.be value

[Majnoon]

Ok Guys if there is any one from belgium or have experience of .be name can you please share some information. I mean average value of 3 letters good and bad 3 letter. plus average prices of 3 number domains good and bad. basicly any info u know or any source of information that You Know.

Thank You all in advance

any comment?

[Majnoon]

any one with any ideas please

[Pim(P)]

The value of .be domains is low. Most 3 letter's aren't worth more than regfee but great acronyms are worth more of course.

[Majnoon]

OH THAT IS why then there are alot of 3 letter .be domains free to register

[hookah]

Just don't treat ccTLDs in the way the TLDs are. No of letters is not so important criterion, even generic but english words (depends on the english skill of local users) aren't either. I'd look for names in native language (so for .be - french, flemish), also some names connected to european union - as Brussel is eu "headquarters" and would checkup what Belgians are looking for in the net. And english generics at the end.
Cheers, hookah

[katherine]

According to the .be registry (http://dns.be/en/home.php?n=) there are 457679 .be names registered which is not bad for a small country with just 10M inhabitants. Canada in comparison has just 578086 names with 3 times that population (source: http://www.cira.ca/en/home.html).
I think the .be market is actually more mature than many other TLDs, also it is interesting to note that there are no restrictions to registering .be names. They are available to anyone (no local presence requirements).
Good names are still available but be picky. I would stick to acronyms, generic keywords in English but also French and Dutch, possibly German (all native languages).

[FreddyS]

A reason of the low penetration of .be names is also that only 10% have broadband access. There was a nice article about that on Clickz.com few weeks ago.

Freddy

[DNGeeks]

There has to be some value to .be domains with good keywords, even if they are english. Develop the site and get listed on google/dmz/yahoo and you can make some profit.

[Edwin]

There has to be some value to .be domains with good keywords, even if they are english. Develop the site and get listed on google/dmz/yahoo and you can make some profit.

That's true of ANY extension. If you're going to develop in English and you're not aiming at the Belgian market, you're probably better off going for .net/org/info/biz/cc/ws/etc. i.e. not something that is automatically identified as being associated with a county (I know cc and ws are, but most people don't).

[katherine]

Freddy,
Where did you read that broadbrand penetration is 10% in Belgium ? I thought it's much higher than that.

[Edwin]

Here's the latest on Belgium's online population.
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/...le.php/3559946

Only about 2 million businesses/homes are online, but of that, the vast majority is broadband.

Of course, the article talks about "connections" which is not the same as users, since more than one person can get online through one connection. Best I can find is a figure of 53% of Belgians using the Internet in some way at least once a month...
http://www.ispa.be/web/fr/index.php?...&s=1&ref_id=40

[slimcrazy.com]

i think we have a few things to look at, not alot different than .info which is not country specific. But, you could reg anything you wanted at one point they two was free.

As the domains disappeared, they came like other extensions more of a collector item.

When there are 1,000s of 3 letter left you can hand reg, the value stays low.

look at .sc it is a ccTLD, but now they are swinging it to south carolina.


So i regged a few 3 letter 3 number domains.

.be can be catchy if used in the right way.

You can develope it and you can get americans to using it.

Would you rather have a email@yours-something-inc.com
or me@live.be

The second even though not a .com is deff easier to remember.

Once all 3 number letters are gone look for them to be like .us where 3 letters are 1.5 times reg fee for bad letters. upto 3 times for decent letters.

3 number. us $60-100 range.

Deff worth holding a year and seeing what happens with them, I would not be surprised to see a .be hit the DNJ board with couple hundred dollar sale.

When i regged what i wanted in .be I get a diversity of names from america good search engine words. to 3 letter 3 number some off the wall phrases.

alot of internet users are real use to English websites.

We have the population of websites, and for good imforation, people all over the world look at american websites.

Just my 2 cents.

[namewaiter]

i may.be crazy and it may just .be me, but i think the ones who registered the most .be domains will .be the ones who think it has the most potential and value - i could .be wrong?

[Jonathan]

Could you be wrong and be annoying at the same time? Because that would be my guess.

[Banned: domain newbie]

i may.be crazy and it may just .be me, but i think the ones who registered the most .be domains will .be the ones who think it has the most potential and value - i could .be wrong?

everybody was regging, cos they were/maybe still free at regfly and eurodns, they do not provide clicks/views at all(i.e. jurisdiction.be), maybe some Flemish ones would do better there, i have actually been working in Belgium for few weeks ones, middle/working class people does not speak English there at all!

[Bart]

I think the Belgian market is really attractive, and I'll tell you why...

- there's money to be made as general population is rather wealthy (on average, most Belgians have 50K on their saving accounts. This was on national television a couple of weeks ago)
- people overhere love the internet. The government is also stimulating internet-usage via offering an online tax-filing site, e-government projects, an electronical id which can be used on the internet, offering free or sharply reduced broadband connections to some,....
- at least 3 languages are spoken: Flemish [55%], French [40%] & German [5%]. Most people know how to express them in English (certainly the ones active on the Net).
- the .be-extension has become very popular thanks to promotional campaigns by DNS.be, Belgium's registry.
- DNS.be should be one of the better registries outthere: hyper fast transfers, very fast NS-updates, superbe helpdesk, etc etc etc So that helps
- Powerful keyword .be's attract nice typin-volumes. They also convert very well.

I guess registrars will not like what I will say now, but I think it's too late to pick up "good .be's". Most (if not all) are taken.
The value of 3-letter .be's depends on the quality of its letters: 95% of them are worth next to nothing.

OK, now I talked about all the positive aspects, there are some downsides to .be as well...
1. "Domaining" is still not accepted by the general public. It's regarded as something "criminal". I often get email from people insulting me because I own a domain they want. The concept of "domains as e-realestate" has definately not found ground...yet.

2. Due to some cases of cybersquatting, a (very) strict law has been voted which prohibits the registration of domains which are an infringment on TM.
This is nothing different as in other countries, you might think. But actually, it is...
As soon as you own a domain on which someone else might have "rights", you can be brought before court and in 95% of the cases, you'll be ordered to transfer the domain. Geographical places, family names, TM's,... when "bad faith" is proven, you'll have to surrender the name.
I think this strict law is a major downside to investing in .be's.

3. Most Belgian companies haven't discovered the power of domainnames...yet. As a consequence, they are not willing to pay the amounts we are used to see on DNJournal.

Hope this helps.

[FreddyS]

Angelx666,
it depend in which part of the country you where.
for the french part of the country I agree, but not for the flamish part.

[Banned: domain newbie]

I've been to Brussels actually (5yrs ago, thought.. ), i meant, they do not understand you in shops.

or maybe they are pretending, they do not understand, cos they are funny up there, same like in Paris: i.e. you talk to them in English, and they talk back to you in French, even if you have informed them few times before, you dint speak any french at all, happened few times to me

[FreddyS]

I've been to Brussels actually (5yrs ago, thought.. ), i meant, they do not understand you in shops.

or maybe they are pretending, they do not understand, cos they are funny up there, same like in Paris: i.e. you talk to them in English, and they talk back to you in French, even if you have informed them few times before, you dint speak any french at all, happened few times to me

hehe, sounds like you really talked to people from the french part of belgium.

[paulc]

that sounds about right, as they pretend they don't speak english everywhere in France..