years ago, but things have changed dramatically and now my focus is on my local ccTLD, .com.au.

As soon as I started getting more involved in .com.au domains, I was getting more offers and more sales. I don’t argue with results, so I moved where the sales led me.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still lots of people making good money investing in .com, I’m simply suggesting that there are other opportunities available. There are people like Warrick (and others that I’m now aware of) doing well with .co.za, there are also domainers making good returns on .co.uk domains, and of course there are many people doing well in the Aussie market with .com.au.

I buy almost entirely .com.au domains these days, but I’ve also got a few .co.uk (UK), .co.nz (New Zealand), .in (India), and yes a few .co.za (South Africa) domains. So I guess you could say I’m a ‘ccTLD investor’, but really it’s just about recognising and investing in opportunities. I’m very happy to be focussed in the .au namespace, but I’ll certainly buy in other markets too when there are good opportunities on offer.

In some countries, local ccTLD use dominates the market (Australia is one of those countries). Combine this with a substantive population and a booming appetite for ecommerce and you have a recipe for domaining success.

Here’s the DomainSherpa interview with Warrick Mulder

 This video is embedded from YouTube. The interview, along with viewer comments, is also available on the DomainSherpa website