.me

Overview

• .me is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Montenegro.
• The registry positions .me as a global/personal namespace and it can be registered and used for any purpose worldwide.
• The .me registry is operated by domain.me (doMEn d.o.o.), a Montenegro-based registry established through a government selection process.

History

• The ISO 3166-1 code "ME" was assigned to Montenegro in September 2006 after independence.
• ICANN approved delegation of .me to the Government of Montenegro in September 2007; the domain became active on 24 September 2007.
• doMEn d.o.o. (the .ME Registry) — a joint-venture involving partners such as Afilias, GoDaddy and ME-net — was selected as the registry operator and launched operations through accredited registrars.
• Sunrise for trademark holders began on 6 May 2008. General/land-rush registrations and "go-live" availability to the public occurred in mid-July 2008 (registrations opened via registrars around 16–17 July 2008).
• Rapid early growth: ~100,000 registrations by August 2008, ~200,000 by February 2009, ~250,000 by May 2009, over 320,000 by 2010, 1 million by March 2016; public statistics reported ~1.4 million in April 2021 and over 2.4 million by October 2024.

Usage and Audience

• Intended use: entities connected with Montenegro; actual use: global audience.
• Common use cases:
  • Personal branding and "personal namespace" sites (e.g., me as "me"/self-oriented names).
  • Domain hacks and memorable short domains (English-language verbs/pronouns are common).
  • Link shortening and analytics (many services use short .me domains).
• Geographic and market notes:
  • Early registrations were heavily from the United States (71% of initial applicants reported in early periods).
  • Also used commercially in regions such as Maine (US) and the Middle East, besides Montenegro.

Registration Rules

• Open-use ccTLD: anyone worldwide may register a second-level .me domain (example: name.me) without local presence requirements.
• Second-level and third-level structure:
  • Direct second-level registrations (name.me) are available globally.
  • A set of third-level SLDs (net.me, org.me, co.me, its.me/priv.me, edu.me, ac.me, gov.me) exist; some SLDs (edu.me, ac.me, gov.me) are restricted to Montenegrin institutions and handled by the University of Montenegro Center for Information Systems.
  • Other SLDs are typically managed with local restrictions; Me-net is noted as a registrar with specific SLD registration privileges.
• Registration periods: minimum 1 year, renewable up to 10 years (registrars may offer automatic renewal and transfers are permitted).
• Character and length rules:
  • Domain names may use ASCII letters (A–Z), digits (0–9) and hyphens.
  • Maximum label length is 63 characters; overall URL length may not exceed 253 characters.
  • Domain names cannot begin or end with a hyphen.
  • Typical policy enforces names between 3 and 63 characters, although a few exceptions have been granted (notably for URL-shortening/short domains).
• Dispute policy: .me uses the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP); WIPO is a common forum for disputes.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Google treats .me as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) for search-targeting purposes because many users and site owners view it as generic rather than country-targeted.
• Brand and marketing strengths:
  • High brandability and suitability for memorable domain hacks (e.g., verbs and pronouns ending in ".me").
  • Early rapid adoption established .me as highly marketable; it was described as one of the fastest-selling TLDs in early years.
• Because .me is used for personal and brand-oriented names, it is often chosen for marketing, link shortening, and service-specific short URLs.

Notable Cases or Examples

• Domain hacks and well-known uses:
  • deviantArt: fav.me
  • WordPress: wp.me
  • Telegram: t.me
  • WhatsApp: wa.me
  • Facebook/short links: fb.me and m.me
  • Other corporate short domains: g.me (Google+), go.me (GoDaddy), pp.me (PayPal), pm.me (ProtonMail), vk.me (VKontakte), vb.me (Viber)
• Premium names and auctions:
  • Early land-rush and auctions generated significant revenue (more than US$2,000,000 during initial rush); high-value sales included insure.me (US$68,005 during sunrise) and judge.me (US$8,000 in 2011).
  • The registry and partners have conducted premium-name auctions and maintain a reserved/premium name program.
• Trademark and UDRP cases:
  • In 2008 several trademark disputes were filed with WIPO; examples of transferred domain names include creditmutuel.me, porsche.me, and exxonmobil.me.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       ME

organisation: Government of Montenegro
address:      Rimski trg 46
address:      Podgorica 81000
address:      Montenegro

contact:      administrative
name:         Božo Krstajić
organisation: University of Montenegro, Faculty of Electrical Engineering
address:      Džordža Vašingtona bb
address:      Podgorica 81000
address:      Montenegro
phone:        +382 67 313 222
e-mail:       bozok@ac.me

contact:      technical
name:         TLD Tech
organisation: Center of Information System (CIS)
organisation: University of Montenegro
address:      Cetinjski put 2
address:      Podgorica 81000
address:      Montenegro
phone:        +382 20 414 290
fax-no:       +382 20 414 283
e-mail:       tldtech@ac.me

nserver:      A0.NIC.ME 199.253.59.1 2001:500:53:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      A2.NIC.ME 199.249.119.1 2001:500:47:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      B0.NIC.ME 199.253.60.1 2001:500:54:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      B2.NIC.ME 199.249.127.1 2001:500:4f:0:0:0:0:1
nserver:      C0.NIC.ME 199.253.61.1 2001:500:55:0:0:0:0:1
ds-rdata:     45352 8 2 7708c8a6d5d72b63214bbff50cb54553f7e07a1fa5e9074bd8d63c43102d8559

whois:        whois.nic.me

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: http://www.domain.me

created:      2007-09-24
changed:      2020-10-19
source:       IANA