Find Out How .ME Fits the Middle East
When .ME became globally available no one thought that it would become widely used in the Middle East as the geo domain. Fast-forward sixteen years and .ME fits the Middle East like no other extension. What is officially the country domain for Montenegro is being chiefly registered by individuals and companies from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other countries from this part of the world when they want to highlight their regional affiliation in Internet usage.
The trend has been around for years and there are quite a few indicators suggesting it is here to stay.
Numbers Do Not Lie
According to the crawled data, the .ME is the fourth most popular “foreign” TLD in the area. It is trailing only juggernauts like .com, .net and .org and .info, another legacy gTLD. Of course, the stats are exclusive of the ccTLDs as most of their zones are not public and, therefore, difficult to crawl. The most popular .ME domains in the region are registered by the big brands, like KFC.ME, Vogue.ME and PizzaHut.ME. However, there is no shortage of startups. For instance, ArabNet.ME, one of the leading innovation hubs focused on tech and business, with .ME conspicuously used in its very name, features at least seven startups from the MENA region that incorporated the extension into their brand, and many others that use it as the official domain or a shortener.
.ME Premium Domains
Finding an attractive domain name has always been a challenge, but nowdays it is becoming more difficult than ever. Having in mind that the number of domains per capita in the region is increasing and that some countries like the UAE are slowly emerging as global business and tech hubs, the demand for premium domains will likely increase as well.
Since .ME liberalized its premium domain policies in 2020, the .ME registry released premium domains into the primary market. In other words, any .ME domain from a portfolio of 2,500+ names can be registered at any time, without any restrictions and with any domain registrar that supports premium domain registration. The list includes everything from call-to-action names and two-letter domains to keywords to numeric and short domains.
To download the complete list of available .ME premium domains CLICK HERE.
The major trend in the .ME premium domain registration is the high demand for super short one- and two-character domains. They remain the registry’s “bestsellers” and are becoming an important asset for any business using a memorable URL shortener for increasing brand awareness. Although they come at a steeper price tag, the limited availability and sheer number of short-link impressions, justifies the investment in brand building.
Local Language Content
According to EURid’s “Middle East and Adjoining Countries DNS Study” published in 2016, there is a correlation between high linguistic and cultural homogeneity, and high instances of local language web content. In other words, homogenous MENA countries like Egypt, Iran and Morocco are likely to produce more local language web content. What some of the countries in the Middle East lacked at the time of the report was a strong local hosting market, which is also one of the indicators of growing local content and business. However, that is also being changed with the rise of Dubai and Saudi Arabia as business hubs.
What does this have to do with .ME 🙂 ? Well, in the .ME zone it is evident that in the largest countries of the region the local language content is already surpassing the content in English. For instance, the number of pages in Arabic in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is considerably higher (more than tenfold in Egypt) than the number of pages in English and the trend is similar across other homogenous countries. Additionally, the .ME fits the Middle East by offering IDN domains in Arabic to complement the need for local language content creation.
Worldwide Appeal
Regardless of the adoptive meanings and their popularity, with registrants from almost every country and territory in the world, .ME is still easily recognized for what it means globally, and English remains the language of the Internet. And, above all, the inherent ability of the Montenegrin extension is ever-present in the usage by Middle Easterners as there are those who continue to register it for what is intended – a personalized online presence. This usage category is dominated by individuals who want a personal website and SMBs looking for a suitable (and available!) domain that preferably sends the message across the region. Logically, it is more noticeable in economically developed countries that often attract foreign investments, like the United Arab Emirates. Finally, with almost 2.5 million the number of pages in English dwarfing about 50 K in Arabic, the Emirates are a prime example of thinking locally and acting globally when it comes to many aspects of business and personal life, including domains.
