2023 was a successful year for the Estonian top-level domain — in addition to the historic introduction of reserved domains to the market, .ee achieved 5.26 percent growth by the end of the year.
A total of 24,670 new .ee domains were registered in 2023, and with this a significant 163,000 .ee registrations were completed. The number of extensions increased by 4.4 percent last year, and the share of extended domains exceeded 86 percent. However, there were 18,421 deletions of domains.
Last year, the number of .ee web addresses with dotted letters also increased by 7 percent, reaching a total number of 4,288 in the register.
In 2023, for the first time in history, single-character, short-numbered, and toponymic .ee domains entered the market. In total, 10 short numbers, 34 country names, nine Estonian place names and 15 one-character domains found a new owner. The website address s.ee was purchased for the highest price, 42,000 euros, followed by i.ee, f.ee and b.ee. Therefore, the Estonian national domain is highly valued both nationally and internationally. The opportunity to use a single character with the .ee to create unique combinations also adds to the popularity due to the fact that this possibility is quite rare in the top-level domain world.
Out of the country names, monaco.ee proved to be the most valuable, and of the Estonian place names, rouge.ee took first place. However, the auction of reserved domains will continue until the summer of 2024 — so everyone interested in the .ee resource can participate in the auction through the auction portal at https://auction.internet.ee/. All the proceeds from the auctions are invested in creating a more efficient and secure .ee. In addition, each year the development of the local internet community is also supported through project grants.
There are a total of 25,006 foreign domain owners in our register, or 15.3 percent, of which 5,455 were added last year. Internationally, the largest number of .ee domain registrants are from China and the United States, followed by Lithuania, Germany and Sweden.
“In conclusion, the last year was successful in many ways for the .ee domain. Despite several crises and economic recession, .ee has continued its growth. In terms of growth and several other indicators, we are in a good position from the point of view of trends in the European domain market, and we are working to ensure that .ee continues strong growth this year as well,” spokespeople for the Estonian Internet Foundation said.
Source: BNS
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