Dot EU

[ZOX]

Hi guys,

.EU domains were all the rage a couple years ago and now it seems the .EU market is so quiet?
...
Anything happening "behind the scenes" as far as .EU domains?

Thanks!

 

[mitok]

I noticed many strong .eu websites, but it is hard to sell them on forums anyway. They should be mostly predicted for end-user sale. Like all other domain but good .com you can easy sell on forum, and with good .eu you would have problems to sell on forums even if you are ready to accept low ball offer.

 

[zehrila]

It was good untill last year, right now its miserable

 

[Kate]

Hi guys,

.EU domains were all the rage a couple years ago

Really ? All I can remember is the landrush, then it was all over.
Even DNJ does not have a lot of sales to report.

 

[ZOX]

Ok, I had a couple of nice .EU domains...but the screwed up renewal system through GoDaddy made me lose them.
Now, when I tried to contact the "new owners" of the domains they're asking RIDICULOUS asking prices...or even rental fees upwards of 5,000 Euros / year (plus VAT)!!
...
I'm also trying to get some of my LLL.eu's back but they are also still at least high $xxx.
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I would think that for a "dead market" the prices and availability of .eu domains would be much better...

 

[Kate]

For the LLL.eu I believe mid $$$ is a minimum.

IMO it's one of the few interesting types of .eu. A decent acronym can be of interest to more than one company. I would also consider top generic keywords. As for the rest, I see little interest at present.

 

[ZOX]

For the LLL.eu I believe mid $$$ is a minimum.

IMO it's one of the few interesting types of .eu. A decent acronym can be of interest to more than one company. I would also consider top generic keywords. As for the rest, I see little interest at present.

Yes. I don't think that .EU will EVER replace individual European country ccTLD's.
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BTW, one of my .EU domain was actually "hijacked" and I didn't know about it for over a year...that's how much interest I had in my .EU domains! :lol:
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I'm trying to get it back, but the "new owner" is trying to price gouge me!

 

[DragonADR]

The problem is that Google does not show properly as they don't know where to place. European ccTLD's are preferred by Google, so it's pretty tough to get traffic on those.

 

[Ettore]

I think that he best is to sell them to company or anyway people in Europe, I don't see a big market for those domains in America...

 

[ZOX]

Does anyone think that .EUROPE would make more sense in ALL of Europe as EU stands for only the European Union countries (and some of these countries actually refer to the European Union as UE )?
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The 7 continents should have their own regional extensions not bound by politics, i.e. .EUROPE, .AMERICA (North and South), .AFRICA, etc.
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The only continent TLD that exists now is .ASIA

 

[snicksnack]

The problem is that Google does not show properly as they don't know where to place. European ccTLD's are preferred by Google, so it's pretty tough to get traffic on those.

google checks the IP of the visitor and uses the domain to identify keyword. The extension shouldn't really matter, as I have not seen anywhere in my adwords account where I could choose or block extensions.

 

[jmcc]

Does anyone think that .EUROPE would make more sense in ALL of Europe as EU stands for only the European Union countries (and some of these countries actually refer to the European Union as UE )?

Well .eu is a ccTLD for the EU rather than a TLD for Europe. Of course with typical Brussels incompetence, they screwed up the regulatory framework and the implementation.

The only continent TLD that exists now is .ASIA

That's a regional TLD and it has not being doing well. It fell below 200K domains registered last week and is around 187K or so a the moment.

As for .eu, when the domain count is broken down on a country by country basis, it only represents between 5% and 18% (approximately) of each country's domain footprint. It really is not a competitor to the EU ccTLDs and apart from the Eastern EU countries, is not really used. It dropped about 48K between 01/April/2010 and 01/May/2010 and this is an echo of the Junk Dump landrush anniversary in 2007. The German figure dropped by about 13K in that period and if German registrations continue to drop, then .eu is screwed.

Regards...jmcc

 

[FPForum]

I think the .eu market is pretty much dead now..am I wrong?

 

[jmcc]

I think the .eu market is pretty much dead now..am I wrong?

