Germany to make some very cool new domain suffixes available. Grab them while they’re hot.

Starting October, 23rd 9:00 CEST, Germany’s top level domain organization DENIC amends its Domain Guidelines and will thus abolish most of the restrictions currently applicable with regard to the registration of second level domains under the TLD .de.

In doing so, the registry creates room for a large number of new domains.

In future, also one and two-digit domains as well as domain names composed exclusively of numerals will be allowed. Additionally, people may reserve domains identical with combinations of letters that are used for German motorvehicle number plates or for Top Level Domains such as “com” or “org”.

Here’s the menu of new choices you’ll get:

• 29 possible single letter domains (a-z, ä, ö and ü)
• 10 possible single digit domains (0-9)
• 676 possible two letter domains
• 383 domains that represent German license plates
• approx. 275 domains that resemble a top-level domain (e.g. com.de)

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The maximum length of a domain will still be 63 characters (referred to the ACE-encoded form of the domain – without .de respectively). The rule that a domain must neither begin nor end with a hyphen nor have hyphens as both its third and fourth characters will also remain valid.

Given the expected run for the new domains, DENIC has created a separate registration system that must be used by its approx. 270 members. Additionaly ISPs are only allowed to send a maximum of four reservation requests per minute.

Following the guidelines set in place for the registration phase, we might see some 1.000 reservation request within the first 60 seconds, 5.000 after five minutes.

DENIC will proceed with registrations on a “first come, first served” principle.

While we have not seen official announcements from German ISPs 1&1 and Strato, domainFACTORY has opened an auction for the newly available domains today.