by I am a collector of fun internet domain names, and if a new top-level domain becomes available, and if I’m in a funky enough mood to grab it, I can stake a new claim of life in a country beyond the borders of the USA. I recently purchased Boles.co and Boles.me as new pointers to my main Boles.com domain. Bite.me was already registered.
I purchase domains to protect my interest and to preserve my brand. Since I am my own brand, I tend to focus more on getting the right domains for my last name. I don’t buy everything. I only buy what intrigues me. Having the .com for Boles is a good stake from which everything else spins and points.
BolesEye.com is also a new domain acquisition — and I bought that domain name because it was a fun wordplay and might serve a future project.
The new .co domain is based in Colombia — no, I’m not worried about world instability or international censorship and losing the domain since it’s just a pointer — and you might recognize the .com domain as the default URL shortener for Twitter:
The .me domain is based in Montenegro and it is also new and interesting because WordPress.com uses WP.me as their URL shortening service. Facebook uses FB.me as their URL shortening service. Yahoo! uses Me.me — “meme,” get it? Ugh. Gag.me — and Go Daddy, uses go.me as their URL shortcut.
As these new domains continue to pop up and poke on the internet, those of use with a store of .com domains will do well to keep them held tightly to the chest because — as each day passes, the number of usable .com domains dwindles — and the added value of established .com domain names continues to grow in the marketplace.
David,
I’ve got a friend who also collects domain names too. He uses a tool to also check what sort of keywords are also attached to the domain and tries to target ones that will help his other sites and also redirects.
Have you also thought about getting typo/misspelled domains? This is also a great SEO tactic… I’ve seen a great tool to determine common typos here: http://tools.seobook.com/spelling/keywords-typos.cgi or find your own tool with a ‘common typo generator’ search in Google.
Cheers!
Chris
Thanks for coming over here from Facebook to continue the discussion, Chris! I appreciate the fascinating information and links.
I used your link to check for misspellings on my name and most of them are already taken! Grr! Love that idea, though. I’ll have to think about it some more to get a good plan in place. SMILE!
That explains why Overstock is jumping for joy over their o.co acquisition!
Ha! I’ve seen those o.co commercials everywhere. It’s funny, though, that o.co still resolves to “overstock.com” — I wonder how long they’ll wait before o.co stays o.co?
UPDATE:
http://davidboles.co now owned. Propagating now. Thank you.
Cool domain names. Never got into this. I should. Guess I’m too late?
You might have to be really creative to get a good .com domain name now, but there are lots of other, newer, domains out there now that are just waiting for your creativity!