It was never really that healthy in the first place. The months between March and September are always lower for .eu ccTLD because the traditional echo of the Junk Dump landrush anniversary phase happens at the end of April and many of the domains that were registered during the landrush or dropped and reregistered tend to get dropped again in this period. The drop between 01/April/2010 and 01/May/2010 was around 48K which is somewhat lower than last year's drop.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ZOX]

Do you guys think .EUROPE would be a better European extension than .EU?

 

[jmcc]

Do you guys think .EUROPE would be a better European extension than .EU?

No. Europe is more than just the European Union. I ran a websurvey on the Irish webspace this week (over 250K websites) and the usage stats for identified Irish .eu domains are really bad (17.02% active). As an extension it is dead in Ireland and the UK.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Animator]

Do you guys think .EUROPE would be a better European extension than .EU?

Too long.

 

[Pichichi]

why using .europe if there is a .eu? no sense...

 

[Kate]

Because .eu is limited to the 27 member states ?
Nonetheless I do not see any demand for it.

 

[ZOX]

why using .europe if there is a .eu? no sense...

.EU is for the European Union...which, by the way, in some Union countries is called UE
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Anyway, the European Union is NOT all of Europe for those who don't know (unlike .Asia standing for ALL of Asia).
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How about .EUR?

 

[ZOX]

Any chance .eu will ever get close to .co.uk or .de in registrations?

 

[jmcc]

Any chance .eu will ever get close to .co.uk or .de in registrations?

At the moment, the .eu ccTLD on a country by country breakdown is between 5% and 18% of of those country's ccTLD and gTLD footprint. It is typically 10% of a country's ccTLD so it is unlikely to rival .uk or .de in the next five years or so. Based on a comparison of Irish websites over ie/com/net/org/biz/info/eu that I did last week, the .eu usage most closely resembles that of .biz gTLD websites. Despite all the Brussels propaganda, the .eu is not commonly used in the EU - the EU still relies on ccTLDs and .com and that's unlikely to change much.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ZOX]

At the moment, the .eu ccTLD on a country by country breakdown is between 5% and 18% of of those country's ccTLD and gTLD footprint. It is typically 10% of a country's ccTLD so it is unlikely to rival .uk or .de in the next five years or so. Based on a comparison of Irish websites over ie/com/net/org/biz/info/eu that I did last week, the .eu usage most closely resembles that of .biz gTLD websites. Despite all the Brussels propaganda, the .eu is not commonly used in the EU - the EU still relies on ccTLDs and .com and that's unlikely to change much.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks (Repped!)...so it seems .EU is headed in the ".mobi direction"
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There should be a common "European Region" extension, not just for European Union countries :imho:

 

[jmcc]

Thanks (Repped!)...so it seems .EU is headed in the ".mobi direction"
...
There should be a common "European Region" extension, not just for European Union countries :imho:

Not quite .mobi - more like somewhere between .org and .net. (Well at least that's where it is on Irish domains as of 01/June/2010.
IE: 145909
COM: 120270
NET:13209
EU: 8563 (as of end of March 2010)
ORG: 7554
BIZ: 2316
INFO: 3029
MOBI: 1003
ASIA: 59

Eurid's figures for .eu by registrars in the quarterly report ( http://www.eurid.eu/files/EURid_Q1-10_final.pdf ) is probably closer to the country shares for .eu than the figures that Eurid publishes on its main site. The main reason for .eu registrations in the EU among businesses is brand protection. But that does not mean that the domains will be used for websites. There usage from a recent survey I did of of detected Irish .eu sites was:
Percentages of websites:
28.10% PPC parked.
17.69% holding page.
25.29% active/unclassified.

The 25.29% is still a bit high and will go down to around 20% or so as some of the algorithms detect more holding pages.

The .eu ccTLD is a regional TLD rather than a country code TLD so it really is a set of country/language level markets. This makes it more complex to analyse because the number of .eu domains registered in a country has to be compared with the number of that country's ccTLD domains and the numbers of gTLDs registered in that country. Measuring the number of domains per head of population (as Eurid does) is iffy because most people and businesses will own more than one domain. Eurid and the European Commission's incompetence effectively killed .eu as a viable ccTLD in the EU especially in the English language market (Ireland and the UK). The 59K figure for UK .eu domains from the report is probably closer to reality than the 300K+ UK owned .eu domains Eurid claims on its site.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Animator]

They should make a .UN (United Nations).