The Power of a Premium .in

The power of a premium.in !

For over the past decade, I have been with a .com that survived the 2000 bubble and has been able to sustain itself with minimal advertising simply due to the fact that the domain name itself is a popular keyword for the niche it is in.  A hint about the domain name; its a one word term describing the cost of something.

Although indexed by Google and other SE’s and hardly having spent any $ on advertising, the site has been receiving most of its traffic by users typing the domain name directly into their browser, bookmarking it and eventually returning to the site for informational purposes.  The site does not sell any products.  Its simply an informational advertising website.  

Since .com’s were getting snatched up left and right and getting resold at ridiculous prices out of my realm, I decided to get into the .in ccTLD (country code top level domain) game about 5 years ago, and started acquiring some descriptive / premium / keyword / memorable / type-in (whatever you want to call it) .in domains.

What first started as a hobby eventually turned into a passion and soon enough an addiction.  Every word that I came across that sounded opportunistic would go on a list, and eventually checked to see if the .in version of it was available.  For a while there everything in my life seemed to be based around domain names.  A Burger at In N Out for $7.50 or should I register a domain name today instead and eat daal roti for lunch ???  Those were the tough decisions that needed to be made!  

Before you think this is crazy talk, here are a few companies utilizing the strategy of descriptive .com domains to promote their business/services:

Meals.com -> Directs to Nestle
Money.com -> Directs to CNN
Pets.com -> Directs to Petsmart
Books.com -> Directs to BarnesandNoble
Bras.com -> Directs to Calvin Klein
Shades.com -> Directs to Sunglass Hut
StudentLoan.com ->  Direct to Citibank
Chips.com -> Intel

The list goes on… there’s literally thousands of companies / organizations that are using this strategy in order to gain that extra edge over their competition.

Here are some of my reasons why registering a “descriptive” .in is important, as well as some rebuttals to common objections I have heard over the years… would love to gather some feedback and varying points….

*  If you are an Indian Company / Organization / Service you will want to register an .in domain that best reflects your business.

*  co.in vs. in –  Ask yourself which is easier to type? Sure co.in stands for company but you can just as well have just an .in that represents a company.

*  Indians are very proud people and proud of their heritage… Proud to be Indian and proud to represent it with an .in.

* ccTLD vs gTLD – There are numerous other gTLD’s that have been in existence from the beginning such as .net, .org, etc…  The main difference between these is that a ccTLD targets an entire COUNTRY, whereas a gTLD is a generic top level domain targeting a group.  For our purposes since the market is India, the .in fits perfectly as a ccTLD.  Doesn’t get better or easier than that!

*  Memorability:  Imagine if someone is selling ‘cameras’ or ‘scooters’ or providing ‘refinance’ services to the Indian market… having a domain like cameras.in or scooters.in or refinance.in would be a game changer for that business.  All of a sudden, you have a type-in memorable and meaningful domain that when a user visits can be forwarded to your website, provide lead generation, or developed as you see fit.  Some companies will even change their entire business name to that of the memorable domain name.  One of the reasons businesses will do this is because the customer will most likely remember a descriptive domain name such as cameras.in, especially if they are in the market to purchase a camera.  They will most likely not remember tinchuscameradukaan.com.  

* Google can change as many of their algorithms and introduce as many new updates as they want…(EMD, panda, penguin, peacock, doesn’t matter)  With a type-in domain, Google cannot stop a user from typing in the domain and landing on your site through direct navigation.  Chew on that Matt Cutts!

* Indian Population and Internet Penetration Rate Growth.  Currently at 121 million, India is the 3rd most populous country in terms of Internet Users, trailing only the US and China.  Based on recent reports, India is set to add 200 million more users in the next 2 years.  That is a market that cannot be ignored and needs to be capitalized on.

* A lot has been said about the new extensions coming into place in 2013.  There is simply no better extension to represent India.  Would you rather have a .in domain or a .bharat domain ???  I’ve made my decision.  These new extensions will not affect the value of a .in.  Even if .india is launched, which I have been given assurances through reputable sources will never happen, it is still easier to go to travelindia.in than typing in travelindia.india.

* Although Indonesia has its own extension (.id), the opportunity to cross sell between these countries may arise in the future?  Have already ran into a few Indonesian sites utilizing the .in to promote their business.

* Besides the traffic benefits, the mere fact of owning a strong descriptive name can open doors to multitude of opportunities. This benefit comes with the respect that owning a quality descriptive domain will give you.

* And last but not least, the extension works as a great domain hack!!!   So what is a domain hack??  An example of a domain hack:  del.icio.us
Just imagine the number of words ending in ‘in’ … Well quit imagining:
https://www.scrabblefinder.com/ends-with/in/

Pretty much everything worthwhile on that page has been taken Mounta.in, Vitam.in, Doma.in….. you name it, its taken…..heck even two words are taken now DustB.in, SharkF.in, JustW.in.

One of the valid objections at this time is the lack of awareness by the Public and Indian businesses about the existence of the .in.  The public is still stuck on .com so getting users to change their search habits from .com to .in if they are looking for Indian product/business is a challenge. Businesses are however getting more savvy over time as as we have seen them starting to pick up .in’s slowly but surely…  Some have started to utilize the (.in) to enhance their current business model, or even create a business model surrounding a memorable domain.

If you are in the market for a premium / descriptive domain name, I would recommend to choose the most relevant words to your business or industry and make it memorable.  Check the database if it is available and if so, register it.  Don’t wait!  If you searched it, most likely someone else is thinking along the same lines and will register it soon.  This has happened so many times to me, where I think of a domain name and find it is available; then I put off purchasing it for a few weeks even a few days sometimes… to find the domain has been registered by someone else in that time period. 

If you are looking for that killer .in domain name for you business and it is already registered, feel free to touch base.  Our portfolio holds some of the most descriptive .in domains in the market:

https://www.sellmy.in

Please contact me directly if you are looking to purchase any of the domains in our portfolio or if you need help acquiring a premium .in domain for your business from a reseller.

The question you need to ask yourself… are you .in ?

Best,

Indy