Held on 26 September, the European Day of Languages is a special occasion highlighting the continent’s linguistic wealth and the great cultural heritage it represents in Europe.
To mark the occasion, the .barcelona domain is joining the .cat and .gal domains for a campaign to nurture and promote geographical and cultural domains.
Your .barcelona domain for just 5 euros
You only have until 13 October to purchase your .barcelona domain for just 5 euros plus VAT.
Why choose a .barcelona domain?
· Identity: A .barcelona domain reflects your link with the city.
· Visibility: It increases your visibility in search engines and attracts a local and international audience with an interest in Barcelona.
· Professionalism: A personalised domain conveys seriousness and professionalism.
· Community: You will form part of a community of .barcelona domains and be able to proudly show that your project is different, modern, cosmopolitan and entrepreneurial.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity!Go to https://www.domini.barcelona/registra/ and register your .barcelona domain. It’s the moment to show the pride you take in the city of Barcelona.
The team from the .barcelona domain attended the annual meeting by the GeoTLD Group, held in London on 5 and 6 September and bringing together geographical domains (GeoTLD) and city domains to share the challenges and opportunities for our sector, the evolution of the market and new trends and challenges.
City domains attending this year’s meeting included .paris, .berlin, .amsterdam, .wien and .cologne.
The meeting puts Barcelona’s digital future and the new European regulations in the spotlight
The meeting provided a good chance to analyse the future perspectives of domains and explore new opportunities for collaboration. In this context, .barcelona highlighted how it is a domain which is open to citizens and committed to the promotion of Barcelona in the digital sphere and its contribution towards a more open and diverse internet.
The European security regulations (NIS2), which come into force in the next few months, provided another of the main topics for the meeting. The regulations are aimed at ensuring a more secure European digital environment, with more guarantees, regulations and certifications, meaning challenges in management and new dynamics in operating domains.
Towards a new round of domains
The meeting also offered a unique opportunity for us to get together again with those in charge of the ICANN, who were able to share the new round of domains due to be launched in 2026. Developed over the last ten years by the ICANN, the new round of domains will offer a great opportunity to request new domain extensions representing communities, other cities, brands and general names.
.london and .barcelona share experiences and learning
Another key moment was the bilateral meeting we held with London & Partners, the City of London agency tasked with managing the .london domain, the host for this year’s meeting. The session gave us an insight into the experiences the .london domain has had to go through since it was created, and to share initiatives in the field of marketing and promotion for both domains.
Working together for a more secure digital future
The presence of the .barcelona domain at the annual GeoTLDmeeting reaffirms our commitment to keep working with other geoTLDs to build a more secure and prosperous digital future, and at the same time to allow the .barcelona domain to keep abreast of the latest trends in the sector, establish contacts with other similar organisations and work together.
Our main festival takes place this year from the 20th to 24th September. Five days to enjoy music, gastronomy, culture, open days and street art. Here are six glimpses of everything it has to offer, and you can look this all up on the merce.barcelona website.
There can be no mercé without the pregón, and the honour this year of starting the festivities falls to the artist Carme Solé. Casablanca will be the guest city, and will share its vibrant sounds, dances and visual arts with us.
The 2024 Piromusical will definitely be remembered as one with a strong auteur style. Rosalía will be choosing the songs that will be played on 24th September at 10:00 p.m. The Avenida de la Reina Maria Cristina will be full once again with spectators who’ll be able to witness a breathtaking spectacle of bursts, light and colour, all perfectly in sync with music picked by one of the greatest artists in the world today.
Music is one of the main elements of the Barcelona Festival. Live performances by 140 artists and musical groups will take place on fourteen stages across the city, at Música Mercè, the BAM, as well as the concerts organised by radio stations.
And when it comes to popular culture, the 200th birthday of Josep Anselm Clavé will be commemorated this year, a musician whose L’aplec del Remei zarzuela will be performed on the 23rd. The city’s Aligá, which is even older, celebrates its 650th anniversary in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, on Sunday, 22nd September.
