The .co.uk worth more? For now I think you may be right, but, this is a fast moving world and if you sit still too long, you will become moss-covered.

Time will tell, but, I have a sneaking feeling that .co will overtake .co.xx in terms of popularity.

I’m not referring to the pcpro article , I’m looking at my .co’s in GWMT and the fact that they can now be geo-targetted.

Are your referring to the article in PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use if so if you look at my comments up the page you will see that I do state the following in reply to Wardy “I would suspect it could happen at some point and just because you can’t change the location on Webmaster Tools doesn’t mean you can’t get to show in local Google results, just host it on a UK IP and get the majority of your links in to be from UK sites and you should be sorted.”

As was also pointed out on that article, “Although it’s still disappointing how the domain has been advertised without it actually being ‘fit for purpose’ from the go,”

And so you know several people who replied here have bought .co domains, they speculating that they will have value and indeed many do, but let’s not forget the fact that having the .com or .co.uk of the name you really want will be worth loads more than the .co version.

Quote: “You can’t set the country on a .co, Google rightly thinks they are in Colombia”

“You can’t” the whole kingdom of real Internet experts cried out at last.

Looks like the internet ‘experts’ aren’t as clever as they thought they were?

I believe that the only people poo-pooing the .co are people who didn’t buy any

If you pay a standard registration fee and build up a site on that domain then it is as valuable as any other. It won’t be a short cut to wealth but it won’t be a waste of money either.

Besides, if Google is genuinly concerned with ranking the highest quality sites then domain name+TLD should be low down on their list of signals. Let’s be honest, most keyword domains have awful affiliate sites with limited or no content (and I own a few!).

Limiting the net to a handful of TLDs is just going to hold back the development of the web. It is rediculous to think that someone has to make up an obscure name for their site just becuase all the good names were snapped up before they were even born.

The problem is so easily solved and I hope that more and more TLDs will be rolled out in time. This will eventually mean no one (including Google) will care about TLDs! I can’t wait.

Of course owners of prime .com and .co.uk addresses will resist this massively, it will be in their interest to constrain things as much as possible to maintain the value of their existing web property.

Nice post

Depressing that people will be wasting cash based on hype.

I’ll be honest…I attempted to reg a couple but only cause if I pulled it off I could easily flip to some numpty! Ho hum!

See you tomorrow mate

And doh, missed an opportunity to pimp http://www.ukisdomains.com/ ok so here it is, pimping!

So do you not think that webmaster tools will ever be able to allow to change their location away from Columbia?

its all a con then again maybe I should tld the .con
for every jailbird could have there own .con domain then we could con the con artists by selling .con as main choice away from com. .co .cm

I see Pete’s point about people jacking the ideas for their own ends and paying nobody – pretty awful, but bound to happen with something like 99 designs, ultimately it will attract penny pinching sorts that will happily never cough up for work, unfortunate, but expected. – Even though it shouldn’t be!

Although I resent intervention in most walks of life I welcome the introduction of legislation (if sensibly employed) if it benefits the integrity of genuine “interweb” entrepreneurs.

As I have come to learn affiliate is NOT easy so when we spend time and money to develop a site and to have it go down the drain because of not fault of mine it not easy to take.

Thanks for the heads up on this one

This does not stop ‘cyber flight’ where a phishing/scam/whatever site can hop around ISP’s without being stopped. A scam site can be up, active and moving around inside a few hours. The ‘lock’ element of the tool prevents this.

To me, it is a ‘power’ thats already there, but this streamlines and standardises it and in turn allows both Registrars and those with complaints to be educated / access the right systems to not only enable a positive response but one with some form of consistancy and overview.

I do not think its perfect but I think its a first step that can be built on and evolved as cybercrime gets more sophisticated and needs more rapid responses.

To me the question is should .UK take a lead in developing processes to counter such problems, or sit back and be a ‘wild west’ extension.

Long term such things will evolve and add trust value to .uk which can only benefit biz on it.

In real terms today, as you say it allows people to take action either becoming a registrar, or, innovative ISP’s providing an extra USP for added info/services/policies!!

With my hypothetical hat on however, what I will say would put be off-putting in submitting a design would be that of copyright control and assignment. It’s something may designers, especially in the early days don’t think about.

