Need opinion on .be (Big keyword results)

[ClayShumate]

Hey guys,

I realize Belgium speaks primarily Dutch, but I was searching a few domain ideas and ran across domain which has 150,000+ global searches for it's singular form and 333,000+ for it's plural form. The only problem is, it is in English. Does this really matter much? Most other extensions are taken, and is a very popular word combination right now.

Thanks for your help (sorry I don't want to disclose the domain name!),

Clay

 

[jmcc]

Not really. The DNS.be registry tried to rebrand .be as a catchall type of domain a few years ago when it needed to improve its registration figures to pretend it was a global player instead of a small ccTLD operator. Since then .be figures have been slowly growing though many of the free registrations were later dropped. Just register the domain and see what happens. However don't expect great things as ccTLD tend to follow different traffic rules on generics to .com and the major TLDs.

Regards...jmcc

 

[DragonADR]

.be are not that big as they want to be, but the are slowly growing, and the price is not that high, so I think you should take the risk.

 

[donnied79]

Just a note. In Belgium they primarily speak french (80%) and then dutch (20%).
I've recently been in Bruxelles and .be is very used but I haven't seen it with english words combinations.

 

[ClayShumate]

Just a note. In Belgium they primarily speak french (80%) and then dutch (20%).
I've recently been in Bruxelles and .be is very used but I haven't seen it with english words combinations.

Ah my mistake (either way, it isn't an English speaking country). I'd love to hear more feedback before I go ahead and do this, but the keyword results are just impressive to a newbie like me.

 

[Kate]

Just a note. In Belgium they primarily speak french (80%) and then dutch (20%).

This is the ratio for Brussels. As a whole the majority of Belgians are Flemish and speak Dutch. Some English keywords may be OK, but as a rule it's best to use local language(s) for ccTLDs.
Impossible to tell without knowing the domain.

It depends on the purpose. Is this to target the Belgian public or domain hack or other...

 

[ClayShumate]

Ah well thanks for everyone's help so far.

It is not a hack, it is a profession which is done throughout the world. Just happens to be in English. >_<

 

[Kate]

Depends on how widespread the profession is.
If it's engineers or lawyers go for it. If it's bankteller I would pass.

 

[miller]

If its in the countries native language and a good keyword yes…. In English there are lots of speculative registrations but they are not transferring into sales figures, German even less… If it were purely speculative then probably lll .be (Letter letter letter) are the best way to go still a quite a few left…
I think the Spanish .es sales have performed better

 

[Gerrit]

I see a lot of wrong infos here on my native country ... About the language: the ratio Dutch-French (it's Dutch really, only Flemish patriots will claim Flemish is a language, it's just a dialect of Dutch just like an American and an Englishman speak the same language with a few local differences) is about 50-50. 51% or 52% speaks Dutch, about 48% speaks French, and a minority of less than 1% speaks German. German is however an official language of Belgium and the German speaking minority even has its own parliament. Those are the three official languages of Belgium, however due to the country being quite multicultural a lot of other languages are spoken, we have a huge number of Turkish, Moroccan, Eastern European immigrants for example.

Note as well that the majority of Flemish people speak at least basic French and a fair number of them speaks it fluently. In the Walloon part of the country the number of people speaking Dutch is not as high but it is growing as well. So de facto many are bilingual to a decent extent.

The vast majority of Belgians speaks English very fluently or at least at a decent level. Hence, English keywords with .be should be no issue I think.

.be is very popular, in Belgium it is on par with .com. The last years it has risen in popularity. Also note that DNS.be, the registry, is doing a great job and hence was chosen to organise the launch of the .eu extention (even when they are not the registry for .eu, DNS.be was very much involved in the setup of EurID and the preparations for the launch of the extention). As the Belgian domains are rather cheap (especially when registering with a Belgium or EU based registrar) and as most Belgians speak multiple languages, I'd say it's quite a good extention to look at for investment. Dito for our neighbours Holland, where .nl is even overpowering .com as far as I know.

And no, I am not just bragging but just citing basic facts. I am not a patriottic Belgian at all, just citing the fact that .be is very widely used.

PS: within Brussels, which is de jure bilingual Dutch-French, 80 to 90% are French speakers. I'd even say there will be more Turkish speakers than Dutch speakers residing in Brussels. A lot of Flemish people do work in Brussels though so it's not like Dutch has vanished totally in the capital.