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.ee continued its growth in 2023

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% last year, and the share of extended domains exceeded 86%. However, there were 18,421 deletions of domains.

Last year, the number of .ee web addresses with dotted letters also increased by 7%, reaching the total number in the register of 4,288. Dotted letters were also used by the winner of the best national domain in the competition "Ehe Eesti - Estonian Name for Estonian Companies" mänguvõti.ee.

The domain name word cloud reveals new and interesting trends to us. As expected, keywords related to “auto”, “rent”, “kodu” and “ehitus” are once again among the popular words. However, topics related to health, therapy, energy and design are raising their heads. In addition, the words “green”, “assistent”, “resto”, “design”, “digi” and AI are actively used. Estonians also like names that use a hyphen or abbreviations and, together with the .ee ending, form outstanding and memorable combinations. Compared to previous years, keywords related to covid and disinfection have dropped significantly; also different variations with the word project and art.

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, 9 Estonian place names and 15 one-character domains found a new owner. The website address s.ee was purchased for the highest price, i.e. 42,000 euros, followed by i.ee, f.ee and b.ee. Therefore, our 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, rõuge.ee took the 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 our Auction Portal https://auction.internet.ee/. All the proceeds from the auctions are invested in creating a more efficient and secure .ee. In addition, we also support each year the development of the local internet community through project grants.

How popular is the Estonian national domain in the rest of the world? There are a total of 25,006 foreign domain owners in our register, or 15.3%, of which 5,455 were added last year. Internationally, the largest number of .ee domain registrants are from China and the USA, 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.