DNS.be, the registry operator for the .be namespace, has released figures on .be usage.
According to the report, which was released earlier today, there are over 600 thousand websites using .be. In real terms this means that roughly 7 out of 10 .be domains is actively being used for websites. Of course, as the report points out, just because a .be doesn’t direct to a website does not mean that is not being used for email or other services.
Some more figures:
“43% of all websites consists of just one page, while 27% have more than one page.
– 14% of domain names direct visitors to another domain name.
– Only 16% of domain names have no website. Which does not mean they
are not being used, because you can also create your own e-mail
addresses when you have a domain name.
– On average, each homepage at a Belgian website features 13 links.
– 57% feature JavaScript, used mainly for interactive applications in a website
– 56% have CSS, which streamlines the layout of all the pages of a website
– 11% use Flash to display animations and web-videos
– 27% feature keywords that indicate search engines what the website is about
“
It would be interesting to see if the single page sites were merely placeholders or parked, but the press release does not go into that much detail.
In any case, it’s always interesting to see what people are actually doing with domains.
More information is available on the registry’s site.
It looks like DNS.be has found out how hard it is to categorise website usage. The single page websites would include holding pages and PPC parking pages. The 27% figure that DNS.be quotes is really only a starting point as it hasn’t been checked for duplicate content or minisites. The keywords figure is also a bit nebulous as most CMS such as Joomla automatically add their own metadata to webpages and it is up to the webdeveloper to change it. Many don’t.
John
The study may not be perfect, but it’s still valid
Michele
I didn’t dispute its validity Michele,
Basically it is more an overview than a real study. The 27% would be the starting point for analysing the usage of .be websites. The PPC stuff is generally easy enough to work out unless the registrant is using a minisite approach with obfuscated links to hide the PPC nature of the site. Going beyond DNS.be’s rudimentary breakdown takes a lot of hard work and processing.
The .ie figure for website use is around 91%. The Irish .com usage is around 83%. The Irish .eu figure is around 71%. Most hosters now automatically add a holding page for new and unused domains. This is why the single page website count is so high.