.CO at 16: still useful for SEO and startup projects?

nicenic said:

.CO has been globally available for 16 years and now has more than 3.3 million registrations.

There are also big reported sales, including O.co at $350,000 and ETH.co at $300,000.

For SEO, affiliate, or startup projects, would you still build on a strong .CO in 2026?

Or is .CO only interesting when the domain is truly premium?

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Moseslaunchgrow said:

I think .CO is still a solid option if the domain is short, memorable, and relevant to the brand. From an SEO perspective, I don’t think the extension itself is a major ranking factor—content quality, backlinks, and user experience matter much more. The main downside is that some users automatically type .com, so branding can be a bit more challenging. For startups and tech projects, though, a strong .CO can still work well if the .com isn’t available.

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BidNomad said:

renewal prices on .co are what kills it for me if we are talking affiliate or niche sites. paying 25 or 30 bucks a year adds up fast if you run a network, especially when .com is cheaper.

the traffic leak is also a huge pain. if you actually build something successful on a .co, you are basically sending free type-in traffic to whoever owns the .com. unless you already own the .com and just want the redirect, or the .com is completely dead, it is a hard sell for a serious brand.

for quick seo plays or if you catch a really strong expired one with clean history then sure, go for it. otherwise i would just stick to finding a decent .com or even .net.

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Starblazer said:

.com is still considered the standard. The renewal prices are also stable over the years, making it trustworthy over others. The trendy TLDs like .ai are ranking great due to their premium rates as only brands resort to these domains. .co was hyped when it was launched. Many people thought that it would replace .com as a shorter alternative but .com is still ruling.

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