By submitting a design or concept, that unique piece of work should be, by rights, the property of the designer. Change of ownership to that work should only change when (and if) the work is paid for. If we’re talking spec work up-front then that’s fair no?

I’ve read a lot of examples of clients getting their design concepts, not picking a winner and paying no-one at all, while of course they’ve helped themselves to a buffet of free ideas. Not saying it happens all the time, but it does happen. If that was a traditional client / designer relationship there would be contracts and legality in place to prevent this situation arising.

I’ll admit I don’t know all of 99designs or other spec design services t’s and c’s so I’m not making assumtions, I’d just like to know more about what is inplace to protect the designers, as without them, there is no business.

Between 30-40% of the design community is US based. The rest is spread all across the globe.

Cheers,
Jason
99designs.com

Good to see 99designs picking up on posts like this, and yes thanks I understand that side of it, was just playing devils advocate to be honest.

Whilst on the topic, are the majority of the designers on the site based in the States?

Thanks,
Greg

Thanks for sharing your experience using 99designs to source custom graphic design work.

Hi Greg,

It is important to note that 99designs exposes designers to thousands of opportunities every month that they would not normally have been exposed to.

Rather than spending time searching for work, writing proposals and otherwise marketing themselves – using 99designs, designers are able focus on doing what they love – designing. And 99designs acts as a powerful sales funnel for designers – when they win a project it often leads to a variety of direct follow on work because they now have a qualified relationship with that client. You can read more about designer experiences with 99designs by looking at the profiles on our blog.

http://bit.ly/6TgH7l

Cheers,
Jason
99designs.com

I understand your points, but to compare it to affiliate marketing isn’t a fair comparison IMHO. With affiliate marketing the potential upside is much greater as there’s potential for that income stream to continue for some time, and not just be a one-off payment for work completed. But I see where you’re coming from!

I was just trying to illustrate some of the drawbacks from a designers point of view, I can see the upside for those commissioning the projects, and indeed for those who’ve always been used to entering contests as a choice for gaining work. Good to hear you have some UK designers and that you have rewarded runner-up prizes in contests.

It’s been an interesting area of discussion, and I’m sure it will continue to be!

Thanks,
Greg

I do understand designers point of view also, but I honestly think it’s like a pitch you might get, put in all the work and get nothing in return. You wouldn’t do this type of work but others will and that’s the point, it’s useful to some and no use to others.

If only there was a wordpress section itd probably be my homepage

Some of the website designs on there are phenomenal, the only downside is you then have to pay to get them sliced up afterwards (unless you have the know-how!).

MB

In response to;
“I can hear the over paid design “guru experts” crying slave labour as I type. Well guys, sorry to say but we do live in a global economy and sourcing work around the world is the reality now”

I don’t think it’s due to a fear of loss of work, but down to the speculative nature of the contests, ie. ‘design this for me and then I’ll pay the one I like the best’, arguably it devalues the industry. For example, you don’t get a builder into build your wall then say, build it and I’ll pay if I like the end result.

If you’re looking to pay out £245 for a logo design why not use a designer in the UK with a track record, a decent portfolio, and knowledge of the market your site is operating in? For that kind of price you could take your pick from a number of UK freelancers or agencies.

I know a lot of other freelancers who will offer a complete satisfaction guarantee with their work, like myself.

Thanks,
Greg

PS- See http://www.no-spec.com/ for more details!

I think every variation of Google is taken up to something like 60 zeros.

google.com
goooooogle.com
gooooooooooooogle.com

I don’t see any point personally. But then, I have a domain that isn’t really mistakable for anything I’d bother to buy. I do buy “type in friendly” urls for new projects if I think it’s going to be super competitive though

As a network we RT Jason’s ‘buy my DVD’ message with an added link to allow affiliates to join a relevant merchant programme ( http://twitter.com/AffWin/status/5454527579 ), but we’d fully support a celebrity promoting their own products via affiliate links. To quote Mat directly “imagine the potential of links built into editorial written by the celebrities themselves”.

If Jason would like to make his first steps into the affiliate marketplace we’d be happy to assist him, but whether it’s with us or another network it would be interesting to see if this is an idea that will take off.

Keep us posted!