Annual report 2020

New .be registrations grew by more than 20% compared to 2019, reflecting the lockdowns that caused much more online activity. In addition, in our fight against cybercrime, our system now checks the registration details of domain name holders even before a domain name becomes active so that it cannot cause any damage.

Philip Du Bois

Evolution in the number of domain names

Number of revoked .be domain names

We revoke domain names that do not comply with our terms and conditions because they are used for fraud, for example, or because the holder's details are incorrect.

Number of new .be registrations per year

How many new registrations of .be domain names did we see in 2020 compared to previous years?

Total number of .be domain names

How many .be domain names do we count at the end of 2020 compared to previous years?

Total number of domain names end 2020

Renewals of domain names 2020

The domain name extension market in Belgium

Which extensions do Belgians choose for their domain name?

Use of .be domain names

What are .be domain names used for?

Website content

We break down the websites linked to the .be, .vlaanderen and .brussels domain names according to the classification of the Registry-Registrar Data Group of CENTR. The main categories are: Industry, Personal and Low content. Websites, blogs, etc. fall under Personal. Low content comprises all websites with minimal content: pay per click, error messages, holding pages. Industry contains all business domain names which we divide further into different subcategories.

.be websites

.be domain names, the most important sectors in relation to the total number of .be websites:

.brussels and .vlaanderen are used above all by the respective governmental authorities. For .vlaanderen, the Flemish government opted to have their .vlaanderen domain names redirected to an existing .be website.

.brussels websites

.vlaanderen websites

Demographics

Holders of .be domain names per country of origin

Number of Belgian/foreign .brussels domain name holders

Number of Belgian/foreign .vlaanderen domain name holders

Distribution of .be domain names across the regions

Distribution of .be domain names per postal code and per 100 inhabitants

Locations of .be domain name holders worldwide

Number of .be domain names per holder

Distribution private individuals/companies .be

Registrars

For .be, we work with 380 registrars. The 10 largest registrars hold over 57% of .be domain names, an increase of 1 percent.