I love a majestic city skyline. Could be any major city around the world. There is something special about the unique architecture, angles, and composition of a city that gives it a distinct personality and individual appeal.

I am an avid geodomain enthusiast and investor. For those of you who are examining geodomain investment opportunities, you may find yourself a bit puzzled as to the most appropriate choice when it comes to “city abbreviations”.

Which is best? StLouis or SaintLouis, FortWorth or FtWorth, FtLauderdale or FortLauderdale? This is where the internet really shines and can provide good information on which to base a decision. For a variety of reasons, some cities gravitate to the common abbreviation while others opt for the full name (non-abbreviated). Before moving forward, let us agree that both versions (abbreviated & non-abbreviated) will generate traffic and user recognition.

Using our friend, Google, let’s compare the number of indexed web pages to find our answer.

• St Louis (101,000,000), Saint Louis (27,500,000)
• Fort Worth (52,700,000), Ft Worth (5,630,000)
• Fort Collins (12,300,000), Ft Collins (984,000)
• Fort Lauderdale (27,500,000), Ft Lauderdale (10,700,000)
• St Paul (45,400,000), Saint Paul (19,700,000)

Both varieties in the above examples produced ample web pages with “St” and “Fort” seeming to be most in use. I remember being somewhat indoctrinated to “St. Louis” while growing up due to seeing lots of TV ads for products that would be ordered out of St. Louis, Missouri.

So “St” became quite familiar particularly in reference to the St. Louis Cardinals (StLouisCardinals.com) and eventually the St Louis Rams (StLouisRams.com). My conclusion is that this same logic holds true as well for geo-targeted domains like StLouisJobs.biz or StLouisRealEstate.com.

Internet Domains cities, geo, geodomain

I recently wrote about viewing Tena.US on network television and being pleased that the United States domain, .US, was getting some real play in the mainstream.

Another company now marketing under the .US domain is Aldi on Aldi.US. Aldi are a supermarket department store who carry approximately 1400 items. The company has over 1000 stores in 29 states located between Kansas and the East Coast.

Aldi appear to operate a developed website in many languages and have registered their company name in a number of ccTLD extensions. The .com acts as a global portal and delivers the visitor to a country specific website fitting his or her language of choice.

Most impressive is that each Aldi website is customized to offer unique products native to the country that is selected. This is the new angle in modern day marketing. I first saw this in a CNBC piece on Walmart (who are expanding into China). They don’t sell the same products in a Chinese Walmart that you would find in America. The products are selected based on the particular culture and tastes of the indigenous population.

Aldi.US –> bringing America’s products to America’s official website address. Note that TV advertising is still very viable in the USA and is a great platform for promoting the .US web address.

.US Domain Names .us, America, United States