.CH

.ch is Switzerland's top level domain. This is one of the richest countries in Europe and a very popular destination for tourists. For any enterprise concentrating on the entire European market, the ch domain is a necessity.

Switzerland is known as a stable and prosperous country. The national currency is constantly strong, and the country has one of the highest expenditures on ICT per capita in the world. Zurich and Genève offer a high quality of life. The .ch domain offers you an opportunity to infiltrate a prosperous and sound market.

The abbreviation 'ch' stands for Confederatio Helvetica, which is the Latin name for Switzerland. It is managed by SWITCH Information Technology Services. There are no restrictions, and domains can be registered for 1 year.

.ES

.es is the top-level-domain for Spain, the popular tourist country and an interesting growth market. Last years surprisingly much Spanish companies participated at the worldtop of technologically progressive companies. For anyone who wants to aim for the Spanish market, a .es domain is very attractive. And of course there are a lot of Dutch immigrants in Spain. Another interesting target group to aim at with a .es domain. So register your own .es domain now and enter this promising market. .es is managed by nic.es and it can be registered worldwide by anyone for 1 to 5 years. The abbreviation 'es' is derived from the first two letters of 'España.'
History:
.es was founded in 1998, but only since 2005 can it be registered without restrictions. Before that, it was relatively complicated to get a .es domain: the domain name had to be a trademark, an exact company name or a proper name, general words were not allowed. As a consequence of this, generic domains such as .com, .org and .net were used a lot more in Spain than the local .es. Since 2005 these rules were abolished, wich led to an upturn for the extension. Especially during the last two years, .es went through a remarkable growth. A promising development for this domain.

.EU

.eu is the top-level-domain for the EU (European Union), the economic collaboration of European countries. With a .eu domain, as a webhost you are aiming at a target group consisting of 500 million people and 27 countries. Moreover, the EU is one of the major economical partners worldwide. A .eu domain can be registered with no restrictions by companies and private persons located in one of the countries that are part of the EU. .eu is offically classified as a ccTLD (country code Top-Level-Domain), even though strictly speaking the EU is of course not a country.
History:
The domain was launched on December the 7th 2005 by EURid, an organisation that was founded as a non-profit organisation by the domain registers of the Belgian domain .be, the Italian domain .it and the Swedish domain .se. EURid is still the manager of .eu. Right after the domain was launched, .eu obviously met a need: when the registration was made available for all registers, there were 700.000 registrations in the first 4 hours. Within EU-countries it is still a highly popular domain. In most countries it is the second most used domain, after the local ccTLD and .com.
Useage:
.eu is an excellent extension to emphasize the European nature of a company or website. Most international companies that are (also) active in Europe, maintain both a .eu and a .com domain name. Sometimes those two different domain names redirect to the same website. The .eu extension is also popular for websites that are associated with the Basque Country, because the Basque name of the Basque Country is Euskadi. Thirdly, the extension is popular with Romanian, Portugese and Gallic websites, because in those languages 'eu' means 'I'.

.IT

it is the top-level-domain for Italy. It is an interesting domain for every enterprise that wants to aim at this beautiful and popular country. It is also a versatile extension for various uses worldwide.

Availability:
Registration of a .it domain is restricted to residents of EU countries. Registration requires sending a paper or fax letter that must be completed in Italian.
Interesting possibilities:
Apart from as an extension for Italian websites or websites from outside of Italy that are aiming at the Italian market, the extension can be used for the IT(information technology) industry. Every company that deals with computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware, can make clear what they stand for with a .it domain. .it is also a popular extension because of the English word 'it' and because there are a lot of other English word that end with 'it.' Examples of this kind of use of the extension are the online radio station http://play.it and the fashion website http://trans.it. It may be clear that .it is one of the most versatile domains and therefore very attractive for creative registers.

.UK / .CO.UK

.uk is United Kingdom and Northern Ireland's top level domain. It is one of the rare ccTLD's where second level registration _was_ not possible, but only third level registration. The most popular third level domains are .co.uk, .org.uk en .me.uk. It is a useful domain for anyone trying to infiltrate the English market.

Availability:
A .uk domain can be registered with no restrictions for 2 years. Join the flourishing United Kingdom market, and register .co.uk, .ltd.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk.
History:
.uk was established in 1985. It was introduced simultaneously with the .gb (Great Britain) extension. The .uk extension was by far the most popular, with the largest target audience. Both extensions were used for a short period, but the .gb is no longer available for registration with only one domain still online. There are some older domain names such as http://www.parliament.uk en http://www.british-library.uk. In recent years proposals have been made to create separate extensions for all of the islands in the United Kingdom. For Whales, the proposed extension is .cym (after Cymru, Wales in Welsh), .eng for England and .scot for Scotland. As of yet, these extensions are currently not available.

.NL

.nl is the top-level-domain for The Netherlands. A small country in size, but big when it comes to international business. A country known worldwide for its progressiveness, tolerance, wilfulness and great business instinct. Hosting your own .nl domain is therefore an essential step to give your company its own online identity and to play an important role in the (inter)national market. But also your personal website with photos, a weblog, or a website to promote your hobby, all leave a good serious impression with a .nl extension.
History:
.nl was the first ccTLD (country code top-level domain). It was launched in 1986 with the registration of the website http://www.cwi.nl by Piet Beertema of the CWI (Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica). This made The Netherlands the second country to be part of the internet, after the United States of America. The first .nl domain, http://www.cwi.nl, is by the way still active to this day. Beertema remained manager of .nl up to 1996. In that year he handed over the control to SIDN (Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland), of wich Beertema was one of the three founders.
Availability:
In June 2009 no less than 3.440.890 domains were registered. That made the extension number 4 on the list of most popular ccTLDs - after .cn, .de and .uk. However, there are still quite a lot of interesting .nl-domains open for registration. A .nl can be registered easily for any company or private person with a mailing address within The Netherlands. The domain can be registered for 1 year.

.FR

.fr is the top-level-domain for France, the country of wine, chansons and good food - and moreover, one of the biggest and most influential countries of Europe. An import business partner for most European countries, therefore. That makes .fr a great domain for companies that want to aim at this giant market, and a great extension for Francophiles.
History:
Despite the size of the country, France has a rather low online participation. This is partly due to the fact that .fr became free for registration quite late. Since the register AFNIC made it available, the amount of registered .fr domains increased quickly. In 2009 1,5 million .fr domain were registered. On a population of 60 million this is still not that much, so there are more than enough chances to register the domain that you want.
Availability:
.fr is managed by AFNIC. This company also manages the extensions .tf, for the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, .re for Re`union and .wf for Wallis and Futuna Islands, wich are all overseas territories of France. Registration of a .fr domain is restricted to companies within France, foreign companies that are active in France and residents of France. It is possible to register a .fr domain at second-level, but also on third-level, for example under .com.fr or .gouv.fr. If a certain domain already exists at third-level, for example domat.com.fr, then the owner has the exclusive right to register the second-level-domain, wich would be domat.fr.
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