Posted in Domains | 7 Comments
Should You Invest in .IM?
I like the .im extension for several reasons.
For one, good keywords are still widely available to register. In search engine testing, I was able to get the domain keyword to appear right under their .com twin. Also, to my surprise, a good handful get type-in traffic and revenue in parking.
DOTcom is best but not the only “ruler” of the internet. You can succeed on any good alternative extension (right, Bruce?) given you are building a website and with a real goal.
.im already looks familiar (despite meaning Isle of Man) because it is also short for “instant message”. (”Hey, Sally. IM me sometime?”). I think someone would do well branding this to their users.
I am going to make like Rick Schwartz and offer you some numbers, numbers, numbers.
Recent sales as reported by NameBio for over $1k:
- hotels.im $2,082 sedo.com
- mobile.im $7,000 afternic.com
- sale.im $1,470 sedo.com
- gay.im $1,033 sedo.com
- my.im $1,796 sedo.com
Nothing major. It still has a few milestones but .im is definitely not as useless as .tel.
Developed .im sites with decent traffic:
Should You Invest in .IM?
sure by all means….buy as many as you like but leave the .com for me.
Do you have any examples of .im domains that have ranked well?
I’m a little surprised to read about .im as an investment. If you put aside the usual “sunset keywords” that get registered with any ccTLD, what remains?
In terms of .im’s that rank. If you type .im into Google you get a chat client on page 1 (pidgin.im) and on page 2 you get another chat client (imo.im), then the .im registry.
Completely agree that its definitely not as useless as .tel
@Chef Patrick: I have only done light SEO & development so far to see how things would go but Bookstore.im (avg 500 uniques/month) ranks for searched book titles, Fonts.im (avg. 800 uniques/month) ranks for 211 font names, Gourmet.im (avg. 200 uniques/month) ranks for a few cookbooks and categories. However, these are all under my CJ site with Joomla and I am going to add unique content.
@Domainer Income: You would be surprised at what remains. I’ll give you hint: generate yourself several keyword lists (popular vacation spots, most populated cities, top keywords, etc) and go through them.
For instance, I just picked up Tour.im this morning. For this extension, I would stick with one word, single generics or strict GEOs.
When typing .im into Google, you have to use *.im (tells Google to include everything behind dot and im) or google will omit the dot.
I’m already investing in .im, and I think the value of this extension will increase as people realize just how many valuable keywords are selling in the $xx range. As people start buying them, inevitably the selling prices will increase too
I hope I’m not wrong about this.
I have been investing in .IM domains for some time and have till now registered the following names:
Auto.im
Dog.im
Download.im
Downloads.im
Commerce.im
Europe.im
Lotto.im
Expert.im
Website.im
Free.im
Movie.im
Movies.im
Help.im
Park.im
Webhosting.im
Canada.im
Japan.im
Russia.im
tr.im is a pr7
.us .we .you .me .im .them .everybody etc.