Can anyone give advice about the .NL cctld?

[Danimal]

I am a US citizen living in the Netherlands, and have registered about 30 .NL domains in the past few months. I work in the medical industry and intend to open several small webshops. On the one hand I am a complete novice, on the other hand I feel I have some legitimate insights and would much like to test them on this forum. Here are a few of my thoughts:
Although Holland is a tiny country, it is the fourth ranked cctld, after China, Germany and England - It is ranked 8th of all extensions. The Dutch have a strong economy and are very involved with the internet. The Dutch are one of the most multilingual peoples on earth - they all speak English very well. This all leads me to believe that English keywords more make valuable domains for .NL domains than most other cctlds. As an American, I feel like I am able to think of possible English keywords more easily than Dutch people, yet they can still understand them. For example, most Dutch people wouldn't think up detoxify.nl, yet they would understand and accept it.
A few more examples are healthfoods.nl and organicstore.nl. Related to the work I do I reserved a few such as parasites.nl, biogenic(s).nl and probiotic.nl. As a hobby I support organic agriculture, and reserved organicfarm(s).nl.
I paid reg fee only for all (2.50 euros a year for 5 years) so the price is of no concern, even if all the money is thrown away. Well, I've spent about 400 $ so far, but that isnt so bad to lock down 30 domains for 5 years, right?
I am very curious if what I am doing is advisable. All the domains relate either to my interests or to my occupation and as such are niche keywords - i understand the limitations of that. basically the domains all have value to me, but I am curious if they have value to anyone else?
Thank you very much if you read this, and many more thanks if you answer ; )

 

[SiberForum]

What Registrar are you going to deal with?
Does it have any accreditations?

 

[Danimal]

Hi Siber!

I am using hostnet.nl for registrar. I believe they are accredited directly by Icann and SIDN (for .nl), however they go though a partner for the .de extension.
I have parked most of the domains on Sedo.
I thank you for replying to my post, even if my question was very vague. A more concise question might be: do you think sustainability oriented (english) keywords keywords have value in for .nl (and possibly .de)? I know a lot of highly educated, young people in Holland: amongst them these keywords are in active use - I realize this is limited.
examples are sustainabledesign.de
environmentalist(s).nl and .de

how about medical / nutritional english keywords?
an example: aminoacid, aminoacids.nl.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated, even if it is: "no one will ever care about those domains" !

Thanks for Reading, D.

 

[snicksnack]

many english keywords are already taken in .nl and .de extension and I saw some decent sales for english keywords in both extensions. To answer your question, I believe english keywords have and will have a certain value in both extensions.

 

[jhmr]

Hi,

I'm from the Netherlands. As I see the dutch market, most webshops and dutch websites the domain name is dutch. But it's true english names are well accepted here. But for example all trusted financial terms as ''mortgage'', ''savings'' etc. you don't see. All dutch terms.

Marktplaats.nl is the local ebay. Ebay bought it several years ago because they couldn't get people away from marktplaats to ebay. It was sold for 220.000.000 euro.

To make a long story short. I think the dutch will common use dutch domains for dutch content. Than again, to stay in your niche. http://www.vitaminstore.nl is a english domain with dutch content. I think your names represent value if you want to use theim yourself for a store/website.

 

[Kate]

A few more examples are healthfoods.nl and organicstore.nl. Related to the work I do I reserved a few such as parasites.nl, biogenic(s).nl and probiotic.nl. As a hobby I support organic agriculture, and reserved organicfarm(s).nl.

I think organicstore.nl is a very decent domain and not just in .nl. healthfoods.nl is probably fine too.
IMO it's the kind of English keywords that are OK even in a non-English speaking market.

As for the others like biogenic they look like they are niche/specialist domains. You have a stated interest but I doubt they have resale value ie somebody else would be interested. .nl is a very strong ccTLD so if you see a keyword that is still available, the question is why... is it so great after all

It's a good thing you live there so you can watch the domains people see and use on a daily basis.

 

[Danimal]

Thank you all very much for the feedback. I am slowly developing a bit of perspective and your comments are of real help to me! I work for a medical lab (family owned) and this has inspired me to register domains that I think are relevant, even if not suited for resale. I was thinking I could put information on these sites, with links to our lab and / or a webshop.
I had a similar idea for my webshop - I registered the names of some specific products I sell, hoping to simply add info and links.
Finally, the organic / sustainability thing...well this is more based on optimism (about the future of the planet) than it is trying to be a clever investor. However, having recently finished with college, it seems to me that many young people are getting indoctrinated with new paradigms: there are numerous graduate degrees that contain the word "sustainable," for example. I have been very conscious of the fact that there may be something "wrong" with domains I have reg'd, since they were still available. In other words, I have no idea what influence the implementation of new paradigms in academia will have on the world, let alone the internet, but it is a modest gamble I am happy to make ; )
I would much like to ask a question: I realize that developing and focussing one website makes more sense than half-assing dozens of domains. But since I have websites for my job and webshop, does it make sense to develop a bunch of additional domains (as info sites)?
Thanks a million in advance, D

 

[jmcc]

Development is more important in a ccTLD than parking because a ccTLD does not have the same audience size as .com TLD. I think that if .nl keeps going like it is going and .cn continues to shrink, the .nl ccTLD will overtake .cn early this year.

Regards...jmcc

 

[lapssone]

Certification is required, or to be canceled

 

[Gerrit]

Certification is required, or to be canceled

United Domains provide the Dutch contact address needed. This does not necessarily have to be the domain owner's address, so you are still the owner of your domain. I have an .nl with them and they've been great so far. Never had any issue with them. Probably more registrars provide you with the Dutch address as technical contact or so, as said it doesn't have to be the registrant's address that is Dutch.

 

[elius]

maybe you should start with the most generic domain probably with healthfoods.nl. I think this one will work well in the dutch market. Organicstore could work well too. Being Dutch I won't feel awkward visiting one of those domains with an English keyword in a Dutch extension. The other domains are pretty specific. Their Dutch counterparts would be preferred by me.
Start with the best one and see how it works. You can always work on the more difficult domains later.