.hu domain name registration

I have used https://www.easyname.at/en in the past, its an Austrian firm, but from my understanding, you can use any firm to purchase a domain.

A few things to consider: the administrator contact of the domain must be a resident of Hungary (often a Hungarian ISP can be the administrator contact), and the owner of a .hu domain must be a resident of the EU (the later may become an issue for British .hu domain name owners in two years post Brexit).

If you make any income at a web site (such as from "ads"), even as a hobby, you should report that income to the appropriate tax authority in the country where you are a resident.

HelenLancert wrote:

Does anyone have experience of registering a .hu domain name and having a .hu website, hobby or business? Is this a simple process? Are there any tax implications for a hobby website? Can you recommend a web host?

Thank You

Helen

Why bother with .hu?  Why don't you just use a location neutral name like .org or .net?  Then you could be anywhere at  all and maintain it from anywhere too.  Or use something free like Wordpress who will also host your website.

No-one should ever use the domain of the ISP for their web site nor use the ISP domain for e-mail.  Change ISP and you have to change your addresses.   While they provide it for free, it's just not much of an offer.  On the other hand, providers like Google will read all your mail and spam you. Buy a TV set by e-mail or discuss it with a friend and you'll get endless ads on TVs.   It'll even appear as top picks in the autocomplete text on your smart phone.  Highly intrusive.  I once Google'd a bit on generators for work and now I regularly get spammed on top picks for generators or rather oddly, Youtube seems to want me to watch videos on ship engines (!!!).   Presumably, two and two make five on this because down the road 3 km is a large marine engine manufacturer's local office - I  suppose I might be on the look out for a supertanker engine soon.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Why bother with .hu?

If you have a Hungarian business, selling in Hungary, with a Hungarian language web site, then .hu makes sense.

For all others, there are now so many new domain name extensions which may better fit a region, business or hobby website.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Why bother with .hu?

If you have a Hungarian business, selling in Hungary, with a Hungarian language web site, then .hu makes sense.

For all others, there are now so many new domain name extensions which may better fit a region, business or hobby website.

Absolutely but really business on a web site has to be multi-lingual these days.  Usually local language(s) and then fall back to English.   

Can be costly maintaining web sites in multiple languages and can have legal issues (which is the definitive one?). Some of the web packaged storefronts will do much of the packaging for you but products still need to be described appropriately (language wise).

So best to .com or .eu or .whatever it and then potentially prompt on first visit for redirect either on IP location or chosen language and then cookie to retain choices.

.HU DOMAIN REGISTRATION RULES AND PROCEDURES

Thank you for the advices. With regards to a business website I was thinking more along the lines of renting out an apartment and would of thought (just guessing) that google.hu would prefer .hu domain names? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

With a hobby website I was thinking more of google adsense and similar, even if on a blog - You have answered this for me though

HelenLancert wrote:

Thank you for the advices. With regards to a business website I was thinking more along the lines of renting out an apartment and would of thought (just guessing) that google.hu would prefer .hu domain names? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

With a hobby website I was thinking more of google adsense and similar, even if on a blog - You have answered this for me though

You could Airbnb it to take away the hassle. Considering most visitors via Airbnb will be foreigners, it seems hardly worth bothering with the .hu site.   You can always just redirect a link. 

To be honest, google.hu is a pain the backside.  It's utterly stupid and unusable.  It's unable to work on English searches properly because it usually falls back to the US search results. Might as well be showing suppliers or links on the moon.   I have constant problems with it trying to connect me up with suppliers in the USA when obviously here, I'd be more interested in co.uk or .de results.  I've configured my browser to work on google.co.uk but the idiot geolocation screws it up.

If you are seeking a Hungarian customer base, then .hu unless there are overwhelming reasons to avoid it. I built a business in Ireland as a .ie website. When the .com became available I switched, without thinking through the repercussions. My whole customer base and the nature of the orders switched with it. I'd made a big mistake.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I have constant problems with it trying to connect me up with suppliers in the USA when obviously here, I'd be more interested in co.uk or .de results.  I've configured my browser to work on google.co.uk but the idiot geolocation screws it up.

