With 1,353,039 2nd level domains, Poland is on 8th position in Europe

On January 4th, 2011, Polish ccTLD Registry which I managed for 9 years and left last year, has registered its 2,000,000th domain name (including both 2nd and 3rd level domains under .COM.PL, .NET.PL etc).

Polish ccTLD Registry is registering not only 2nd level .PL domain names (registrations directly under .PL) but also 3rd level names under .COM.PL, .NET.PL, .BIZ.PL, .WAW.PL and many more extensions. Diversity of domain extensions is a very good business strategy, providing additional sources of revenue to the Registry and Registrars.

Let's look at the example: There is only one "google.pl" domain, but if you sell also 3rd level names, Registry and Registrars can also make money on "google.com.pl", "google.net.pl", "google.biz.pl", "google.waw.pl" and... 154 such extensions.

Let's do the math. Renewal for .PL is 40 PLN (Polish zloty), renewal for "regional" PL domains is 10 PLN (25% of .PL) and for "generic" (like .COM.PL) is 30 PLN (75% of .PL). Bearing in mind that Polish Registry is holding 33 generic 2nd level names and 119 "regional" 2nd level names, "google" can generate not 40 PLN but up-to 2220 PLN revenue for the Registry annually.

Isn't it much better financial strategy than only 2nd level domains registrations like in (almost) all other country code TLDs???

As of January 3rd, NASK has registered:

• 1,353,039 .PL domains (2nd level names)
• 330,347 .COM.PL domains (3rd level names)
• 47,606 .WAW.PL domains 
• 34,077 .NET.PL 
• 23,594 .ORG.pl 
• 20,852 .INFO.PL 
• 11,791 .BIZ.pl domains and so on...

Of course the most valuable for end-users are 2nd level domains (directly under .PL), but 3rd level names especially under .COM.PL are still very popular among Polish companies and domainers and are important part of Registry's and Registrars' revenue. Among those 152 extensions, only 26 extensions have lost 3rd level names in 2010. All the rest gained, showing still existing demand for not only 2nd level names but 3rd level too.

With 1,353,039 domains Poland is on the 8th position among European ccTLDs. The top European's TLDs are as follows (as of November 30, 2010):
1. .de 14,007,185
2. .uk 8,966,685
3. .nl 4,168,836
4. .eu 3,312,453
5. .ru 3,096,193
6. .it 2,048,160
7. .fr 1,857,310 

If we just take the total number of domain names run by the Registry (both 2nd and 3rd level), it's actually 7th position in Europe with impressive 2,000,000 names.

Congratulations to my colleagues running the registry and all Registrars doing the hardest job!