As HEXONET’s primary foriegn office is based in Vancouver, Canada, we thought we would take the opportunity to share some insight on CIRA and the .CA ccTLD (country-code Top-Level Domain).

Overview:

• The .CA registry is operated by CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority),  a not-for-profit corporation
• The .CA registry was created in 1987 by volunteers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver.
• The registry was officially transferred to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) on December 1, 2000.
• .CA domain names are reserved for Canadian persons, organizations and entities that meet CIRA’s Canadian Presence Requirements
• Whois privacy is enabled by default for domains registered to individuals (WHOIS privacy can be disabled through CIRA’s provided web portal).  Registrations by corporate entities are shown.
• There are now 1,457,488 .CA domains registered.

Trends & Future Outlook:

• In 2009, 27 per cent of all domain registrations in Canada where .CA, second only to .COM.
• The .CA registry has enjoyed considerable growth, in spite of the recent global economic woes, and between 2007 and 2009, .CA registrations grew by 16 per cent, significantly higher than the six per cent annual global growth rate of generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). (Source: CIRA)
• The aftermarket for .CA domains continues to grow every year. For example, this summer, Poker.ca sold for $400,000.
• Some of the world’s largest domainers including Kevin Ham, Garry Chernoff and Frank Schilling hail from Vancouver.  The popular T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Domain Conference and Expo was recently held in Vancouver
• 2009 marked the launch of the DOAC (Domain Owners Association of Canada).  The the mission of the Domain Owners Association of Canada (DOAC) is to provide a collective voice for individuals and corporations in the Canadian domain industry including domain owners, registrars, domain parking providers, lawyers, advertising agencies and the media.
• CIRA has committed to the full deployment of DNSSEC, the security extensions for DNS, and has been conducting extensive research and analysis into the technical and operational impact of signing the .CA zone file. The roll-out is anticipated in the later part of 2011.

What Do you Think?
Currently, .CA domains names are reserved for Canadian persons, organizations and entities that meet CIRA’s Canadian Presence Requirements. With many large ccTLDs abolishing this requirement in recent years, do you think that CIRA should also remove these restrictions?  This week’s DomainNameWire features a guest article written my prominent domain name attorney Zak Muscovitch.  The article outlines his argument as to why the .CA ccTLD needs to be liberalized. We would like to hear your comments regarding this topic.

NASK, the registry operator of the .PL country-code Top-Level Domain, recently released its second quarter 2010 report on the state of the .PL registry. HEXONET would like to share some of the stats with you as well as some interesting facts about the .PL domain in general.

Overview:

The PL registry finished the second quarter with over 1,834, 726 .PL domains registered. This is on the heels of a record breaking first quarter for NASK.  Clearly, the popularity of .PL is growing domestically, regionally and even internationally. In fact, among the ten (10) largest European national registries, .PL is growing the fastest.  The .PL registry now only trails .IT (Italy) in terms of EU ccTLD rankings for total domains registered.

Annual Growth Rate of EU-based ccTLD Registries

Secondary Market:

The secondary domain market in Poland is has grown tremendously. Both Namedrive and Sedo are very active in this market as well as local players like Aftermarket.pl and Dropped.pl.  Even the lastest MeetDomainers European conference was held last week in Sopot, Poland.

With the this growing market, NASK is even providing tools and services for domain investors. Some of the Registry services include:

1. DNT (Domain Name Tasting) – Allows you to activate a new domain for a trial period of 14 days at a very low fee. During that period your domain is fully active on your DNS servers. DNT allows you to ‘test-drive’ your domain before you decide to buy it.
2. WLS (Wait List Services) – Gives the WLS holder the first right to register a domain name if the current subscriber cancels their registration and the domain becomes available within 3 years.
3. NASK Drop Lists – The Registry publishes free drop lists for domainers three times a day.

