.CZ – Price Decrease – February 1, 2012

Please note the following price decrease for .CZ domains that will take effect February 1, 2012:

• Reseller: Reduced from 368.90* (net: 310.00) CZK to 351.05* (net: 295.00) CZK
• Premium: Reduced from 315.35* (net: 265.00) CZK to 297.50* (net: 250.00) CZK
• Platinum: Reduced form 255.85* (net: 215.00) CZK to 238.00 (net: 200.00) CZK

.AC, .IO and .SH – Price Decrease – February 1, 2012

Effective February 1, 2012, HEXONET will be reducing the price for .AC, .IO and .SH domains:

• Reseller: Reduced from 36.30* (net: 30.50) GBP to 34.51* (net: 29.00) GBP
• Premium: Reduced from 34.51* (net: 29.00) GBP to 32.73* (net: 27.50) GBP
• Platinum: Reduced form 31.89* (net: 26.80) GBP to 30.11* (net: 25.30) GBP

* The GROSS price includes Germany’s 19% VAT; many resellers pay the lower NET price without VAT.

Last month the Dutch ccTLD, .NL, became the third largest ccTLD in the world.  This move pushes .CN into fourth (China) and puts the .NL ccTLD just behind .CO.UK (United Kingdom, 2nd overall) and .DE (German, 1st overall).  Currently, there are more than 4.3 million registered .NL domain names. And with only 16.5 million people in the Netherlands, in terms of domain density per capita, .NL has the highest ratio worldwide with one domain name for every five dutch citizens.

This past February at DOMAINfest, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Michiel Henneke, Marketing Manager at  SIDN, the official registry for .NL.  Michiel was not only very insightful, but also provided us with some fantastic information about .NL and new initiatives at SIDN.  HEXONET would like to share with our resellers some of our conversation with Mr. Henneke.  However, before we begin, we would also like to thank Mr. Henneke for his time and kindess.


Question and Answer:

1. What is your role at SIDN?
   
   As Marketing Manager my primary responsibilities are Registrar satisfaction, Product development, market research and business intelligence. I’ve held this position for almost 5 years now.
2. There are now more than 4.3 million .NL domains registered. Last month .NL overtook .CN to become the 3rd largest ccTLD in the world. What do you attribute to the strong growth in .NL registrations in recent years?
   
   The Dutch Market is – in my opinion – an underestimated market. Last year it grew almost significantly faster than the world market, even with penetration rates that already rank among the worlds’ highest.
   
   Internally this can be attributed to our dense professional registrar network (over 1900 .nl-registrars, ex. Resellers), our liberal policy, EPP-compliant interfacing. Externally the Dutch market has a the 2nd highest internet penetration (broadband) worldwide, a high per capita income and a strong ICT-sector. It is of course also the site of a major internet junction (AMS-IX). What distinguishes Dutch consumers and entrepreneurs is the ease with which they adopt new technologies, set up websites and register domain names.
3. Where is SIDN heading? What do you expect over the next three years for .NL? Are there any specific initiatives that you would like to share with our readers.
   
   We implemented EPP last year, so there will be no major overhaul this year. An important change this year will be the introduction of a live transfer process and benchmarking information for registrars where they can compare key business indicators with the overall market (churn rate, growth rate).
4. Are there any challenges / obstacles for .NL moving forward?
   
   We’re confident that the Dutch market will remain strong in the short and medium term, and that demand for .nl will continue to grow along with the economic recovery. Taking the long view: we’re really interested in how the developments in mobile internet and social media are going to influence the demand for domain names in years. How are people going to use the web and how will that influence the industry? I intend to look into this trend closely form a registry perspective.
5. We understand that 2011 is a special year for SIDN. On 25 April, .NL will be exactly 25 years old. It was one of the very first top-level domains whose control was delegated to an organisation outside the USA. Can you please elaborate on some of the activities SIDN has organized to commemorate this.  For example with the website: http://www.de25jaarvan.nl/
   
   Most activities will take place in the Netherlands itself. Our website is meant to collect as many anecdotes on the history of .nl as possible. The best ones will be published in a glossy Magazine this spring. In addition to that we’ll be organizing a major anniversary event this fall and an exhibition in the Amsterdam Science Museum.

