.eu Falls Below 2.6 Million domains

[jmcc]

It looks like the Junk Dump is happening on .eu at the moment. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the .eu landrush and over the next few weeks, a lot of junk domains are probably going to be dropped. The .eu active domain count yesterday was approximately 2605363. Now the count is 2598493.

The Junk Dump phase always follows a landrush phase. Domains that really were not a good idea tend to get dropped and a TLD falls back to a more reasonable level. The question is: how low will .eu go? Anyone care to hazard a guess?

Regards...jmcc

 

[kev]

i think the number will continue to fall...personally i am only keeping 2 of my original 20 or so names

 

[nmr86]

it will drop under 2 million..

i am sure

 

[jmcc]

I wouldn't be surprised to see up to a million .eu domains drop in the next few months. A lot of them are undeveloped and most seem to be parked or on hosters' "coming soon" pages. The drops today seem to be gathering pace as well. Since the .eu registry software is based on the DNS.be software, apparently the domains will start to expire at the end of the month (I think). What is happening now may be registrars actively deleting domains.

Perhaps we should have a prize for the closest prediction - a .eu domain?

Regards...jmcc

 

[webcom]

The hype is over. Now that's one big surprise!

 

[jmcc]

The hype is over. Now that's one big surprise!

Yep. The important aspect is that if enough of the small players and domainers drop their .eu domains, the only significant part of the market that will survive will be the warehousing operations like Ovidio/ Xss.ro / Blixem.nl etc.

Regards...jmcc

 

[tetrapak]

The hype drops and the real usage will pick up, normal. This is basically good news, too many overspeculated names were bought by domainers. The good names will still sell nicely, and the enduser base will grow.

 

[jmcc]

The hype drops and the real usage will pick up, normal. This is basically good news, too many overspeculated names were bought by domainers. The good names will still sell nicely, and the enduser base will grow.

It should do. But the problem with .eu is that the massive number of warehoused and squatted domains has effectively killed off the natural development that would follow any landrush.

There is also another important point: In any landrush there is a lot of domain trading. Because Eurid launched a registry system without proper trades, that trader activity was missing. Therefore a lot of the domains that would have been flipped for a quick, though small, profit by domainers were never traded. I think that a lot of these will drop now.

It might take another few years for .eu to recover though.

Regards...jmcc

 

[gazzip]

The hype drops and the real usage will pick up, normal. This is basically good news, too many overspeculated names were bought by domainers. The good names will still sell nicely, and the enduser base will grow.

Totally agree, I suspect there will also be many more $1000 to $5000 sales in .eu's within the next year or two. I almost sold one for 800 euros at sedo but the buyer did'nt pay so :p to him, it was priced too cheap anyway :hehe:

My biggest earner is currently a .eu mini-site with affiliate links :tu: It has paid for all the .eu I have registered so I'm keeping 99% of them for another year and plan to develop a few more soon.

There will be loads dropping for sure this year - but not mine ! :hehe:


.

 

[circa1850]

The .eu active domain count yesterday was approximately 2605363. Now the count is 2598493.

Just to clarify, I do not account for the entire junk dump.

 

[jmcc]

Totally agree, I suspect there will also be many more $1000 to $5000 sales in .eu's within the next year or two. I almost sold one for 800 euros at sedo but the buyer did'nt pay so :p to him, it was priced too cheap anyway :hehe:

Selling this early and in a falling market is not good. If you can afford to hang on to them, there is a possibility that the .eu value will rebound in about 18 months or so. Of course the opposite might also happen.

Regards...jmcc

 

[circa1850]

You also have to consider the massive fraud and the piss poor handling of the whole fiasco by EURid to begin with.

The EURid is still in seizeing names and have done so with some fake registrars in the UK that were actually front companies. They are trying to prosecute some in the US also.

There were three individuals who set up 400 bogus registries and regged nearly 300,000 premium EU domains, mostly LLL and NNN.

I have kept many for the novelty of it but it is going to take a long while IF at all for this domain to become credible. And if these premium words and numbers are ever released back into the public, I am not sure how that will ultimately affect value but I do not think it will be in a good way.

 

[gazzip]

I have kept many for the novelty of it but it is going to take a long while IF at all for this domain to become credible. .

I think it won't be that long, developing them will help to make them much more credible alot quicker.

Results in google just now show 46,600,000 for site:.eu

It will get there IMO

 

[jmcc]

You also have to consider the massive fraud and the piss poor handling of the whole fiasco by EURid to begin with.

How Eurid ever got the contract to run the ccTLD is beyond me.

The EURid is still in seizeing names and have done so with some fake registrars in the UK that were actually front companies. They are trying to prosecute some in the US also.

I think that they mentioned at the ICANN Lisbon meeting that they had only knocked out about 1000 fake registrations. A bunch of monkeys throwing darts at a printout of .eu doms could do much better. As for Eurid seizing domains, some domains that were reported last year with obviously fake address details (US postal address and zipcode with EU state in the country field) are still registered. The Eurid legal approach is in tatters. They were trying to prosecute the 400 registrars for breach of contract but the Ovidio syndicate took legal action against Eurid and forced Eurid to reactivate the domains.

There were three individuals who set up 400 bogus registries and regged nearly 300,000 premium EU domains, mostly LLL and NNN.

It is worse than that. Some high profile players in the US domains business have been identified as being behind some of these front companies and these are separate from the Ovidio syndicate domains.

I have kept many for the novelty of it but it is going to take a long while IF at all for this domain to become credible.

The worst case, based on the figures here is more than five years and a complete redelegation of .eu ccTLD to a competent registry before it becomes viable.

And if these premium words and numbers are ever released back into the public, I am not sure how that will ultimately affect value but I do not think it will be in a good way.

The ironic thing is that a lot of the warehousers went for really bad domains and there are many examples of US place names and company/corporation names being registered. You've got sharp operators like Ovidio and then you've got the other end of the spectrum. The average domainer has been squeezed out of it by the scale of the warehousing.

Regards...jmcc

 

[gazzip]

Selling this early and in a falling market is not good. If you can afford to hang on to them, there is a possibility that the .eu value will rebound in about 18 months or so. Of course the opposite might also happen.

Regards...jmcc

I agree, At the time I was just needing a quick sale to keep my hopes up :lol: I sold a .com the next day so I was pleased the .eu one did'nt go through.


.

 

[jmcc]

Results in google just now show 46,600,000 for site:.eu

It will get there IMO

Yes but most of those pages are 301/302 to the .com or ccTLD versions of the sites. And most of .eu is not developed. It could be at least another year or so until natural development starts to happen in .eu ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I shall wait and see until commenting. I suspect it wont die completely! haha

 

[jmcc]

2,588,593 as of 13:28 today. Looks like .eu is being Junk Dumped.

Regards...jmcc

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Imagine how low .COM would go if all of the junk was dumped.

 

[circa1850]

Imagine how low .COM would go if all of the junk was dumped.

Yeah, and then these forums would have... what, two members? :hehe: