The .bzh domain extension for Brittany

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Bzh domain extension (.bzh) is vital for visibility of Brittany on the internet.
We, breton people and breton economy, needed this .bzh.
In 2020 there are more than 360 millions of domain names used all over the world.

A few words about the use of domain names and domain extensions on the internet.

The first domain name extensions defined by IANA in 1985. And consequently used since the beginnings of the internet were .com, .net, .edu, .org, .gov and .mil. Nowadays a much greater number of domain name extensions have been authorized by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, since 1998 (those for countries, companies, organizations, regions …).

Today there are more than 1,500 domain extensions available.

The popularity of the extensions used in the world is given by the number of domain names created. For example the extension .com has reached 144 million of domain names. Then, .tk has reached 25.1 million (.tk is an extension for free). And then .cn has reached 23 million, .de has reached 16.3 million, .net – 13.4 million, .uk – 13.3 million, .org – 10 million, .tw – 6.8 million, .nl – 5.9 million, .ru – 5.7 million, .cn stands for China, .de stands for Germany, .uk stands for United Kingdom, .tw stands for Taiwan, .nl stands for Nederland and .ru stands for Russia.
New requests for domain names come from North America for 47% of them and from Europe for 35% of them. Then from Asia for 16% of them and from Africa for only 1% of them.

Why are regional domain names extensions of great interest.

There are several reasons to create a regional domain name extension :

• Thanks to the regional extension, domain names already used like carlocation.fr for example can be reused in the form of carlocation.bzh (.bzh stands for Brittany)
• With the regional extension the customers can know immediately where the service is offered. For example .Bayern allows people living in Bavaria (Germany) to know that this service is offered in the neighbouring places. It’s the same thing with the extension .cat for Catalonia. Or with the extension .alsace for Alsace (France) or with the extension .scot for Scotland.
• With a regional extension beginning with a letter like « b » for bzh the search for an internet website with the extension .bzh is performed quicker.
• A regional extension is the best solution when you want to promote a local brand name for local inhabitants. (e.g .rurh is used in Rurh region of Germany).
• For affiliation to local nationality, especially in regions where there is a particularly strong sense of being local, these extensions have the ability to communicate on an indirect level with your audience. That is the case for Brittany and its .bzh. The same argument applies to Scotland (.scot), to Northern Ireland (.ni), Wales (.wales and .cymru) or to Isle of Man (.im).

Use of regional domain name extensions at least in Europe.

Since the creation of .scot extension in 2014 until 2018, Scotland with a population of around 5 millions inhabitants has created 8,000 domain names. That is to say 8,000 occurrences in four years.

The number of domain names created with the extension .bzh has been expanding very quickly since its creation. And has reached the number of 9,000 in 2019 for a population of 4.8 million inhabitants . That is to say 9,000 in five years. This figure may be compared to the one of Scotland.

Other regions of France have got their own extension. Mainly those with a strong identity different from the french identity. Alsace has created 2,100 occurrences since the creation of its extension in 2015. And Corsica has created 1,400 occurrences of its .corsica since its creation in 2015.

In Catalonia it has been created more than 60,000 occurences of the .cat since its creation in 2006 for a population of 7.5 millions inhabitants. That is to say 1.5 time the population of Brittany.

If we were to compare with Brittany …

Taking into account duration of extension use and population, we would have the following ratio :

• Brittany : 9,000 occurrences/5 years and 5 millions inhabitants.
• Catalonia : 16,000 occurrences/5 years and 5 millions inhabitants.
• Scotland : 10,000 occurrences/ 5 years and 5 millions inhabitants (10,000 in 5 years is an extrapolation of 8000 in four years).
  Creation of domain names with .cat seems to be more dynamic than the creation with .bzh. But in the end, they are not so far from each other compared to the number of domain name creation for countries like .uk, .fr, .es, .de …

Pik Bzh and others.

The word used to designate the (.) is different from one language to the other :

• Pik in breton language (brezhoneg)
• Point in french
• Dot in english
• Punto in spanish

According to the AFFNIC organization, amongst the first countries in terms of Domain Names per 1000 inhabitants we can find Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovakia and Ireland.
Brittany which has approximately the same surface area and the same order of population as these countries should reach a good place in the digital world if it gives itself the means to do it.