Over the past few weeks I have openly expressed my quantum of solace with a few domain extensions. I have cited my belief that 90% of domains in some extensions are just not brandable.

Apart from dot COM, the only domain extension that I would attempt to brand would be the dot TV domain extension. However, some Country-Code Yop Level Domains (ccTLD’s) have huge potential, as the Internet penetration rates of the countries are quite high.

The United Kingdom, where I live, is one such country. However, like the dot CO.UK domain extension, the United Kingdom’s ccTLD, a lot of ccTLD’s fail to succeed heavily in the domain aftermarket.

This is due to a wide range of issues including the registration and ownership of ccTLD’s being limited to people with residency/local business connections; tedious, manual and costly domain transfer processes and the risk of limited market reach for ebusinesses that are branded on ccTLD’s.

If a company’s target market does not go beyond the shores or national boundaries, then it is definitely worthwhile to brand a business using a ccTLD. Here in the UK for example, I can think of 2 building societies that run all their ebusiness and Internet banking platforms on dot CO.UK domains. These Nationwide and Halifax. Someone else, despite the enormous wealth of these companies, owns the dot COM extensions of these domains.

Nonetheless, these two companies have very dominant and successful ebusiness platforms, and would in no way loose business or customers to their dot COM counterparts.

There are countless websites that are using the dot CO.UK domain extension. Most of these website owners, often very huge multi-million/billion pound corporations, don’t even own the dot COM extensions.

What I’m trying to prove here is that not only is there great demand for ccTLD’s, but there is also widespread usage. This excites me, as I’m a great fan of branding. Perhaps if an accurate survey could be done, maybe it would reveal that more brands are build on ccTLD’s, than on the dot COM extension.

So the question is then: Why are we not seeing more ccTLD’s being brokered on the domain aftermarket?

I will answer the question, based solely on my experience with the dot CO.UK ccTLD.

The main reason is that not everyone qualifies to register and own certain ccTLD’s. You have to live in the country, have a registered business in the country, or meet some other strict criteria that are designed to ensure that you are somehow connected with that country.

I think one of the most liberated CCTLD is the dot TV. As many will tend to believe at first glance, dot TV does not really stand for television, but rather, the dot TV is the CCTLD for a not so popular country called Tuvalu.

However due to some agreement reached with Verisign, the dot TV domain extension can be registered by anyone. The dot TV has gained popularity, thanks to the worldwide usage of the TV as an acronym for television, and the influx of video content on the Internet (Youtube, etc.).

With regards to the United Kingdom’s ccTLD, there was a very tedious and costly process involved with the transfer of ownership. Even changing basic details such as your address and telephone number was often a nightmare.

Due to this, domainers like myself didn’t deal much with dot CO.UK domain extension in the domain aftermarket, unless it was a sizeable transaction.

In the past, I have received countless offers on various dot CO.UK domains. I used to just ignore these offers or reply with ridiculously high counter-offers. Some bidders would come back crying, some screaming and some would run for their lives. How I saw it was simply, “if I had to go through with the tedious and costly process, it had to be worth my time”.

Hence, despite being a UK domainer, I didn’t really invest heavily in the UK’s ccTLD. My UK ccTLD portfolio peaked at 200 domains.

I was so fed up with the UK ccTLD and its tedious and costly transfer process that I literally turned away from that side of domaining, only choosing to renew expiring domains. This caused me to miss the fact that big changes had taken place at Nominet.

Nominet, the registry that handles the dot CO.UK domain registration had seemingly listened, did their homework and had made significant steps to automate the process. There is no longer the need to sign and send forms and wait days before a domain can be transferred to a new owner.

Today, I did my first dot CO.UK domain transfer in years. I was a bit shocked to realise how simple the process had become. It is fully computerised and automated. No need to send any paperwork, speak with anyone, or even wait days for a reply. The whole process was done within minutes.

I was very impressed. I can now work with this new Nominet. I don’t know what took them this long, but they have finally caught up with the modern Internet technologies.

I will now be investing heavily in dot CO.UK domains. This is definitely now one of the domain extensions to watch. With over 65 million people living in the UK and almost every home having Internet access, this is definitely a market poised for growth.

If the potential that I see could materialise, chances are, the dot CO.UK domain extension could end up having more potential than the dot COM extension.

Before you scream at me, what I mean is that you will be able to find better dot CO.UK domain deals to buy, hold or flip, than in the dot COM space. I think I will stop writing now. Didn’t expect to write this much.