Dot .ca in the News

Nice article on the .ca domain extension posted at itbusiness.ca, well worth the time to read.

A million reasons why Canadians love the .ca domain

Random audits are performed by CIRA to catch wannabe-Canucks.

The dot-ca address is not appropriate for all Canadian businesses.

Three in four Canadians say they prefer to shop on a dot-ca Web site.


Full article:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=48187&PageMem=1


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Vancouver Park Board wants StanleyPark.com

It's another sign of how valuable good domain names are, and the lengths that people will go to take them.

Stanley Park is a famous park in the City of Vancouver, and the domain is owned by a man who operates a horse drawn carriage business in the park. He bought the domain back in 1997, and the park board has previously tried to get the name from him.

Now his lease to operate in the park is up, and the question is whether the domain issue will affect the park's decision to renew his lease. The park board seems to make light of the domain issue, but read the article and judge for yourself.

O'Neil, president of AAA Horse & Carriage in Stanley Park Ltd., has operated his popular business in the park since 1985. His stable of 18 horses pulls six carriages around the park eight months a year, attracting more than 30,000 passengers annually.

His business employs 24 people in the peak summer season, generates close to $1 million in annual revenue, and paid the park board about $41,000 in rent last year.

O'Neil said the domain name is a vital marketing tool for the company -- potentially worth millions of dollars -- and he doesn't want to give it up.

"It's short and sweet, and we use it to tell the story of the park," he said. "It's not like I've been running a porn site out of it."

Conflict over the domain name kicked into high gear in November 2005 when the park board sent O'Neil a letter asking him to relinquish control of www.stanleypark.com. The letter also noted his lease was up for renewal in 2008.

Link to full article:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html

Two letter .ca closes at auction for $5,100

A few .ca TBR auctions closed at Pool yesterday and results were posted at DNForum.com

LQ.ca $5,100

rtm.ca - $1,053

sws.ca - $590

nbr.ca - $450

cef.ca - $390

From these results it looks like interest in the LLL.ca market is getting stronger, at least for stronger letter combinations.

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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

.CA domains dropping in April 30 TBR

There are a total of 3144 .ca domains to be released in the April 30 TBR. Some of the better names on the list include:

adultentertainment.ca
ahu.on.ca
akd.ca
assoc.ca
avatar.ca
bccottages.ca
beaverdell.ca
bodypillow.ca
californiahotels.ca
capebretonproperty.ca
deana.ca
footspa.ca
gatineauquebec.ca
ggk.ca
gloom.ca
gocalgary.ca
groundbeef.ca
holycrap.ca
invermerebc.ca
kbv.ca
mnj.ca
mycat.ca
pcw.ca
postads.ca
prh.qc.ca
qcw.ca
seafun.ca
shotglasses.ca
stockingstuffers.ca
virtualvictoria.ca
webtv.ca
wey.ca
zsh.ca

I think the best domains in this drop are avatar.ca and webtv.ca. Some decent names but not a huge week.

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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

Small .ca sale reported at Sedo

Just noticed a .ca domain on today's sales list at Sedo.com

marketingidea.ca $500


It would make a nice domain for a marketing or PR type business.


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Record .CA domain auction sale - Emplois.ca

There will be a new record for a reported .ca domain sale today.

Emplois.ca is currently in auction at Sibername. The auction keeps getting extended by 3 minutes due to last minute bids, as per Sibername's auction rules.

The last price I just saw was $53,200 and it's not over yet.

This will be the highest known .ca sale ever (if it goes through), although there are always rumours of .ca's having been sold for 6 and 7 figures, but the price was protected by NDA's.

Emplois is a french word that means Jobs, so it is very high quality. Apparently there was also a functioning site on this domain, which may be playing a part in the auction interest. Even without traffic, it's a great french keyword.

I'll post the final price when the auction ends.

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Final price was $56,200

I should note that this is just the auction price, a sale technically won't occur until the transaction is finalized. Assuming all goes well, this will be the new record for a .ca known sale.

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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

.CA reported sales of last week

DNjournal plublished their domain sales report today that covers the last week. Only two .ca domains were in the country code sales. You can see the entire report if you click here.

MNS.ca sold for $3,300 at Pool

FinancialAdviser.ca sold for $1,070 also at Pool.


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Yesterday's TBR .ca drop (April 23) yielded at least two quality domains that are now in auction. LQ.ca is in auction at Pool, and Emplois.ca is in auction at Sibername.

April 23 .ca domain TBR drop

Below are some of the better or more interesting .ca domains in the April 23 drop. There are a total of 3,015 domains in this week's TBR.

