dot EU reaches 3 millions names

.EU Domain Registrations Reach 3 Million Milestone

EURid, the European Registry who manages the .eu top-level Internet domain under contract to the European Commission, today announced .eu domain registrations have passed the three million mark. This registration marks significant growth in the registry with an extra one million domain names since July 2007.

Since the .EU domain name extension was launched to the public on April 7th 2006 it has grown to become the forth largest domain in Europe (after the .uk, .de, and .nl), and is the ninth largest global domain.

Mark Boost, Managing Director LCN, a leading UK domain registration company, noted: “It was initially feared that this domain extension would simply become a purchase by companies to protect their brand identity online and not be utilized to its full potential”. “However, since its launch in 2006 we have seen the .eu become a valuable tld to companies wishing to leverage a single common European identity for their online brands”. “

In most countries of the EU, the national ccTLDs have the major share of the market with the remainder spread over .com/.net/.org/.info/.biz. As a result of this, .eu has had an uphill battle to gain a significant share of these national markets. But, with a 50% growth in 2007, the appeal for a website to emphasise its 'European identity' rather than to be seen as being strictly national or global ("dotcom") appears to have been a significant enough fact to aid its rapid growth.

New registrations were seen as an initial guideline of the strong success of the .eu extension. But, this tld has also seen a very positive vote of confidence from the existing domain name holders. According to Boost, "The renewal rates have remained very high for .eu domain names when compared to other popular domain extensions".

With the .eu domain extension yet to celebrate its third anniversary, the future success of the European domain name is expected to continue to grow in strength.