Search Engine Optimisation, Promotion and Internet Marketing

.in domains made available to the public

18 February 2005

The .in domain registry officially opened to the Indian general public last week, and was immediately met with a strong national response.

Within an hour of opening some 24,000 domains were registered under the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), adding to the 4,000 or so applications registered during the January 1st to 21st 'sunrise period'.

The new domain gives Indian businesses the opportunity to have a stronger, nationalised presence on the Internet and is expected to help develop domestic business, with regard to online operations.

Commenting on the successful public launch of the domain Union Minister for Communication and IT, Dayanidhi Maran, told New Kerala: "The extension of the .IN domain name registry services is to symbolize the Indian identity on the internet space.

"We hope that every Indian citizen will avail the facility and will be a part of this movement," he added.

Days before the .in domain registration is opened up to the public, a handful of registrars and sub-registrars were believed to have pre-booked a large number of generic domain names, prompting concerns that a large number of .in domains belonging to known organisations and brands may have been pre-booked by unscrupulous parties planning to capitalise on the new ccTLD.

Over a dozen registrars and a number of sub-registrars have been making bookings .in domains over the past few weeks and submitted their applications on February 16th. An estimated 50,000 advance booking requests for registration had been made with these registrars already, by that time.

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