HEXONET has been using Twitter for a couple of years now and we are amazed to see the international scope of our followers. One of our recent followers hails from Spain. His name is Jaime Echeverry (Twitter handle: japersonal) and it turns out that he is the founder and operator of Spain’s largest web hosting forum called CommunidadHosting. We have reached out to Jaime and he has kindly provided us with some of his thoughts and knowledge on Spain’s country-code top-level domain .ES.  Before we start HEXONET wants to thank Jaime for his time and his valuable insights.

Quick Snapshot of the .ES ccTLD:

• Originally created in 1989, managed by Red.es since 2000
• There are currently 1,247,978 .ES domains registered
• Approximately 90% of .ES domains are registered directly under .ES (remaining 10% under second-level domains like .com.es etc)
• .ES and .COM are the main players in the Spanish domain market (.ES with approximately 47% and .COM with 40%)
• .ES was liberalized in 2005 meaning that anyone worldwide can now register a .ES domain
• .ES domains are also available in IDNs
• Apple is now using .ES as a link shortener.

.ES Domain Registration Growth:

Source: Red.es

Questions & Answers:

HEXONET:  We noticed that you are using a .COM for your website Communidadhosting.com. And it looks like other domain name companies in Spain are also using .COM. For example, Nicline.com, Domibay.com, Domisfera.com and Dinahosting.com.  Also, the 20 most popular sites in Spain nearly all use .COM.  Is .COM the most popular domain extension in Spain?  What are other popular domain extensions?

Jaime Echeverry: Dinahosting and Nicline are accredited with both ICANN and Red.es. Domibay provides a marketplace and escrow services for domain names, while Domisfera is one of the main blogs in Spanish dedicated to domain names. I believe .COM and .ES are the most predominant extensions in Spain with each having roughly the same number of registrations, depending on the information source. For instance, Webhosting.info counts 1,083,865 .COM domains as of November 2010. Red.es counts 1,257,239 .ES domains for the same period. With regards to popularity, again it also depends on the source. If you compare the Alexa ranking and the Netcraft Toolbar’s rank, you will not necessarily obtain the same results. According to Netcraft, the second most popular site is Elmundo.es In Spain many popular sites choose to redirect their .ES domain to the .COM version. For instance, www.elpais.es and www.marca.es, or www.tuenti.es which is the number one in Netcraft’s rank.

HEXONET: How active is the domainer market in Spain? I understand that a Domaining conference was recently held this past September in Valencia.

Jaime Echeverry: There are a couple of large players with Grupo ITnet being one of them. According to Webhosting.info, they manage close to 10,000 domains, although I bet the figure is larger as .ES domains are not counted there.

HEXONET: What are Spain’s the most popular domain service and aftermarket companies?

Jaime Echeverry: Although I do not have access to the figures, I would guess that SEDO is the leader here. There are a handful of players including Domibay and Domobay.

HEXONET: What are some of the trends regarding the .ES ccTLD?

Jaime Echeverry:  In my opinion, the .ES domain will continue to grow at a slow pace, at least during 2011 and perhaps into 2012. From December 2009 to December 2010 the total active domains count increased by just 3.32%, a little more than 40,000, reaching 1.247,978 domains according to the stats provided by Red.es.

HEXONET:  What do you see as the challenges / obstacles for .ES moving forward?

Jaime Echeverry: The .ES registry will face quite a challenge with the upcoming new gTLDs, as many regions and cities in Spain are applying for their own TLD like .GAL, .EUS, .AND, .VAL and .MADRID. Although some registrants would like to keep both .ES and their own local gTLD, many would prefer the latter so we may end up with less .ES registrations. Hopefully, the team behind .ES is prepared to face this challenge and will continue to position .ES as one of the largest ccTLDs in the world.