.cat domain name

[Queenie]

Mallorca, Ibiza and Catalonia has its own domain now! The .cat domain have been established to serve the needs of the Catalan Linguistic and Cultural Community on the Internet.

The Community consists of those who use the Catalan language for their online communications, and/or promote the different aspects of Catalan culture online, and/or want to specifically address their online communications to that Community. That is, if you web is not (at least partially) in Catalan, you may still apply for a cat-domain but your web site needs to be related to the Catalan culture, language or community.

Evaluate if you fit in any of the conditions stated below:

# You already have online communications in Catalan (web, blog, mail-list, etc). If this is the case, you need to communicate a reference URL you manage.

# You qualified for Sunrise Phase I or Phase III; this allows you to apply for a cat-domain name at any time but without the priority you enjoyed during Sunrise. In this case you need to communicate FASE1 o FASE3 code.

# You have an special code (sometimes called ENS) obtained during promotions (like St. Jordi 2006 or other).

# You carry out online activities (in any language) to promote Catalan language and culture.

# You may be part of the catalonian community and be able to apply for a .CAT if you can get sponsored mail from 3 people already having a cat-domain name that endorse your claim.

It is already possible to register cat-domains with special characters of the Catalan language:à; è; é; í; ï; ò; ó; ú; ue; ç; l·l.

[Inu^^]

Wow they're really spreading domain names out for each country nowadays aren't they?
First it was .com, then .co.uk and .net and .org
Not it goes to .fr, .nl (Netherlands) .cat

I personally would always go for a .com or .net and .org, you would get more traffic and it is easier to find when searching. If you had a .com address and was recieving good traffic, there would be a high possiblity that you would be in the top pages of google, compared to having a free sub domain. eg: (yourname.webhosting.uk.com) those sort of domains would probably be in the last pages or after you've been searching for ages in search engines you would probably find it. Providing you had good traffic. If you didn't have good traffic then you wouldn't even make it on there lol.

[Harry]

cctld are good if your are targeting local market where you stay..... i mean if are from UK and your main source of income would be from UK residents then having .co.uk domain would be better as if people from UK would like to see a domain with .co.uk

[paul]

Originally Posted by Queenie

Mallorca, Ibiza and Catalonia has its own domain now! The .cat domain have been established to serve the needs of the Catalan Linguistic and Cultural Community on the Internet.

The Community consists of those who use the Catalan language for their online communications, and/or promote the different aspects of Catalan culture online, and/or want to specifically address their online communications to that Community. That is, if you web is not (at least partially) in Catalan, you may still apply for a cat-domain but your web site needs to be related to the Catalan culture, language or community.

Evaluate if you fit in any of the conditions stated below:

# You already have online communications in Catalan (web, blog, mail-list, etc). If this is the case, you need to communicate a reference URL you manage.

# You qualified for Sunrise Phase I or Phase III; this allows you to apply for a cat-domain name at any time but without the priority you enjoyed during Sunrise. In this case you need to communicate FASE1 o FASE3 code.

# You have an special code (sometimes called ENS) obtained during promotions (like St. Jordi 2006 or other).

# You carry out online activities (in any language) to promote Catalan language and culture.

# You may be part of the catalonian community and be able to apply for a .CAT if you can get sponsored mail from 3 people already having a cat-domain name that endorse your claim.

It is already possible to register cat-domains with special characters of the Catalan language:à; è; é; í; ï; ò; ó; ú; ue; ç; l·l.

I read in Wall Street Journal law blog that a common cat couldn’t own this domain name, ( they recently rejected meow.cat ) unless it was a cat from outer space. I don't see any good future of this tld unless any alien cat could be found there in universe.

[Queenie]

Originally Posted by paul

I read in Wall Street Journal law blog that a common cat couldn’t own this domain name, ( they recently rejected meow.cat ) unless it was a cat from outer space. I don't see any good future of this tld unless any alien cat could be found there in universe.

eeh I didn't know that meow.cat is rejected. I've always thought before that no one can reject the domains whatever we choose.

[Dan]

Well ICANN just wants to earn a bit more money then

[paul]

Originally Posted by Dan

Well ICANN just wants to earn a bit more money then

Yep but it seems very difficult to earn a bit more money with these retarded domains. If they want to earn more they should erect xxx domain name targeting porn industries.

[NoelF1]

at first i thought the cats had at domain lol! oh well this is retard! at least .ct not .cat anyways i think that every nation has to have it's domain!

[paul]

Originally Posted by NoelF1

at first i thought the cats had at domain lol! oh well this is retard! at least .ct not .cat anyways i think that every nation has to have it's domain!

Yes, I too agree every nation should have its own recognition and even you can go global that will really avoid people becoming slaves to the dot com.

[NoelF1]

Originally Posted by paul

Yes, I too agree every nation should have its own recognition and even you can go global that will really avoid people becoming slaves to the dot com.

i think everyone has become a dot com slave!

[kev woodman]

It's up to the regulators what criteria they set for a domain name so its ok for the authority in charge of the .cat extension to restrict access to sites which are Catalan in nature.

[paul]

I heard they are trying to market .gw for global web but I doubt people will consider it an alternate option for dot com.