On a side note, Sibername has increased their minimum bid in the TBR to $25 from $15. I'm not surprised, because the $15 minimum was close to reg fee, and if they're going to the trouble of grabbing a name for you, you'd think there should be a bit of a premium. They managed to get a few names for me in the past weeks for $15 each, and I thought it was a good deal.

Another change, the higher you increase your initial bid, the higher up the domain will be on Sibername's grab list. Meaning, the domains with the highest bids will get the highest priority when Sibername goes into the drop. If they get the name, it goes into the Sibername auction process if more than one person bid on the name. If you are the only bidder, and really want a domain, you can bid as high as you want to make the name more of a priority for them. Unfortunately, usually if a domain is important to one person, it'll be important to others too.

bimbos.ca
binder.ca
biogreen.ca
black-jack.ca
bugsy.ca
car-sales.ca
cef.ca
cherrypickers.ca
computerlife.ca
datechat.ca
dietcoach.ca
dietdrugs.ca
dot-com.ca
earthlings.ca
edin.ca
elimination.ca
fnh.ca
fut.ca
ggs.ca
gno.ca
gvc.ca
gwb.ca
hangten.ca
happyfamily.ca
koreanfood.ca
kru.ca
law-firm.ca
lq.ca
medicinalplants.ca
moondogs.ca >>> wrestling tag team from the 80's!
nos.on.ca
oceanfishing.ca
onlineinvesting.ca
pnb.ca
realestateforum.ca
rock-star.ca
rtm.ca
sevenmile.ca
skateforum.ca
songdownloads.ca
sunset.ca
sws.ca
tbe.on.ca
tnr.on.ca
uwd.ca
vancouvertaxi.ca
videostar.ca
videoweb.ca
whistlermap.ca
zrm.ca


There are some nice domain names with dashes in them this week, like rock-star.ca, it will be interesting to see if some of them get taken.


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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

Change to CIRA WHOIS policy starts June 10

If you go to cira.ca and search for a .ca domain, there is a new message at the top of the page. There will be a change to the .ca WHOIS policy starting June 10.

As of June 10, 2008 the dot-ca (.ca) WHOIS will not release information about individual Registrants and their Administrative and Technical Contacts. The personal information of corporate Registrants will be displayed by default.

I'll have to check after June 10 to see what this means, but it looks like you won't be able to see who the owner of a domain is, unless they're a corporate Registrant.

This could create a problem if there is a .ca domain you want to buy, but you have no way of finding out who owns it. It would also cut down on unwanted emails, if you have lots of people contacting you about domains you don't want to sell.

Email from CIRA on 1 Million .ca Domains

Just received this email today from CIRA, the .ca domain registry, regarding the recent news of .ca domains reaching one million registered.

For those without a CIRA account, here is the email they sent.

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Dot-ca Reaches One Million!

Thank You for Supporting Dot-ca

Dear Robert B,

On Monday April 13, 2008 dot-ca crossed a significant milestone - the registration of the one-millionth dot-ca domain name! This achievement marks a significant milestone in the history of dot-ca domain names and demonstrates the pride that we all take in maintaining a unique, Canadian presence online.

Dot-ca is a made-in-Canada success story that started with the registration of the first dot-ca domain name in 1988 and follows the rapid growth of the Internet. Your registration and your domain name have contributed to this success and form part of the million-strong dot-ca community on the Internet.

The staff and Board of Directors of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) would like to thank you again for choosing dot-ca for your domain name and look forward to your continued support.

Best Regards,

Byron Holland
President and CEO

Debi Rosati
Chair, Board of Directors

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To thank Canadians for making dot-ca their domain name of choice CIRA has launched a celebration website, www.onemilliondomains.ca to highlight dot-ca success stories.


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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

Today April 16 .ca TBR domain drop

3168 .ca domain names are dropping on April 16th.

Here are some of the better names in the drop:

bead.ca
boatpro.ca
canadaswingers.ca
changers.ca
coffeemachines.ca
crows.ca
cybermates.ca
doz.qc.ca
edibles.ca
epoker.ca
ers.ca
fvr.ca
gnh.ca
gvd.qc.ca
harmonize.ca
hilary.ca
home247.ca
home365.ca
homedaycare.ca
hotelspecials.ca
incentive.ca
jwg.ca
kurtbrowning.ca
lesbianpersonals.ca
loveshop.ca
moneydepot.ca
myorganic.ca
ottawabride.ca
playfair.ca
posterworld.ca
quebecenligne.ca
ravers.ca
rfp.ca
sketchbook.ca
vipcanada.ca
xln.ca


There are some decent domains in the drop, but nothing I noticed that is truly great this week.

