Branding Backfire? – .CO URL shorteners

.CO has carved out a niche for itself as the preferred extension for URL shorteners.  Google (g.co), Twitter (t.co), GoDaddy (x.co), are now using .co domains as URL shorteners.

Using .co as a URL shorteners has taken one of .co’s defects – that it doesn’t have a separate identity from .com – and turned it into an advantage.   By being a ‘nickname’ for .Com, the .Co extension works as a natural URL shortener for longer .Com domains.

t.co is the 22nd most visited site in the US according to Alexa.  t.co isn’t a website, however.  It isn’t a destination.  It is a redirect to a real website, one that probably has a .Com extension.

Because of .co domains’ adoption as URL shorteners, likely 99.99% of the public’s interaction with .Co domains is as a URL shortener.

.Co risks being permanently branded as a redirect, rather than a destination.  Someone seeing a .Co domain will think it is a redirect, not a brand in itself.

This will be reinforced as longer domains are being used as redirects. such as the Denver Broncos using dbron.co as a redirect to DenverBroncos.com.

The trend is picking up with JDM Digital selecting JMDr.co as a redirect, the launch of the lnk.co URL shortening service,  Virgin with virg.co, Politico with Politi.co, and Venture Hacks with vh.co.

The .CO registry is promoting the use of .co domains as branded shorteners on its Opportunity.co site.  I agree that this seems like a good use of the .Co extension, as the brand is retained in a shorter domain.  The .Co registry could carve out a nice, profitable niche for itself if .co domains are widely adopted as shorteners.

The risk is that the use of .Co as URL shorteners will drown out the other possible uses promoted by the .Co registry at Opportunity.co, such as using .Co for a company’s web site.   There are five companies highlighted on Opportunity.co “company”  page.  Only one is an established company, the venture capital firm Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson.   The promo text is:

DFJ knows what it takes to build a successful company. One of the most important things of all? A solid domain name, like DFJ.CO

Type in DFJ.CO, however, and you are redirected to the corporate web site at DFJ.COM.

Will that increasingly by the fate of .Co domains – to not be sites under their own name but merely redirects to .Com sites?