.PL at a Glance:
Available Domains: .pl (plus .com.pl, info.pl, net.pl, org.pl, info.pl, biz.pl)
Pricing:  View pricing
Requirements: Anyone can register a .PL domain
Registry: NASK
Registration Period: 1-10yrs.
IDN Capable: Yes

NIC.AT, the official registry of the country-code Top-Level-Domain of Austria, has recently released their second NIC.AT report.  In April, we featured a blog posting that provided the inaugural analysis and report of NIC.AT that many of you enjoyed. In this post, we would like to provide a summary of the second and newest report, including some very interesting trends and statistics.

Summary:

• The .AT ccTLD continues to be in high demand. As of July 1, 2010 the .AT zone had over 939,951 registered domains.  It is expected to reach the 1,000,000 milestone by the end of this year!  This is an impressive number considering that Austria does not have a huge population base.

• Among all registrants, private individuals register an equal share of .AT domains as businesses and organisations together. Just over half (53%) of all domains are held by legal entities such as businesses and organisations, with the remainder accounted for by private individuals.

• There is a strong appetite for .AT domains from abroad. According to NIC.AT, “Demand for .AT domains from Germany are undiminished, with almost 190,000 .AT domains currently registered with German owners. The .AT suffix is also proving increasing popular among the Swiss, and somewhat surprisingly, the English.”
•  
• .AT Registrations from Abroad
• 

• Holzhausen?  This tiny town in upper Austria with a population of 800 people is the domain capital of Austria. The number of domains registered outnumber the locals with an impressive 1.58  registered .AT domains per inhabitant.

• The report also covered the imminent introduction of new gTLDs  by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). In fact, NIC.AT is leveraging their experience as a registry operator and now offers consulting services to applicants considering applying for a new gTLD. It also provides a Registry-in-a-box service to these applicants.

Why Register an .AT domain?

• If you run a business that operates in Austria or sells into Austria, an .AT is a must.
• Idioms: There is an increasing use of .AT domains to capitalize on catchy domain names that represent certain English expressions / idioms that feature ‘at’ at the end or include ‘at’ in the expression. For example, Form.at, Bureaucr.at  ‘good.at’, ‘targeted.at’, etc.  In fact, we came across the following US-based company that operates a free online  website builder for restaurants called letseat.at
• Austria does not limit the registration of .AT only to its citizens, but allows .AT domains to be registered by anyone worldwide.

Click here to access the entire NIC.AT report.

A Thirst for Domain Names in Germany…

We know that Germans are major consumers of beer and bratwurst….Oktoberfest anyone?  But did you know that Germany is also a powerhouse when it comes to worldwide domain registrations. For instance, the country’s .DE ccTLD (country-code Top-Level Domain) is the largest ccTLD in the world.  Here are some interesting insights into the .DE ccTLD, as well as, the progressive domain name market in Germany:

• Germany’s .DE ccTLD is the largest ccTLD in the world with 13,778,408 domains registered. In fact, .DE is the second largest domain extension next to .COM – Click here for the most recent statistics on ccTLDs.
• Almost half of all .DE domains are hyphenated (unlike in North America where hyphenated domains are not very popular, the language semantics of German make hyphens more natural)
• In Germany, the .DE ccTLD is king, meaning .DE is much more popular than .COM when choosing a domain
• Direct navigation is still very popular in Germany. Many people will type a name followed by .DE into the browser directly.
• Germany has 65 million Internet users, the highest among the member states of the European Union.  Most German users are very Internet-savvy.
• Germany has one of the largest domain aftermarkets. It is dominated by one large player, SEDO.
• .DE is the most popular ccTLD in the aftermarket for domain names.  Year-to-date, some significant sales include:  Software.de (235,000 Euros), Free-SMS.de (115,000 Euros) and Website.de (101,150 Euros). Source: DNJournal

Top 20 Cities and Regions with the most domains in 2009:

.DE at a Glance:
Available Domains: .de
Pricing:  View pricing
Requirements: Local presence required
Registry: DENIC
Registration Period: 1 month, 1 year

In addition to offering Trustee Services for .DE registrations (local presence for Non-German entities), HEXONET is pleased to be able to offer “monthly” billing for .DE domains. This feature offers tremendous advantages for both novice, as well as professional domainers. Click here to learn more.  Lastly, HEXONET recently has become one of the first registrars worldwide to be able to offer DNSSEC for .DE registrations.  We highly suggest all our customers to read up on DNSSEC and its importance.

