Minisites have always been an interesting topic for domain name development and a lot of people especially for us domainers. On the other hand, ccTLDs are said to be the future of domaining and lots of domainers have invested and are developing their domain names to minisites. So how’s ccTLD minisites doing?…
… The good thing about ccTLD is that there are a lot of premium generic domain names available for hand registration. However, ccTLDs are way more expensive than gTLDs (e.g. .COM, .NET, .INFO etc.) as .PH Domain names costs $35 / year (bulk discounts available). Many domainers would say that ccTLDs are not worth developing than the .COM, .NET or .ORG domain name extensions. Are they right?
Depends on how you look at it. If you’re looking for quick money makers (fast ROI) then obviously ccTLD won’t be good at all. But if you look at the long term aspect of ccTLDs then you’d see differently. With internet being more rampant in all countries and search engines prioritizing on ccTLDs in local searches than gTLDs, ccTLDs will definitely rule the search results in the future. The problem is that its not going to happen that fast, it’s going to take years before that happens or even before their value rises above the hand registration fee costs.
Going back into minisites, I’ve actually developed more ccTLD minisites than the gTLD counterpart. What was surprising was that I was getting good traffic because the competitors I have that targets the same keywords are undeveloped. I was getting International and local traffic. The only problem is that the local advertisers for Pay per click’s (PPC) payout is quite low per click (of course depending on topic). It won’t even be enough to pay the yearly renewal costs.
So why develop ccTLDs with minisites? In a few years time, it will age and you’ll notice that your minisite will pick up high search engine ranking and traffic. Now you have more room to move. The domain name value rises dramatically (10 X the registration fee), PPC earnings rise, and being a domain name developer, it would be perfect to turn into a full blown project.
What I’m trying to do is to plant my seeds now and reap the benefits later, it might take years but I’m prepared to go thru it. What I like about it is that in the future I have ‘options’. Options like retaining it as a ccTLD or selling or developing it. In domaining, options seem to be a very expensive word, it’s either you get a good sale, earn revenue, or let it expire. What I want is flexibility and this is definitely the perfect way to have that.
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Well said, Francis. I will post more comments as soon as I get them organized on my coconut.
@Dell: Thank you Dell, ccTLD minisites are really an interesting field that not many have entered