1 Million .ca domains and a look at country code domains

The total number of .ca domains has hit 1 million, and though it's bounced back and forth across the line the past few days, it now looks poised to stay.

I decided to look at how popular other country code domains are in relation to .ca, not by total registrations, but by number of people in that country per domain registered. Here are the figures below.

Canada: 33 people per .ca domain registered

USA: 235 people per .us domain registered

China: 130 people per .cn domain registered

UK: 9.3 people per .uk domain registered

Germany: 6.8 people per .de domain registered

If Germany and the UK are the leading indicators of where country code domains are going, then countries like China, the US, and Canada have a long way to go to reach a ratio of, say, 10 people per domain registered.

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Namespro - Register .ca domains at Namespro.ca Click here to register .ca domains

Real estate and home .ca domain names

I just read this April cover story on Rob Grant at dnjournal, and it got me thinking more about real estate related .ca domains.

http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2008/april.htm

Rob Grant did it with .com domains, but if you believe .ca has as much importance in Canada as .com now, then real estate .ca's should be a high priority on your list (for Canadian towns).

If you think about it, many of us wonder what the best .ca domains are to register. There are lots of way to come up with ideas, like words/terms you see in media, and using keyword tools to see which words are searched the most, Google search popularity, etc. Short domains are also good, I'm a believer in L-L.ca and N-N.ca for future investment. If LLL.ca and NNN.ca were available still to hand-reg, I'd say those were good too. They are probably still a good future bet if you can buy them at a good price on the aftermarket today.

But a no-brainer type of reg in .ca has to be real estate - related domains. These are types of domains like TorontoHomes.ca or OttawaRealty.ca. Now, those two examples have long been taken, but I think it's worth starting with your local region, and looking at towns of significant size or importance. Maybe even small towns that seem to have good future growth potential, or are becoming a destination for tourists.

Then add these three terms after the town name and check if they're available:

- RealEstate
- Homes
- Realty

In the area I live, many realtors use the city name plus the above words in .com and .ca to advertise their business. As time passes, I think realtors will see more value in these types of domains both in .com and .ca. One goal may be to resell these at some point, but that's not the only option (or the best).

The extra-good thing about these domains is that if you buy them for your local region, it would be easy for you to develop a one-page (or more) site about real estate in that town. You already live near there, so you can do an article on the area, home prices, local features, attractions, etc. You could even add other features to the site, like local hotels and restaurants. If your site gets popular enough, you may even be able to sell local advertising on it.

If you believe .ca has a good future, then .ca real estate domains should be on your wanted list. In the past year I've been able to reg some good ones. The real estate market will always be around, people are always buying and selling homes.

Frankly, I'm surprised realtors haven't snapped these up already. That's my advice for today!

How many domains were regged when you started domaining?

Here is a sobering page.

http://zooknic.com/Domains/counts.html

For those who started domaining in the 2000's, many usually wonder what could have been if they started earlier, or if they had known 'back then' what they know now.

The link above shows the progression of domain name counts going back to 1998. I bought my first domain in early 2000, even though my regs back then weren't too great by today's standards (something most people will admit when they first started out). Then I quit for a few years over the dot-com crash before eventually getting tuned in again.

Looking at the chart at Zooknic, in January 2000 there were a total of 10,008,475 .com/net/org domains registered. Of these, there were 779,950 .org, 1,216,750 .net and 8,006,100 .com

Only 8 million .com's and under 1 million .org's regged when I first started out.

The .info and .biz extensions didn't even exist then. It's a sobering thought. Imagine being able to go back with the knowledge you have now and check for domains at register.com (where I first bought from). I can only imagine the quality that was still available at the time.

It's fun to think about the 'what if' scenario from time to time, but not something that should be dwelled on for too long!

A nice domain falls in my lap

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Banks.ca is number 3 on overall weekly domain sales

The dnjournal domain report came out last night, and a .ca domain took the third position on the overall sales chart (which includes all extensions, like .com, .net, .org, and so on). The domain was Banks.ca for $41,000.

On the country code chart, banks.ca was number 1, and another .ca (north.ca at $2,701) took the 17th spot.

3W.ca also sold in the last week at Sibername for $1,500 Cdn. As a side note, I noticed today that A&W restaurants in Canada are using AW.ca (saw a poster on their restaurant with it). I wonder how long they've had that domain, because I've never seen them using it before.

