.co

Overview

• .co is the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia (delegated December 24, 1991).
• While a national ccTLD, .co is widely marketed and used internationally as a generic/brandable domain space and by startups and companies.
• The registry and operational arrangements have evolved over time; DNSSEC is supported and the domain is administered under Colombian regulatory oversight.

History

• 1991-12-24: .co assigned to Colombia and originally delegated to Universidad de los Andes.
• Early 2000s: Discussions and disputes between the university and Colombian government about commercialization and regulatory authority.
• 2009: .CO Internet S.A.S. was appointed via a public procurement process; ICANN approved re-delegation in December 2009.
• 2010-07-20: Second-level .co domains (example.co) became generally available worldwide.
• 2014: .CO Internet S.A.S. (Registry Services LLC) was acquired by Neustar (reported purchase price: US$109 million).
• 2020: GoDaddy completed acquisition of Neustar's registry business and became operator of several TLDs including .co (announcement in 2020).
• 2019–2020: Colombia's Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) updated the framework for administration; MinTIC selected registry services providers and, as of 2024, MinTIC is identified as the manager with contracted registry services in place.

Usage and Audience

• Typical users:
  • Colombian businesses, government and institutions (especially under restricted third-level zones like .gov.co, .edu.co, .mil.co).
  • International companies and startups seeking short, brandable domain names (commonly used by technology startups and marketing campaigns).
• Adoption and scale:
  • Reported registration milestones include 500,000 names by September 2010, over 1 million by mid-2011, ~1.6 million by January 2014, and 2.2 million by December 2018. DomainTools reported nearly 3 million active .co domains as of February 2021.
• Market characteristics:
  • .co has been popular in the secondary market (noted high average secondary-market price behind .com) and has attracted single-letter and short domains favored by brands.
• Cautions:
  • .co is sometimes used in typosquatting because it is visually similar to .com.

Registration Rules

• Eligibility and restrictions:
  • Second-level registrations (example.co) are open to anyone worldwide; there are no domicile or burdensome documentation requirements for .co, .com.co, and .net.co.
  • Some third-level zones are restricted for local use only:
    • .org.co — non-profit entities in Colombia
    • .edu.co — educational institutions recognized by Colombia's National Ministry of Education
    • .mil.co — Colombian Armed Forces
    • .gov.co — Colombian government agencies
• Registration periods: typically between 1 and 5 years, renewable.
• Characters and IDN support:
  • Allowed: Latin letters (a–z), digits (0–9), and the hyphen (-).
  • Spanish-specific characters permitted: á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü.
  • IDNs are supported; IDN variants and language groups became available in stages (Spanish since 2010; Scandinavian, Asian, and various European language sets added in subsequent years).
  • For IDN encoding (xn-- format), the registry enforces rules such as disallowing the hyphen in the 3rd and 4th positions (reserved for punycode prefixes).
• Policy and security:
  • Dispute policy: UDRP is applied.
  • DNSSEC: supported/enabled.
• Accredited registrars:
  • Only accredited registrars may sell .co domains directly; lists of accredited registrars are published by the registry (GO.CO/.CO Internet).

SEO and Brand Impact

• Google treats .co as a generic top-level domain (gTLD-like) for search purposes, meaning .co domains can be ranked for global targeting when content is internationally relevant.
• Brand considerations:
  • .co is often used for short, memorable, or startup-oriented brands and for URL-shortening.
  • Because of similarity to .com, .co can be both an asset (short, brandable) and a liability (potential confusion or typosquatting).

Notable Cases or Examples

• Single-letter and short domains assigned to major companies include:
  • a.co — Amazon
  • g.co — Google (used as official URL shortener)
  • t.co — Twitter/X (used as official URL shortener)
  • o.co — Overstock.com (used in a branding effort)
  • s.co — Snapchat
  • m.co — Volvo Car Mobility
  • b.co — Bestseller
  • y.co — Y.CO (Yacht Company)
• Notable corporate usages and anecdotes:
  • Google purchased g.co (reported purchase figure cited in sources) and uses it for official short links.
  • Twitter uses t.co as its URL shortener to mitigate malicious links.
  • Overstock purchased O.co and briefly used it as a brand, later returning to Overstock.com in some markets.
  • Amazon acquired several short .co names (examples include a.co and others) for brand protection and services.
  • Taco Bell used ta.co as a short link redirect to tacobell.com as part of a mobile-focused strategy.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       CO

organisation: Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC)
address:      Edificio Murillo Toro
address:      Cra.8 #Entre Calles 12A y 12B
address:      Bogotá D.C. Cundinamarca 111711
address:      Colombia

contact:      administrative
name:         Thiago Grijo Dal-Toe
organisation: Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC)
address:      Edificio Murillo Toro
address:      Cra.8 #Entre Calles 12A y 12B
address:      Bogotá D.C. Cundinamarca 111711
address:      Colombia
phone:        +57 (601) 344 3460
fax-no:       +57 (601) 344 2248
e-mail:       cctld.co@mintic.gov.co

contact:      technical
name:         Gonzalo Romero
organisation: .CO Internet S.A.S.
address:      Calle 93B # 12-28
address:      Oficina 203
address:      Barrio Chico Norte (Chapinero)
address:      Bogotá D.C. 110221
address:      Colombia
phone:        +57 (601) 794 89 99
e-mail:       gonzalo@cointernet.com.co

nserver:      NS1.CCTLD.CO 2001:dcd:1:0:0:0:0:14 37.209.192.14
nserver:      NS2.CCTLD.CO 2001:dcd:2:0:0:0:0:14 37.209.194.14
nserver:      NS3.CCTLD.CO 2001:dcd:3:0:0:0:0:14 37.209.196.14
nserver:      NS4.CCTLD.CO 156.154.103.25 2610:a1:1010:0:0:0:0:21
nserver:      NS5.CCTLD.CO 156.154.104.25 2610:a1:1011:0:0:0:0:21
nserver:      NS6.CCTLD.CO 156.154.105.25 2610:a1:1012:0:0:0:0:21
nserver:      NS7.CCTLD.CO 204.74.105.1 2610:a1:3180:0:0:0:0:53
nserver:      NS8.CCTLD.CO 204.74.107.1 2610:a1:3280:0:0:0:0:53
ds-rdata:     62110 8 2 4857ee1a85e661c92156ad09b40139dae7d5be37d117a1223289f0e20cf9d654

whois:        whois.nic.co

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: http://www.cointernet.com.co

created:      1991-12-24
changed:      2025-06-20
source:       IANA