General information about .co domain extension
Special provisions for .co domain
The owner may reside in any country.
Intervals
Real time registration
After a prior notification of renewal or expiration of a .co domain, it will be automatically returned to the Registry for registration according to the rule first come, first served.
Trends and general information
The .co domain is the official top level domain of the country code on the internet in Colombia. The domain extension was introduced in 1991, initially the registered domains were administered by "Universidad de los Andes", but at the end of the 1990s a new corporation called ".CO Internet SAS" was founded to take control of the .co domains.
Now, every interested internet user around the world is able to purchase and register their personal .co domain. Only for certain areas of the third level, it is necessary to meet more stringent requirements.
In particular, a country-specific .co domain is commonly used in Colombia: both companies and individuals benefit from the enormous potential offered by the domain and demonstrate an orientation towards Colombia. Because Webmasters from foreign countries are allowed to buy and register the .co domain, many domains outside of Colombia are registered. Customers are mostly commercial companies and organizations that use the .co domain as an attractive alternative to the higher level general .com domain.
Statistics
In 2010, the .co domain was with about 360,000 domains registered in the Top 3 in South America - this is supposed to be the domain extension proposed below. Especially in the European and North American region, the competent register has registered a large increase in registrations.