GoDaddy Tests .co Domain as Default

Over the weekend, GoDaddy, the world largest domain name registrar experimented with offering a .co domain as the default option on the homepage. GoDaddy has always had .com as the default TLD and has now reverted to it after testing .co for a period.

"The Go Daddy test is exciting. Permanent? Not yet," Juan Calle, CEO of .CO Internet, the company that handles .co registrations, said in a blog post.

"While we have a great and expanding relationship with Go Daddy, we do not expect .CO to remain as the default TLD on a permanent basis. In fact this is only a test to measure conversions, customer feedback, and much more," he explained.

GoDaddy is the world's largest registrar so the move is significant. People started noticing on Saturday that .co is now the default option on the site rather than .com.

With no formal announcement from GoDaddy or the company that handles .co registrations, many speculated on what the move would mean. However, a day later, GoDaddy switched back to .com.

.co only popped on the scene very recently. Columbia's ccTLD (country code top-level domain) has only become available commercially to foreign customers in July this year.

The domain's similarity to .com and the fact that it is very fresh make it quite attractive for people setting up new websites. Good .com domains are becoming increasingly hard to come by.

With .co, most domain names you can think of should be available. This means that someone wanting to register a domain on GoDaddy for example, would have a lot more success with .co rather than .com in finding what they want.

Of course, the fact that it's about three times as expensive as .com is also a draw for GoDaddy and other registrars. And the .CO Internet company seems very optimistic about the prospect of becoming a popular option globally.

"It's definitely a HUGE step in the right direction, but a lot of things must come together before you will see .CO permanently listed as the default option on most of the global registrars," Calle said.