HEXONET will be attending this year’s DomainVermarkterForum in Munich.  We are looking forward to the event and are excited to be able to meet up with all the other attendees.   The sixth DomainVermarketForum in Munich is bound to be a fantastic event.

Event Details

• Event: DomainVermarkterforum 2010
• Date: September 2 – 3, 2010
• Location: Sofitel Munich Bayerpost

The DomainVermarketForum is the biggest and most prominent “Domainer” event in Germany.  According to The DVF Team, they already have more than 140 confirmed attendees and the list is growing!

DomainVermarketForum Topics, Sessions, and Auction:

• A discussion on the responsibility and liability of the Administrative Contact of .DE Domains. (This has been an ongoing discussion for many years now, as in order to register .DE Domains you need to have a local presence and this local presence has to be a natural person and may not be an organization).
• The potential of generic Domains – such as Sale.de, Boxen.de/ Bodybuilding.de, Triathlon.de
• Internet-Profiling-Service by VeriSign
• Live auction with the support of Moniker/SnapNames.
• … and many more.

If you are interested in reselling gTLDs & ccTLDs or want to know more about HEXONET’s highly successful Domain Backorder Services, contact us at sales@hexonet.net to arrange a brief meet and greet at the event.

If you are familiar with URL shorteners, you may have recently come across “goo.gl”.  Since last year, Google’s Toolbar and FeedBurner syndication service have been using Goo.gl for its link sharing.  So what is .gl?

What is .GL?

.GL is the official ccTLD (country code Top-Level-Domain) of Greenland. HEXONET is happy to announce the immediate availability of .GL to the company’s ever growing list of ccTLDs. HEXONET through 1API, the official house registrar of HEXONET, is among the first registrars worldwide to be offering the .GL ccTLD to the public.

.GL Highlights:
Available Domains: .gl
Pricing:  View Pricing
Requirements: none
Registry: GLNIC (TELE Greenland A/S)
Registration Period: 1-2yrs

Addtional Tidbits:

Did you know that Greenland is the world’s largest non-continental island? It is 3 times the size of Texas.

Greenland isn’t actually green. Over eighty percent of the island (1.8 million square kilometers or 1.1 square miles) is covered with ice. Only Antarctica has more ice.  During the Arctic summer, the sun never sets in Greenland. In Ilulissat, the sun never sets from 25th May to 25th July.

If you are interested in registering larger volumes of .gl domains, please do not hesitate to contact our sales team at:  sales@hexonet.net and allow us to provide you with a quote.

With the multitude of registrars offering reseller solutions and platforms, it can be difficult to find the registrar that is right for you.  The best registrar will be one that offers a comprehensive set of features, a long history of operational excellence, and an abundance of services to resell:

1.) A Large Variety of TLDs from a Single Source

Whether one is only interested in selling a few TLDs or many, going with a registrar with a wide selection of TLDs is better than a registrar with less.  More TLDs means more options and less headaches over the long term.

Imagine being approached by a large customer of yours about a TLD that you don’t offer.  You check with your registrar and they don’t offer that TLD.  Now you are in a bind.  You either tell your customer, at the risk of losing their business, that you can’t offer the TLD or you frantically try to provision the new TLD through another registrar.  Trying to bring up another TLD through another registrar can entail:

1. Review and execution of a new reseller agreement, which possibly adds more financial commitment or requires upfront capital.
2. Possibly time and energy to integrate a new API with the new registrar
3. Additional time for initial and ongoing testing to ensure the integration stability

As one can see, the scenario is not pretty.  With a registrar like HEXONET, which has a wide variety of domains, such problems are avoided.  In fact, adding a new TLD can be as simple as a few mouse clicks.  This is the power of a registrar with hundreds of TLDs.