I use duckduckgo.com myself. It has a feature that you can toggle on the search results page to limit the country of the results. Including for the UK.

This works at all search sites, including at Google: start your search query with domain:uk to specifically help limit most results at sites with that domain extension or which are in the UK. Note, do not use domain:co.uk as that does not work as well.

So if you want to search for bathtubs in the uk, your search would be

domain:uk bathtubs

fluffy2560 wrote:

really business on a web site has to be multi-lingual these days.  Usually local language(s) and then fall back to English.

Only if one wants to sell internationally or cares about tourists or expats.

Many .hu web sites in Hungary do not have language options (at least not the web sites that I visit). And that includes the bus company in Hungary, which dumped its English page and now only is in Hungarian.

HelenLancert wrote:

With regards to a business website I was thinking more along the lines of renting out an apartment

Short term rentals, as already stated, sites like AirBnB are better.

For long term rentals (such as leases) then local advertisement is to consider. If you want to rent to students, for example, inform the local University you are offering a student rental, or staple a notice up at a kiosk. Else, there are plenty of existing web sites where you can post your listing and are better as they will get higher search engine results than your private web site which may be buried hundreds of page results deep and never seen.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

really business on a web site has to be multi-lingual these days.  Usually local language(s) and then fall back to English.

Only if one wants to sell internationally or cares about tourists or expats.

Many .hu web sites in Hungary do not have language options (at least not the web sites that I visit). And that includes the bus company in Hungary, which dumped its English page and now only is in Hungarian.

I think for apartment rental, even though market forces are at work,  probably those internationals coming in will have more disposable funds than locals,   i.e. pay a premium.  Students will pay circa EUR 250-300 a month which is low obviously compared to internationals paying EUR 100 per night.

There's a lot of BS going on about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to get your domain up the ratings but as far as I know this does not work consistently and it costs lots of money.  Bit of a scam.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Students will pay circa EUR 250-300 a month which is low obviously compared to internationals paying EUR 100 per night..

My comment about students was in deference to an earlier post by Helen that she was thinking of renting to students. So was trying to give an answer that she might find most relevant and useful.

Of course, one may make more with short term rentals, but that also includes a lot more work (including either being on site to do all the housekeeping chores like in a hotel, or hiring someone to do so (which cuts into income)). A few "mistakes" and a few negative reviews can mean no more short term renters may apply because the market it saturated and competition is strong. Meanwhile, long term renters wash their own bed sheets.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Students will pay circa EUR 250-300 a month which is low obviously compared to internationals paying EUR 100 per night..

My comment about students was in deference to an earlier post by Helen that she was thinking of renting to students. So was trying to give an answer that she might find most relevant and useful.

Of course, one may make more with short term rentals, but that also includes a lot more work (including either being on site to do all the housekeeping chores like in a hotel, or hiring someone to do so (which cuts into income)). A few "mistakes" and a few negative reviews can mean no more short term renters may apply because the market it saturated and competition is strong. Meanwhile, long term renters wash their own bed sheets.

True but then again, like hotels it's occupancy related.  For EUR 100 a night, if it's 50% occupied a month, it should be easily profitable, even with cleaning and washing the sheets and employing someone to assist.

fluffy2560 wrote:

For EUR 100 a night, if it's 50% occupied a month, it should be easily profitable, even with cleaning and washing the sheets and employing someone to assist.

True.

But average quality apartments are not currently going for 100 Euro a night in Budapest at AirBnB; closer to 20 Euro.

https://www.airbnb.com/s/Budapest--Hungary

At 20 Euro a night, even with 100% occupancy (won't happen), that is only 600 Euro a month. A lease on an average apartment should be close enough to that amount to make AirBnB probably not worth it except to make a little money "between tenants".