A canny marketing idea for the .to ccTLDs sees it being pushed as an alternative for residents and businesses in Toronto in the same way that .la has been geared towards Los Angeles.
The .to ccTLD is for the Kingdom of Tonga located deep in the Pacific with a population of 106,000 meaning that Tongans are unlikely to make a high demand on its domains.
And while registrations of .to domains have been available to registrants worldwide since 1995, it is only now that Tonic, the registry operator, has pushed .to as an alternative for Toronto.
The ccTLD is also getting in early ahead of the release of new gTLDs, although there was no application for .toronto.
“Comparatively speaking, .TO is wide open”, observed Eric Lyons, of Tonic – the .TO registry operator in a news release. “There are thousands of generic keywords and highly brandable names available for registration that are already taken under .COM or .CA”
“It’s basically a one-stop shop for getting a business, a portal or a call-to-action page online”, added easyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic. “We’ll do all the heavy lifting for you technically and all you have to do is say the word ‘go'”.