By Clare Lawrence CEO Discount Domains Ltd, March 2003

Small countries such as Tonga, Turkmenistan and Niue are offering an alternative to customers that have been squeezed out of Internet as .com domain names have been registered.

It is sometimes unhappy task of a Domain registrar company, such as Discount Domains to tell clients that their preferred names in .com domain are already registered or must be purchased from a cyber-squatter for a large amount of money.

With anticipated opening of new domains, such as .eu, solution is often a longer, harder to remember name and less search engine friendly domain name.

The above countries allow users to register in their domain space. Web hosting companies can suggest that their clients register their sites in .to (Tonga), .tm (Turkmenistan) or .nu (Niue) domains, enabling them to get shorter, catchier name that was taken in .com domain.

Figures show that country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are fastest growing market, while general demand for new domains remains strong. The most popular domains are still com-domains. The growth of com-domains is tremendous. Experts think, that growing sale of com-domains reveal a revival of "New Economy". Some experts even argue, that this growth of domain names is an early indicator of persisting economic growth in USA and whole world.

The com-domains remain most popular domain with about a 45 percent market share.