Ovidio Dropping .eu domains?

The number of Cyprus registered domains has fallen dramatically since the first of the month. On 01 April 2008 it was 90,363. This morning (29 April) it is 52,509. A quick check of some Ovido Limited domains registered during the April 2006 landrush shows that they are now in Quarantine and scheduled for deletion.

The incompetence of Eurid management is quite staggering. How a bunch of people who had only ever run a third rate, mickey mouse ccTLD ever got the contract to run the .eu ccTLD is a mystery. The result was the mess that is .eu ccTLD.

The numbers for Ireland have increased dramatically as well. From 27,998 on 01 March 2008 to 52,016 on 29 April 2008. This is due to Dotster using an Irish front company to hide over 20K .eu domains that it had cyberwarehoused. But the Eurid management is so utterly incompetent that it has taken no action against this cyberwarehousing operation either.
But then a direct navigation operation like the Ovidio Syndicate dumping .eu domains is not so much the rats leaving the sinking ship (nobody from Eurid management has resigned or retired yet) as a vote of confidence in .eu ccTLD. A direct navigation operation depends on type-in traffic. The user has to type the domain into the browser navigation bar in the hope the site exists. The .eu has such a low profile in the EU that it is not even a third choice domain for new registrants. In terms of public recognition it is irrelevant. Direct Navigation networks tend to work best in successful TLDs. The .eu ccTLD is not a successful TLD.
The sooner Eurid is stripped of the contract to run .eu ccTLD, the better. But then the European Commission probably don’t want to upset their fellow Brussels cronies and their great and successful cesspit of a ccTLD.

Tags: Irishblogs,Eurid, .eu Statistics, Domains, searchengines, Internet Statistics, Cyberwarehousing, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on April 29th, 2008 with 2 comments.
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