I just returned from a trip to Romania to visit friends and hunt geese, pheasant and partridge. I really enjoyed my time in the countryside down the Danube River.  We also spent a day in Bucharest, a beautiful city with striking architecture and charming streets.  It even has its own Arc de Triomphe, which, along with other French influences, gave the city the nickname of “Little Paris” in the early 1900s.  One of my favorite spots in the city was the bar pictured here, Carul cu Bere, which reminded me of the inside of a cathedral.

 Of course, I could not help but notice the domain names I saw on advertisements while I was there. 

The Network Information Center, Nic.ro, is the domain name registry for Romania.  It offers eight different TLDs for different types of organizations: .COM.RO for commercial entities, .AC.RO for academic institutions, and others.  Despite this unnecessarily wide variety, almost every domain I saw advertised simply had .RO as the extension.  Registering in the ccTLD space can be challenging for companies who are not aware of local trends and tendencies, and the .RO ccTLD is an example where businesses may be tempted to over-register for brand protection, picking up domains in .RO as well as the others.  However, it looks like simply owning .RO is typically more effective and cost-efficient.

Overall, it was a great trip.  I enjoyed myself, and even picked up some information about the Romanian ccTLD in the process.