2.) ccTLD Growth

Market economics are hard to deny.  The domain industry is seeing a prominence of ccTLDs.  At of the end July, 2010, the following stats were published:

• .COM – 88,831,766 Domains
• .DE – 13,752,101 Domains
• .NET – 13,241,122 Domains
• .UK – 8,654,260 Domains
• .ORG – 8,611,202 Domains
• .CN – 7,246,686 Domains
• .INFO – 6,753,547 Domains
• .NL – 3,976,037 Domains
• .EU – 3,220,758 Domains
• .BIZ – 2,142,157 Domains

As the .com namespace becomes ever so scarce, ccTLDs as an alternative will continue to grow in popularity.  Having a registrar like HEXONET, who offers the wide selection of TLDs makes reselling ccTLDs a snap.

3.) Importance of High Performance Real-Time Systems

In a nutshell, having transactions execute within seconds mean more business for a reseller.  Resellers on a fast platform will have advantages over the competition on a slower platform.

• Check Domain Availability – Execution in seconds results in more domain searches; long execution times will result in customers leaving or never coming back to use your domain search again.
• Domain Registrations – Some registrar have parts of their system running in manual or batch mode, this means the actual registration may happen long afterward, putting a registration in jeopardy.  Registrations need to be completed within seconds and the respective WHOIS should be available immediately (registry dependent)
• Domain Modifications (such as WHOIS Uupdates, DNS Updates, …etc.) should get processed to the respective registry immediately, thus providing you immediate feedback if an update was successful or not.

Speed and execution of the reseller platform will effect how customers view a reseller.  The faster and more reliable the registrar platform the better a reseller looks to the buying public.  At HEXONET, not only do we pride ourselves on having real-time systems throughout our platform, but also for having some of the fastest domain checks and transactions anywhere.

4.) Comprehensive Registry Features

Features and functionality provided by the various registries are intended to assist in the registration and management of domains.  Given the importance of these features, strangely enough not every reseller platform makes these features available.  HEXONET prides itself on allowing for as many registry features in our solution.

• Autorenew feature, including allowing for an autorenew grace period (a defined period of time, which allows you to delete a domain in this period and still receive a refund)
• Multiyear registrations
• IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) capabilities – though many registries allow IDN registrations not many registrars support it.  IDNs are however on the horizon.
• Transfer capability via all methods – many registrars do not offer the full range of transfer capabilities for the respective TLDs they sell

5.) Integration Flexibility

Many registrar systems only offer one way to connect with them.  As it is with TLD selection, a wide variety of choice makes it easier for the reseller.  HEXONET for instance allows for six different ways for resellers to connect and register domains:

• Mailrobot
• SOAP
• XML/RPC
• HTTPS-API
• WebInterface or User Interface or Control Panel
• And as of recently possibly an EPP Gateway

6.) Future Proofing  Through Accreditation Management

A reseller many potential one day have enough domains of a particular TLD to consider becoming directly accredited with a respective registry.  Reseller platforms without a TLD management solution will create huge pains for the reseller at the point of separation or migration.  This pain is also evident if the TLD management solution only supports a small number of TLDs (typically gTLDs only).  Again, support for a wide variety of domains is key.

HEXONET has a decade of experience and expertise with gTLDs/ICANN and ccTLDs.  Accreditation migration and management has been made as simple as flicking on a switch.  Because of the wide selection of TLDs offered at HEXONET, all gTLDs and most ccTLDs accreditation can be quickly and easily migrated for a reseller.

7.) Updated Engineering – The DNSSEC Example

Some reseller platforms are stagnant.  Feature releases are slow or nonexistent.  New TLDs may rarely happen.  Resellers stuck on such platforms are losing out on both revenue and big profits.  Resellers should look for a platform that is growing and constantly improving.  A simple test, as of the fall of 2010, for your registrar’s engineering speed or willingness is to check if your registrar supports DNSSEC.