Link to weekly sales report:

http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

The rise of country code domains

The weekly Sedo newsletter came out today, and they have a nice, short article on the popularity of country code domains. .CA and .CN (China) are mentioned in the article.

So what is causing the boom in ccTLDs? Well, unlike the .com, these ccTLDs like the .ca and the .cn seem to be attracting more end users. For instance, many .ca domains are registered with a direct purpose in mind, be it a small business, a blog, or a product advertisement geared toward a niche market. At Sedo specifically, unlike with .com domains, rarely do we see ccTLDs registered solely for parking. These ccTLDs can provide geo-targeted and often times exclusive traffic, which is a benefit the .com doesn’t boast on its resume.

Link to full article:

http://sedo.com/links/showhtml.php3?Id=1689&tracked=&partnerid=22277&language=us



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April 9 TBR .ca domain name drop

There are 3,395 .ca domain names dropping this Wednesday, April 9. Also of note, there are over 995,000 .ca domain names registered now, which means we have under 5,000 domain registrations to go before reaching the 1 million mark.

Some of the better or more interesting names in this week's drop are listed below. I've only gone through half the list, will post some more names by tomorrow.

875.ca
babymassage.ca
bargaining.ca
bfj.ca
carbcounter.ca
cft.ca
chocolatecandies.ca
computerhackers.ca
contribute.ca
cornedbeef.ca
cyberlife.ca
discotheque.ca
eal.ab.ca
ehf.ca
ekz.ca
favour.ca
froze.ca
granolabars.ca
horsesaddles.ca
ifk.ca
infest.ca
internetfraud.ca
inz.ca
isearch.ca
klo.ca
landscapingservices.ca
lep.ca

Mistake LLL.com iReit sales at Afternic?

Here is a list of some of today's sales reported at Afternic.com. It looks like a number of domains sold for unusually low prices. I checked a few, and the previous owner was iReit. They may have listed some names by mistake when cleaning out their portfolio, and some sharp-eyed domainers took advantage of some really good deals, including some LLL.com's for under $1,000 each:

say.org $500 04/04/2008
gut.org $500 04/04/2008

pqt.com $571 04/04/2008
wja.com $735 04/04/2008
llj.com $603 04/04/2008
rlu.com $900 04/04/2008
zli.com $500 04/04/2008

mellows.com $500 04/04/2008
martinsheen.com $670 04/04/2008
slideaway.com $500 04/04/2008 1
terracottapots.com $500 04/04/2008

abdulah.com $575 04/04/2008
Warehouse.info $997 04/04/2008
HealthcareProducts.info $697 04/04/2008
outdoorshow.com $559 04/04/2008

Not sure if all of these were iReit sales, but most of them were.

You can read more comments about this news at the NameBio blog. I saw these sales on Afternic this morning and thought they were unusually low, then read NameBio's blog and found out what happened. Keep checking Afternic to see if any more of these sales are reported.

.CA auctions closed, .CA vs .US

Two .ca auctions from the TBR just ended today:

nrp.mb.ca $160
expire.ca $1,050

Sibername had a bunch of other auctions close today, but don't have the results yet. Will post some when I see them.

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In the April 1 dnjournal sales report, there was one .ca listed in the sales for country codes:

TreeHouse.ca $2,760 sold at Pool

What I found interesting in the country code sales, was that out of 20 domains listed, four of them had a hyphen. And they sold in the $4,000 to $12,000 range. These were:

Start-Up.de
Auto-Tuning.de
Interpretation-Reves.fr
Vente-Privee.ru

In the overall sales, Opt-In.com sold for $37,453.

I've always thought that a hyphen in domains isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just had to be between two strong keywords, or separating two or three letters, like B-N or B-A-R. Domainers seem to be evenly split on whether hyphens are good or not. I see lots of website domains for government and in advertising using hyphens, so I figure people are using them, and that's the most important thing.

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I've also been meaning to post about why .ca performs better in Canada than .us does in the USA. Here is one example, the other night I was opening a can of Campbell's soup, and right on the lid, in a red circle, were two domain names.

RediscoverandWin.ca
RedecouvrezetGagnez.ca (french)

Obviously Campbell's soup is running some kind of contest, and plastered on every can of soup they have these .ca domains. You see .ca domains on every kind of product in Canada, even American companies selling in Canada will use .ca domains on their products. I don't think the same thing happens in the USA with .us, at least not yet.

However, if I were American I'd be buying up good .us domains, because I think the trend will be for that extension to get adopted more over time, as .com and .net domains become out of reach. Most countries in the world are adopting their country code domains to the same extent as .com has been accepted, and I think it will continue.