Basically, the company in question is launching a European focused version of their site on a .eu. They already have several successful North American versions of their site (on different domains for different areas).
Since this is a European based website and not a country based website, they don't want to build several websites on each of the country TLDs, but they do wish to register the country TLDs to prevent domain squatting. Unfortunatly, some countries have residency requirments which the company cannot fill.
I know there are services that can register these European domains on a client's behalf. Does anyone have a recommendation on these services? Any they liked? Any they would say to avoid?
I've expanded the topic a bit to make the issue of ccTLD "global".
There are hundreds of ccTLDs, each with their own requirements.
Is there one service that covers them all?
Are there 3,4 or 5 that combined will cover all ccTLDs?
Do you run a registry that covers 50 or 100 ccTLDs? Tell us about it and tell us what has to happen when it comes to the other 100 ccTLDs.
Who has confronted this issue and dealt with it?
What did it take? What was the approximate cost? What are some of the most trying requirements? What country is the most expensive and what country is the most restrictive?
This thread is a "break the rules" thread, in the interest of addressing an issue that many will likely face and that many have already had to confront: How does one secure the next "Google" or "Yahoo" in 200 different ccTLDs?
You are free to name names, but if you do so please add some depth of detail about the company, their history, their record of success, expense, etc. A simply hotlink with an endorsement is NOT what we're looking for.
This thread is pretty wide open.
Details, details, details . . if you please.
And thank you.
[edited by: Webwork at 5:57 pm (utc) on Jan. 22, 2008]
EuroDomains has 24 European TLDs. I imagine there are other registrars that specialize regionally.
Of course, neither of these are what you are really looking for. But they are a good start for others that might want to "do it yourself".
One thing to be careful about with some ccTLDs is to dot all the I's and cross all the T's if you decide to abandon a domain.
We are so used to simply not paying the fee and letting the domain go. With some ccTLDs, the ccTLD itself will continue to bill you, send you dunning notices, threaten collection or court action, etc. if you do not pay a renewal and fail to actively cancel the service.
And they will bill you at a "full price" fee, not the discounted one offered by registrars.
