I've seen some good, non-registered TLDs. I won't mention them here in case I buy them later on. But I've been reading on how difficult it is to buy African TLDs, even if they permit overseas purchases. For instance, .bi, I think, has potential. Anyone else bought any? Any words of advice? Thanks
The .bi has only had 4 reported sales only. It's a very exotic ccTLD with not much potential IMO unless you get the very, very, very top keywords. Personally, I wouldn't waste my money with this or other similar extentions.
I totally disagree with you, although .Com's are always going to be king. ccTLD's will also play a big role once the rest of the world population caches up with cheap broadband. Wait until Asian is unleashed! That market is three times bigger than the US's! moneyyyyyyy.... cha ching! Dan
True, asian countries will play important role in the future, but it's not easy for you get much from the domain market, if there is a market. As far as I know, some registrars in some asian countries sell your domain to others when others pay a lot to them.
Asian ccTLDs, especially .IN and .CN will be of huge value in the future I'm sure; but Africa is not Asia - even if your average central African peasant has a computer and internet connection - are they going to have any money to spend?
The only reason to buy domains in obscure extensions is if you find a domain that would be worth a small fortune in .com and/or is a super fit with the extension. Even then they are much harder to sell than .com. There are a LOT of pit-falls when you get that far from the crowd. Witness these quotes from the Burundi (.bi) registry: "No auction or reselling of domain names will be accepted." "We remind that .bi stands for Republic of Burundi and for nothing else". Now I have just saved you 100 Euros per name. Enjoy your day.
Country Population Internet Users ISPs Burundi 8,090,068 25,000 155 Source: "The World Factbook, 2006"
You can be creative and develop these obscure tld's with generic words, they can be branded.. something like Organic.gd is an example of using a very popular word currently that was registered for reg fees.
Ok then. Go ahead & reg .bi & see how far you'll go with sales I totally agree ccTLDs are growing, but not crappy ones like the above.
I'll repeat what I said above, because some people are not getting it: To translate: you cannot transfer a .bi name to someone else - so you can not sell it. If you had poker.bi, sex.bi and hotels.bi you would have little value, because the registry will not let you sell them. Some small country domains can be transfered and sold just like .com --- .bi is not one of them.