Digishire™ - Poland TLD Quick Tips

I'm often approached by friends and colleagues, with questions regarding TLD choices relative to the Polish web market. For those of you not familiar with the term TLD, it's an acronym for top level domain. The term top level domain denotes the highest hierarchical level of the internet domain name address structure, with it being installed in the root zone of any particular TLD name space. This article will also mention the term ccTLD, which is an acronym for country code top level domain, like Poland's .pl for example. Choosing a TLD for any particular market, is hardly as cut and dry as simply choosing the most valuable or most popular domain extension. There are many other factors to consider, most of which are directly related the specific target market that your domain caters to. In this quick tips article, I will run through some of the most obvious things to consider when choosing a TLD for a Polish web audience.

The most popular TLD in Poland, is naturally the .pl ccTLD. This domain extension is perfect for any web based activities that heavily cater towards a Polish internet audience, and is the most widely held TLD extension in the country. As is the case with any ccTLD, choosing .pl places a heavy emphasis on it's country centric target market, it also denotes Poland as the point of reference for your web based presence or presentation. To toss out an arbitrary figure, if your web presence has a 51% or higher leaning towards the Polish speaking web market, then .pl is probably going to be the best domain choice for you. The .pl ccTLD enjoys the highest level of familiarity within the Polish internet domain space, which means many Polish users habitually type .pl after any domestic address destination. The TLD also carries with it a high degree of consumer trust, as it's heavily regulated by NASK, and generally safeguarded from domain abuse.

The second most popular TLD choice in Poland is .com. As most Polish geography based domain keywords are not available for public registration in .pl, as they're permanently held by the Polish government, .com is naturally the default commercial TLD for these terms. For example, gdynia.pl is owned by the city of Gdynia, and it's a noncommercial web based entity. That makes Gdynia.com the top tier commercial venue for anything related to the city of Gdynia, and it's particularly well suited if the domain also happens to be commercial. As Poland's internet users are extremely familiar with the .com TLD, both by way of registration and internet contact, they're even acceptable to use outside of Polish geography related terms. The .com is also great to use if your web property caters towards multi language groups, for example if your Polish target market is 49% or less, than I would use .com over .pl as your web address.

Outside of .pl and .com, the .eu TLD has some growing popularity within Poland. The .eu TLD is particularly relevant and applicable to any web property that has a multi European target audience. For example if your web property has a split viewership between Poles, Germans, and Italians, then .eu would be the perfect domain address for you. The only negative element of .eu, which might dissuade some web developers from using it, is the familiarity issue. As the domain is fairly new, and hosts a far less number of developed websites than .pl and .com do, there tends to be much less familiarity associated with it. This lack of familiarity could potentially lead to some confusion amongst your visitors, who might accidentally navigate to the .pl or .com domain counterpart of your .eu address, leading to a percentage of traffic loss for your property. This factor may however diminish over time, as the TLD becomes more popular and well known throughout Europe.

Outside of .pl, .com, and a far distant third ranking .eu, other TLD choices are also used in Poland, such as .net, .org, and .info. These domains however do lack the same degree of familiarity that .eu does, and thus increases the chances of visitor confusion and traffic loss. For example if your web property targets a Polish speaking web audience, but is hosted on a .org, many of your web users might habitually type your web address with a .pl or .com ending, and subsequently never make it to your site. As a general rule, website owners who choose these lesser known TLDs for a Polish market, generally are doing so because the .pl or .com is already taken. It should also be noted that .net and .org generally have much more familiarity attached to them in United States web based markets. I would personally dissuade anyone from registering a .net, .org, or .info TLD for a Polish audience, unless the keyword strength is very high.

Outside of TLD choices for the Polish domain market, second level domains such as .com.pl enjoy some popularity as well, albeit declining popularity. As a general rule I would dissuade any serious web developer from owning a .com.pl, as the domain tends to bleed traffic to either the stand alone .pl, or .com. While the domain enjoys some familiarity in Poland, the traffic loss affecting it is human error related, given that it has the appearance of two popular TLDs being attached together, and Polish users may habitually type in one or the other. Due to the built in traffic loss mechanism attached to .com.pl or any other second level Polish domains, they suffer from a declining popularity in the country. They should be avoided unless you own the .pl or .com of the same address, and can redirect the traffic loss back to the main url. Despite being a poor quality domain, brand protection is one reason many companies will still register a .com.pl.