I came across a topic on NamePros inquiring about GEO domain names in todays market and it got me thinking. So, let’s dig into that topic a bit more to see what we can find.
GEO Implies “Local”
When it comes to anything GEO, we think about GEO-Fencing within a local community, county, state, province, or sometimes country. The feeling of doing business with someone or a company that is local tends to give us peace of mind and the illusion of trust, knowing we can just go down the street to file a complaint in person if anything went wrong.
If “GEO = Psychological trust, then that gives us a positive reason to assume demand for both business and consumer markets.
GEO Targeted Conversions
With the above trust factor in mind, it should also be safe to assume that conversion rates would be affected positively in local GEO markets, where consumers feel safer clicking the “Buy Now” button.
The trade-off is that the more GEO restricted you get, the less traffic and potential customers you’ll get as well. The upside to that is that more of the visitors you do get will potentially convert.
You may also find that when launching GEO targeted SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaigns, that are sometimes easier to index on page one of search engines for several different key-word phrases.
GEO Domain Extensions
Whether we are talking about a GEO ccTLD (Country-Code Top-Level Domain) like .us, .fr, .de, .in, etc. or a GEO gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domain) hack (When before the dot and after the dot create a word or phrase) like Word + .nyc, .asia, .africa, .dubai, etc., or Geo + classic legacy gTLD like .com, .net, .org, etc., all the different directions could work in the right environment.
What About GEO Sales Data?
It’s easy to talk about what we think when it comes to GEO domain names, but what exactly does the sales history data say about it? Let’s take a look at a few random examples of before the dot and after the dot GEO domain sales data to get an idea.
.africa
| homes.africa | 133 USD | 2019-08-19 | Sedo |
.nyc
| creative.nyc | 3125 USD | 2024-04-14 | Name.com |
| safety.nyc | 1399 USD | 2024-04-14 | GoDaddy |
| cruise.nyc | 1301 USD | 2024-04-14 | NetworkSolutions |
.asia
| investing.asia | 116 USD | 2020-03-27 | Dynadot |
| lawyer.asia | 220 USD | 2019-09-03 | Sedo |
The above are a few random GEO gTLD sales reports using some of the extensions mentioned further up, but there really weren’t that many that were recent, unfortunately.
If we dig even deeper, we’ll want to see if those reports were mostly hyped or if they lead to real world use cases. Let’s check…
- Homes.africa = Sales Lander
- Creative.nyc = Developed (Church in NYC)
- Safety.nyc = Parked Page
- Cruise.nyc = Developed (White-Label NYC Cruise Portal)
- Investing.asia = Parked Page
- Lawyer.asia = Parked Page
Two out of six domains were developed into real world use type cases, which isn’t bad odds given such a small pool of sales reports to look at. Both the developed assets sold in the low to mid four-figures. The rest, that was not developed, were in the low three-figures.
Other Data to Look at
Of course, we can’t just look at sales data to determine if GEO domains are worthy investments in today’s market. There are multiple different variables to keep in mind when evaluating a potential domain name asset.
To get a better idea, take a look at this public domain name evaluation done for the GEO domain name CancunMexico.com. You’ll notice a deep dive into a lot of different directions to get a better idea of the GEO domain names potential.
You can apply some of the same resources/sources to your own GEO domain research efforts for a bigger picture.
In Conclusion
I barely scratched the surface on this topic but wanted to at least provide enough information and links to sources to give you a starting point in your own GEO domain research.
The limited amount of sales report history gives the impression that sales slowed down for the GEO gTLD’s, but we didn’t really dig into ccTLD’s, classic legacy gTLD’s, or compile enough sales data for a genuine big picture opinion.
However, the comparable sales reports from the CancunMexico.com evaluation seem to be consistent with a slow-down in GEO sales over the years for some niche specific combinations.
Not all domains are created equal and some GEO niches may still be running strong, doing better than other combinations. Each GEO niche should be evaluated independently to determine it’s potential in today’s market segments.
Remember, at the end of the day, a domain name is truly only worth what a buyer and seller agree on.
