Issue 157 - 11th June 2004

More countries offering Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)

The list of domain name suffixes that provide IDN capability is continuing to grow as more and more registries are implementing the new punycode standard. IDNs provide the ability to register domain names containing non-ASCII characters, meaning you can now register domain names in all major languages.

The latest registries to open up for IDN registrations are .ac (Ascension Island), .sh (St Helena) and .io (British Indian Ocean Territory). These domains can now be registered via the 'register' link on the netnames website at www.netnames.com

Domain name registrations hit all-time high

The first three months of 2004 was a record quarter for the domain name industry, with more than 4.7 million new domain names registered, according to a report released by VeriSign Inc.

That brings the total number of registered domain names to 63 million, approximately one for every 100 people living in the world.

Other key trends identified in the report include: 

•  A greater percentage of domain names are now being used (72% of today's domain names link to a live web site, up from 55% in December 2002).
• country code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) account for a growing portion of overall domain names (currently represent 40% of all domain names registered worldwide).

3rd-level .pro domains are now live

3rd-level .pro domains went live on June 1st. This means that anyone who is eligible can now register the following domains on a first come first served basis. 

•  .law.pro (Legal and Legal-related services)
•   .cpa.pro (Accountancy and accountancy-related services) 
•  .med.pro (Medical and health-related services)

From 12 July, qualified professionals will be able to purchase a 2nd-level domain as long as they qualify and purchase any two of the three 3rd-level domains shown above.

Orders can be placed on the NetNames website at www.netnames.com  
3rd-level requests will be processed immediately and 2nd-level requests will be processed on July 12, as soon as the registry opens up for 2nd-level registrations.

Defensive registration for trademark holders is also available. If you are interested in obtaining a defensive registration of your trademark, then please call NetNames at the following numbers:

UK: +44 20 7549 5355 
US: +1 212 627 4599

More information on .pro and a full explanation of qualification criteria is available from www.gtld.com 

Search Engine Strategies

NetNames attended the search engine strategies conference in London last week. A key finding to come out of this event was that domain names can play an important role in optimising a company’s search engine ranking.

Registering country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) can help improve your ranking on local search engines, which often rank websites with a local suffix above those with a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD). The other issue to consider when looking at search engine optimisation is the use of hyphens in multi word domain names. Often search engines will better recognise the individual words within a domain name (e.g. french-wine.com) if the words are separated by hyphens. Therefore it is prudent to consider registering both the hyphenated and the non-hyphenated version of key domain names.

NetNames conclusion is that search engine optimisation needs to be included as one element of an overall corporate domain name strategy. Improving search engine ranking is part of an overall marketing effort to increase traffic to your website. Looking at common misspellings and typos is also an effective way to capture traffic that may have otherwise gone elsewhere.