This comes as part of CRA’s strategy to foster the development of Qatar’s domain extensions as a key public resource, by providing stable, secure, and trusted domain name services, as a priority in helping shape the country’s role in the digital economy.
‘Qatar Domains Registry (QDR), an initiative under CRA, has registered as many as 21,601 domains since its launch in 2011,’ said Faisal Ali al-Shuaibi, CRA spokesperson.
‘After facilitating the steady growth in its domain volumes, QDR is now on a fast track to make .doha the dot capital of Qatar on the internet world map. Strategic initiatives in Qatar can now have a web address ending in .doha as a unique alternative to the traditional .qa,’ he added.
The current set of extensions that are made available by QDR through its accredited registrars for public registrations include ‘.qa’ and ‘.com.qa’, ‘net.qa’, and the Arabic equivalent of ‘.qatar’(.قطر ) each second level ‘.qa’ with its unique set of eligibility requirements.
Additionally QDR has also allotted certain extensions referred to as closed zones only for various government and non-profit entities, including ‘.gov.qa’, ‘.mil.qa’, ‘.org.qa’, ‘.edu.qa’, and ‘.sch.qa’. These domain extensions are serving the Qatari market well and in turn the market seems to be adapting quite naturally to the use of these TLDs in general.
The successful delegation of the geographic TLD ‘.doha’ by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in March 2015, came as a good news for QDR as it will help raise greater awareness for all TLDs. In fact, one of the reasons new TLDs were originally introduced by ICANN was to offer registrants greater availability in domain name choice.
With the onset of new TLDs being released in the market, the dynamic scenario in the domain name world has opened up newer challenges for Registry Operators and for Registrars across the world.
However, with every challenge there are even bigger opportunities, precisely why QDR has witnessed a steady increase in the number of Registrars willing to expand their portfolio of offerings to their diverse customer base. Five out of the total of 17 registrars that QDR has accredited are based in Qatar and few more have approached to get accredited to realize the potential of offering geographic TLDs.
Meanwhile, international registrars are taking leverage of their customer base to register the domains for those wanting to secure their trademarks and brand names in the new extensions. CRA is continually monitoring the landscape to make adjustments based on demand. A full list of the QDR accredited registrars is available at this link http://www.domains.qa/en/registrars/accredited-registrars
Qatar-specific domains provide businesses and individual users with a means of differentiating themselves as distinctly Qatari and also of getting noticed in search engines and country-specific directories, all of which can help target both local and global audiences, CRA said.
Likewise, the new city domain extension opens up a range of new opportunities for our local minds to innovate by securing a unique online space fundamentally associated with Doha.
CRA would like to especially encourage locally owned businesses and SME’s to register their businesses through the Qatar Domain Registry.
To find out more, go to https://www.domains.qa/en and connect with QDR through Twitter @QatarDomains.
