Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

August 12, 2010

Google Enables International Targeting for .CO Domains

The new .CO domains are quickly becoming some of the most popular domain TLDs of 2010, being marketed as an alternative for the ever so popular .com domain names. However, .CO domain names were not originally intended to be international, as they actually represent the country code for Columbia. Nonetheless, in 2001 a Columbian University came up with the idea to market the domain type as a commercial alternative for .com domains, due to the similarity of the two. In years past, the .co domains did not show up in international searches, and were most commonly found when one executed a search within the region of Columbia. However, with the recent release of .CO domain names to the public, Google has revised their stance on the domain name and has enabled international targeting for all .CO domains.

What is International Targeting?

There are over 200 different types of domain TLDs in the world, most of which are country codes for specific regions. For example, the TLD for the United Kingdom is .co.uk. When a domain is set with a regional TLD, search engines will usually direct traffic from the same country. In other words, when you conduct a Google search in India, there is a good chance that a significant amount of your search engine results will be .IN domains (Indian Domains). However, there are some domain TLDs that are open to international targeting, which means they can appear frequently in any search results from any country in the world, such as .com domains. By having an international domain web site owners can specify thier specific and intended targeted audience, without limitation to a preset country.

Is .CO an International Domain Name?

Technically, .CO is still officially the country code for Columbia, and as such is not classified as an international domain name. However, Google has made the decision to treat these domains as if they are international, due to the overwhelming amount of .CO domains that are being built which contain internationally targeted content. In fact, Google has stated that webmasters will now be able to specify whether or not they would like their site to be listed as an international domain using the geotargeting preferences in their Google Webmaster Tools.

How Does this Affect .CO Domains?

Although there have been many proponents for .CO domains over the past few months, there are also those that have been reluctant to purchase a .CO domain because it is not an international domain. However, now that Google (the largest search engine in the world) is treating .CO domains as if they are international, there will be a lot more people purchasing .CO domains. The traffic levels for all .CO domains is expected to increase as they gradually begin appearing in search results around the world. As such, the value of .CO domains is going to increase drastically over the next year. Google has effectively taken the first big step towards making the .CO TLD a popular domain type that will be used in every country. If you are a webmaster then you may want to consider these new advantages of having a .CO domain.

Tags: Google Webmaster Tools,  geotargeting,  international targeting,  TLD,  .CO domain,  .CO