DNSSEC is a significant change to the way DNS is handled over the Internet.  If your registrar doesn’t have DNSSEC or doesn’t plan to support it, this might indicate engineering slowness.  To read more on DNSSEC and why your registrar should already be on top of this topic, please read the recent blog post “DNSSEC – Overview for Resellers“.

If you have any questions or need advice on reseller platforms please feel free to direct your questions to sales@hexonet.net.  HEXONET would be happy to provide more insight.

Why DNSSEC is Important to Resellers and End Users

Though technologies like the Domain Name System (DNS) are fundamental to making the Internet work, businesses using the Internet, typically don’t need to know the details of the technology to make use of it.  Most resellers go on without ever giving such technologies a second thought.  However, for those businesses, spending a little time trying to understand important technology shifts can result in real benefits and competitive advantage. DNSSEC (Secure DNS) is one such technology that resellers should monitor.

Without going into the technical mumbo jumbo, in a nutshell, DNSSEC is a secure version of the well established and insecure version of DNS.  Cache poisoning, the unauthorized access and modification of DNS caches to intentionally spoof websites, hijack email, and even steal passwords has been a major vulnerability.  DNSSEC ensures cache poisoning is prevented, that DNS data cannot be forged and that data originating from its stated source is not modified in transit.

DNSSEC is a High Value Security Feature

With the domain and hosting markets being so competitive, a new feature, especially a high value security feature like DNSSEC, can create an opportunity to gain customers.  This is particularly true if one’s competitors are unable to offer the same feature.  Right now, .DE, .ORG, .EU and .SE domains registered at HEXONET can be signed with the registrant’s DNSSEC validation keys.  DNSSEC not only adds a technical layer of security for the domain holder, but more importantly, provides the registrant the peace of mind that their domain can’t be used for malicious purposes.

First DNSSEC Accredited European Registrar with .ORG

Robert Birkner, Chief Strategy Officer of HEXONET, “wants to congratulate the Public Interest Registry, for being the first generic Top-Level-Domain registry to fully deploy DNSSEC. We are delighted to support PIR in many of its initiatives and in particular its leadership in DNSSEC.”

“We congratulate 1API for passing the DNSSEC certification for .ORG,” says Alexa Raad, CEO of .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, “and applaud them for taking a leadership role in the European registrar community for supporting DNSSEC.”

Why Choose HEXONET’s Future-proof  DNSSEC

HEXONET is one of the first registrars to fully support DNSSEC.  In fact, HEXONET’s implementation of DNSSEC supports both DS based and DNSKEY based delegation to ensure seamless interoperability with a wide variety of registries for today and in the future.  Technically this means, as a HEXONET reseller, we have you covered no matter how individual registries implement their DNSSEC.

“”As pioneer in DNSSEC, .SE welcomes 1API as a registrar that can offer DNSSEC to their customers.” – Danny Aerts, CEO of the SE Registry

In February, HEXONET featured a blog posting titled, “.CO, the Hottest TLD in 2010” where we had the opportunity to interview Lori Anne Wardi, Director of Marketing for .CO Internet S.A.S. , the .CO registry operator.  This new TLD officially became available to the general public on June 20, 2010.  We thought this would be a good opportunity to provide readers with some relevant updates, as well as, key reasons why businesses should consider taking advantage of this new extension.

1) The numbers are in…

Here are some of the preliminary numbers, which indicate that the TLD is off to a roaring start.

• in the first minute of opening up for registrations, there were approximately 8,000 names registered
• within the first 5 minutes, approximately 40,000 names and subsequently within 30 minutes, 100,000 names!
• the current tally sits at:  359,177

2) Google and .CO

Google has confirmed that it will allow .CO to be treated as an international domain name.

