Ok, now here is an interesting one for European ccTLD(s)...

[Mike]

One of the things that's been running through my mind, and our English NP users can probably answer that best, what is the acceptance level of ccTLD(s) in europe? What is someone has a website that's catering to Norway, the U.K and Greece alike? What extension is this person/site supposed to go with. Each country to its own or is a .eu extension acceptable/recognized AND USED in the European Union?

I'll add a poll to this...

 

[Constantin]

Each country on its own.
There will be some time until .eu get recognition in the mind of an usual customer.

 

[Smith]

I'm in Europe at the moment and have been for a couple years now.

Just from casual observations in the countries I've been in, it's pretty clear that the local ccTLD has dominance, followed by .com, and on pan-european trucks you'll see other ccTLD's that match the origin of the truck.

I think .eu is pretty well done now, a complete flash in the pan killed by overzealous domainers.

 

[dhscott]

There aren't many .eu domains advertised I must add, I have seen more .travel names on television. blackanddecker.eu is the only one I have seen on TV.

visitflorida.travel
egypt.travel

Both advertised on British TV.

 

[Mike]

after looking into the entire subject matter a bit closer, the costs of even one major ccTLD would be at least equal or in many cases greater than the cost of a .EU. Since my project is going to extend into the European market, i looked at intelbank.(ccTLD) the .at extension alone is $79.95/yr - recurring, .de $14.95, at the same time, .EU is at $11.99/yr, of course, if one wants to cover all of Europe, in terms of acceptance level, it would make sense to go with each ccTLD by itself, the costs would be a bit painful though. Thus, i went with IntelBank.eu, and hope that the .eu extension is used, accepted and at some point in time has the same level of acceptance as .us (wishful thinking i'm afraid)

so, get on the .eu domains people, we need a value push there

 

[Coopey]

The only 'old skool' EU country I've seen any heavy .eu advertising in was Belgium. The others I've visted recently (UK, France, Germany and Spain) have all been pro-ccTLD.
From what I've read here on NP, the Eastern EU countries such as Slovakia are tending to favour .eu, as I can imagine many in the UK for an example not even being able to guess at what country code .sk is.
(The four LLL.eu I went after were all registered by Czechs.)

If I was in your situation, I'd grab the .eu and major ccTLDs (where there is a big population used to websites with the ccTLD) .de, .co.uk, .it and .es (and .fr if eligible) and have these pointing to subdomains on the main domain, either as uk.mydomain.eu, or uk.mydomain.com.

I think my solution is option 2-ish, so I''ve voted for that.

P.S.
.at is cheaper than that at EuroDNS by the way. They were doing €4pa registrations last year, but they've now gone up to €24 ($30-ish?)

Norway is not part of the EU, and .no is for residents only.

 

[gazzip]

I think that the .eu is the best choice given your target, if you concentrate on good seo then it will do just as well in the search engines as any other extension.

It may be a while before many of the .eu domains get into the hands of endusers but it will happen IMO

.

 

[Mike]

I think that the .eu is the best choice given your target, if you concentrate on good seo then it will do just as well in the search engines as any other extension.

It may be a while before many of the .eu domains get into the hands of endusers but it will happen IMO

It's a surprise to me how badly the .eu TLD has been positioned. in terms of coverage, that should be a no-brainer for most international companies. let's hope that the .eu recovers at some point.

 

[Damion]

If i would want to target multiple .eu countries i would go for the .eu extension.

 

[reg.log]

If your business is crossing the border of one country, you should start looking for the next closest extension of the targeted market segment.
Which is obviously the .EU in this case.
So definitively Pool option No.3.

According to my "theory" the next extension after the .EU shoul be the .COM :lol:
and then the .GALAXY :lol: :lol:

 

[central]

Without a doubt the local ccTlds!

If you already have the .com and think it's to expensive to get all ccTlds you should use the .com. Reg .eu and redirect it to the .com.

Let the first page of the .com be a "chose your country" type of site.


central