.EU domain name registrations continue growth, but is it being used?
The domain registration ticker at EURid, registry for .eu domain names, has crossed the 3 million domain name milestone. According to statistics from EURid, about 50,000-60,000 new .eu domain names are registered every month. Germany and the Netherlands outpace other European countries in .eu domain registrations.
I think .eu has been a failure, but I’m curious to hear what people on the other side of the pond have to say. From what I’ve seen almost all good .eu domain names were registered by investors, which made it difficult for people who wanted to create end user web sites to embrace the domain name. A look at aftermarket activity shows few transactions as well. Save for a few headliners such as Hotels.eu ($329,509) and Shopping.eu ($196,803), relatively few publicly announced .eu domains have been sold.
Of course, aftermarket activity is not necessarily an indication of end user adoption. Most .mobi domains purchased on the aftermarket over the past year were bought by other investors rather than people intending to develop real web sites. But if .eu is taking hold with European internet users, you should see an influx of end users buying domain names on the aftermarket.
If you live in Europe and have seen otherwise, please discuss your experience with .eu domains.
Duane says
Mainly concentrating on the European market I can’t really say .eu domains is the next big thing for investors. Sure there are some investing into .eu’s but many of them are also used by European company’s which do not own there own name or generic meaning of there service. I see it as another easy way out of paying for a good Generic cc at the Aftermarket.
You can forget direct navigation on .eu There are to many country’s inside the European Union with there own history and pride of language want and use there own cc.
You can’t even get the French to speak any other language than French. If you have ever been to Paris, you know what I am talking about.
Germans, they love there .de and use there cc in direct navigation up to 90 %. I have ran different tests and if you think .com is the deal then your right in the English speaking country’s and mainly in the United States. But in Germany forget .com here it’s the .de that counts. Just like in France, Italy and the UK it’s there country code which is at number 1.
The .com is only 2. choice in Europe unless it’s a BMW.com or AUDI.com but the direct navigation inside Europe happens in the country code of Nationality.
Asking a German where he comes from he will say Germany. Asking a French or Italian they will also name there country. They are not going to say “ I am European” ! It’s more like “ I am French” or I am Italien.
They are proud of there nationality and history. They will use there cc if possible.
From a investors edge, I would say .eu is a NO GO!
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks for your insight Duane.
wannadevelop.com says
All of the countries in europe already have their own ccTLD’s
The market for .eu or .asia is very limited and only a few large European based companies will pay up a premium to own a generic keyword domain.
Short term play, it was an “ok” investment if you got some of the best of the domains.. But there really is no future for those tld’s.
Best,
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com
Daniel Dryzek says
I would partly agree with Duane. I come from Poland and people in Poland use .pl in >80% but they also use .com and .eu. In Poland .eu names are more popular than .com (at least in terms of registration) but .pl is king. 1.3m .pl, 0.17m .eu and 0.16m .com.
I also see the more and more companies in Poland choose .eu as this is cheaper extension than .pl and in case .pl is already taken – they register .eu. Usually not for generic terms but for the company name.
If you want to learn more about .eu market – please look at my blog.
and last but not least – remember that .eu is only three years old now. Give it some more time, in my opinion it will by quite successful TLD, not to beat ccTLD but to coexist with country code TLDs. For companies that cooperate in European Union .eu extension is really great in my opinion. People not got used to it yet but once they do – this domain will rock! 🙂
M. Menius says
With 3 million + registrations, .eu may take longer for critics to determine final judgement. The speculation on the extension was over-the-top, no doubt. I wonder if .eu might get more traffic from outside the European Union than from within.
In the early days following the .US release, my geo domains received what I considered disproportionate traffic from outside the US. A majority of the hotel bookings were foreign internet users who assumed .us was “the destination”, and would directly navigate to the geo.us site. Over the years, that tide has shifted to include more Americans now that companies are using .us.
Similarly, I wonder if travelers outside the EU might navigate directly to a .eu site. Same phenomenon with .asia perhaps.
Asia SEO Guru says
Firstly, Mike is way off base (again) with his .asia comments.
And it is true that .eu may have been an early failure. I dont like it as much as .Asia
As someone previously commented, .eu sounds more government and doesn’t make one think “Europe”
But early failure, does not mean complete failure. Those reg figures make me feel that people will begin to build on it.
RegFeeNames.com says
Im based in the UK and I rarely ever see a .eu domain except from when maybe a trailer from a haulage truck is in the UK.
So there are some people that use it outside the UK but most stick to there own cctld
i.e UK .co.uk
Netherland – .nl
France – .fr
Ireland – .ie
I dont think its a failure with 3mil registrations but I would bet that 50% are owned by domain investors.
Regards,
Robbie
David Lye says
177 million domains at the end of 2008 is pretty amazing. However will be interesting to see how the economic turmoil plays out by the time 09 stats are released.