Using .CO & .ME Locally

I saw this newspaper dispenser in Portland, Maine this morning and thought of you so I snapped a photo and want to share it. A number of companies in Maine (state abbreviation is ME) are using .ME as if it were its own local ccTLD.

This afternoon, I saw the Name.com video I embedded below, and it makes a similar point, but with a focus on Colorado (state abbreviation is CO).

Because Google allows domain owners who own .CO and .ME domain names to target visitors in the US, it makes sense to some companies in Maine and Colorado to use their states’ respective abbreviations. I won’t be surprised to see New York City businesses using .NYC in the near future.

BTW, one of the things I like about Name.com is their videos. It’s a small company and their weekly videos are great for building the brand and allowing customers to get to know the company. I feel like I know many of the people, even though I haven’t met all of them.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

12 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Elliot, Hope you enjoyed your lobster and a visit here in .Me

    I have been trying to promote the .Me option to businesses around here and I think they are warming up to the possibilities.

    Here are some of the ones I like: MaineBusiness.Me, MaineNews.Me, MeJobs.Me, SugarloafUSA.Me, Rangeley.Me, Lubec.Me and MountKatahdin.Me. I like Geo’s too.

    A local shop owner is using his physical location as three abbreviated words (dot.com) I can’t remember it, let alone his customers, but the “blank” Street Market.Me would be a perfect memorable choice. We’ll see.

  2. @ Don

    The lobster was great, as was the Shipyard Pumpkinhead. Had a few of them at lunch and several last night.

    Also, if you want to have a great meal in Portland, you have to try Fore Street.

  3. Actually, .CO and .ME are used locally for small shops and commercial websites.

    For example, the first result I get by doing a site:CO search on Google is a small jewelry shop in Naperville, IL: ItsABlingThing.CO

  4. While visiting the spanish island Majorca this year, I noticed the famous brand of Zara, advertising their new venture for home dekoration (ZaraHome) under “zarahome.co” which forwards to its .com website.

    Not quite sure why they would be doing this, but they are.

  5. @ Don,

    Instead of saying you like your list of names, why don’t you just admit you’re posting them here looking for compliments and/or offers?

    Thinly veiled spam is still spam

  6. I think when NYC rolls out .nyc then other cities/regions who coincidentally have a conveniently rebrandable cctld to use (like .co .me .la) will see some growth in awareness and use. I bagged some awesome LLL names available at .LA .

  7. @AB,
    Thank you for your comments about my post though you seen more than a little cynical.

    I get excited when the likes of Elliot Silver is in my backyard and my comments were to him.

    I’m coming upon my one year anniversary as a domainer and I feel that It has been a fun, enjoyable and educational year. I’ve learned that there is still a lot to learn and get right, no more phone calls from Charlie Sheen’s lawyer, thank you.

    The domains I listed as examples of Maine based .Me domains was in no way spam or to impress, I’m truly proud to have found and hand registered them, they are not for sale. It is only in the last month that I’ve considered selling any of my 400+ domain portfolio and they are not on the list.

    My only regret this year was losing PigeonShit.US when nuestar informed me it was on their naughty word list, so Rick Schwartz wins again with PigeonShit.co

    Someday we might be friends. So, I won’t let you get me down.

    Thinly sliced ham is still ham

  8. People shouldn’t be swayed by isolated anecdotes (or, the shitty decisions made by other idiots).

    These ‘state abbreviation’ options have been available for a number of states and sure, there are far-flung anecdotes about small businesses using .mn in Minnesota or .in in Indiana or .md in Maryland or .me in Maine, but what does that mean to a domain speculator?

    Absolutely nothing. It’s buying a lottery ticket with 10,000-1 odds that pays out 2000-1 if you win. I’ll never understand why people would waste money on something that’s hard to sell and when you sell it, it doesn’t sell for much when they can buy something that’s much easier to sell and when you sell it, it sells for much more.

    If tomorrow, someone sells Metairie.la for $25,000, that doesn’t really mean anything to the big picture, either.

  9. @ LSM If what you are saying is ‘dont go and buy a bunch of crapdomains.cctld just because you saw somerandomname.cctld sell for $50k’ then I agree fully.

    However I do think there are deals to be had, for example one of the names I got was POT.LA. I have this hunch, a huge gamble I know, that this keyword and related products will remain popular in LA – and that in the long term the legal environment will relax sufficiently to make it commercially viable. Whether huge sections of the population jump on the rebranded tld or not is less important than the killer branding potential (imo)
    In the meantime the carry costs are small enough to not bother me too much if Im wrong.

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