A Google spokesperson recently told PC Pro magazine, “We will rank .CO domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted. Webmasters will soon have the functionality to be able to specify this by using the geo-targeting options in Google Webmaster Tools,”

3) Major corporations are already taking advantage of this new extension

• Twitter is one of the earliest adopters with t.CO, which the company is using for its URL shortening service similar to Bit.ly.
• Commerce giant Overstock.com recently purchased o.CO for $350,000  Click here to hear an interview of Jonathan Johnson, President of Overstock.com on their purchase of o.CO

4) e.CO auction

In June, e.CO was auctioned off for $81,000! Click here for more details.

5) HEXONET believes that .CO has the potential to become a premier web extension. Here are some reasons why businesses should consider taking advantage of this new TLD:

i)   CO is already understood around the world as the abbreviation for  “company” and “corporation”. In fact, many countries already use third-level domain designations that feature .CO (for example .co.uk, .co.nz, .co.jp). Research carried out on behalf of .CO Internet S.A.S, revealed that 75 percent of web users said they associated .CO with ‘company’, ‘corporation’, or other commercial endeavours.

ii)   As we all know, the .COM domain space is very crowded.  .CO can be a viable alternative to .COM. In fact, .CO Internet S.A.S. has indicated that their real sweet spot is “anyone with an idea, anyone with a dream, anyone with a business they are waiting to build or brand that they want to extend or promote and giving them an opportunity to find that perfect name to build out.”  In addition, according to a study done by leading market research company Ad-ology (http://www.ad-ology.com), 46% of small businesses do not have websites! Don’t be part of those statistics. This represents a great opportunity to take advantage of .CO for new entrepreneurs out there.

iii)   For existing .COM owners, it is also a good opportunity to protect your brand with a .CO registration

Finally, HEXONET would like to send kudos to the team at Internet S.A.S for doing an awesome job with the launch of .CO.  We look forward to seeing them garner much success in the years ahead.

HEXONET’s advanced pre-registration technology for new TLD releases, like Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) for the communications-focused .tel, impresses customers with it’s ease of use, performance, and success rate in acquiring domains.

Homburg, Germany – June 16, 2010 – HEXONET (www.hexonet.net) announced today that over ninety percent (90%) of pre-registered multilingual .tel domain names, placed with HEXONET, were successfully registered on behalf of its clients and resellers, when Telnic, the registry operator for the award-winning, communications-focused .tel, went live with IDN registrations on June 15th.  The first .tel IDN registered was “ärzte.tel”, German for  “doctors.tel”, which was registered through Germany based registrar 1API GmbH – the registrar of HEXONET GmbH.  With the growing importance, popularity, and value of IDN domain names, the acquisition of such a large percentage of pre-registered .tel IDNs has HEXONET customers elated.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are registered and accessed using non-Latin characters.  For Telnic, these are domain names using the following languages – Chinese, Danish, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.  As the Internet continues to garner more global users, the demand of IDNs continues to grow unabated.

According to Justin Hayward, Business Development Director at Telnic, “the value of a .tel name, the Internet’s only concise and universally-accessible online calling card, is now greater and more universal with IDNs.  The ability for anyone to access your online contact information in their own language is highly beneficial.  We’d also like to congratulate 1API GmbH on registering the first .tel IDN.”

HEXONET’s high acquisition success for .tel IDNs is the result of countless engineering hours and years of operational optimizations.  Today, HEXONET customers have access to one of the industry’s most advanced pre-registration systems anywhere.  And with many more new TLD launches on the horizon, like .CO on July 20th, now is the time for individuals, businesses, and organizations to start pre-registering.

About HEXONET
Since 1999, HEXONET has been a leading developer and service provider of reseller technologies for the domain industry, including domain backordering and pre-registration.  Thousands of resellers, startups and service providers from across the world trust HEXONET as their domain platform provider. And today, HEXONET manages over 700K thousands domains for its clients.

HEXONET Media Relations
T: +49 6841 6984-0
F: +49 6841 6984-199
info@hexonet.net
http://hexonet.net