Elsewhere, the Ciutadella park will be the scene of the fourth edition of Terra i Gust, the sustainable food festival. Tastings, showcookings and workshops regarding food and drink will once again be on offer, and reflections will be made on food waste, sustainable fishing and water.
To cap it all off, the traditional La Mercè-Bimbo Global Race will take place on 29th September. The family race is added to the traditional routes this year, a fun and non-competitive activity set up to run a short and central route.Don’t forget that you can find all the information at merce.barcelona. Long live La Mercé and long live Barcelona!
This autumn, from 8 to 13 October, a new edition of the Biennial of Thought will bring debate and reflection back to the city’s streets and squares. The event will feature more than 100 experts on topics including democracy, memory, postcolonialism, feminism, technology and climate change and cultural debates.
Under the theme ‘The Day After It All’, the fourth edition of the biennaldepensament.barcelonawill focus on deconstructing the defining principles and dynamics of the past two centuries, which are now at odds with a future where sustainability, social justice and the fight against inequalities are paramount.
To reflect upon these major philosophical debates and the global transformations happening all around us, the Biennial will feature 120 participants and 65 free activities, with no prior registration necessary. The list of notable guests includes Herta Müller, Perejaume, Wajdi Mouawad, Jacques Rancière, Jason Hickel, Zadie Smith, Elena Martín, Donatella della Porta, Javier Pérez Royo, Eliane Brum, Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi, Begoña Román, Las Hijas De Felipe, Maria Rovira (Oye Sherman) and Ana Polo, Rocío Quillahuaman and Jean-Rémi Carbonneau.
The debates will take place in the CCCB, Can Felipa, Canòdrom, La Model, Plaça de Masadas, Plaça de la Virreina and the gardens of Pla i Armengol, among other venues. This edition of the Biennial coincides with Barcelona’s year as the European Capital of Democracy, which aims to strengthen the connection between participation and citizenship.Visit biennaldelpensament.barcelona for all the information.
The quintessential holiday month is here, and this year sees the sun and the hot weather sharing the limelight with the America’s Cup, the most important sailing competition of all. The event starts with the preliminary regatta on 22 August 202, followed by the first round.
The Port Olímpic will be gearing up for the occasion once its transformation into a people-centred space is complete. The revamped port will be a place where the blue economy, nautical sports, cuisine and the sea are at the heart of its economic and social activity. You’ll find full details at portolimpic.barcelona.
An event of this type brings a large volume of visitors with it. The website mobilitat.barcelona will be offering detailed information on mobility disruptions and alternatives, with the municipal journey planner “Getting there” providing travel recommendations while the competition is on.
Cultura.barcelona
In parallel to the sports competition, the Cultural Regatta offers a programme of activities based around culture, art, sports, cuisine, science and leisure, helping people to engage further with the world of sailing.
Various exhibitions will be offering complex visions of the link between human beings and the sea; addressing the theme through photography, archaeology and immersive experiences at different city museums, which can be found here. For its part, the Lletra Petita lecture cycle sees the city’s libraries join in with talks on books linked to the sea.
Once the Grec is over, the performing arts continue to fill Barcelona’s theatres with life, and the main site for checking what’s on is teatre.barcelona. Music will also be filling Montjuïc Castle during the evenings in August, with the Sala BCN festival. If you still want more, remember you can find all the cultural activity in the city at cultura.barcelona
Good food
The high temperatures and humidity mean we’re more careful with how and what we eat. One healthy option is to do our shopping at Barcelona’s markets, which sell fresh local produce and are as close as this link: mercats.barcelona.
If you’re not in the mood for cooking, you can take advantage of the full range of eating options in the city, a global role model for gastronomy, known the world over.
SEO optimisation for mobile devices is essential if we consider that smartphones are a vital means of internet access for many users. Search engines such as Google prioritise websites that offer a good mobile experience. Here are a series of tips to help you optimise your website SEO for mobiles:
1. Responsive design
A responsive design automatically adapts to different screen sizes. This means your website can be viewed well on computers and mobiles alike, enhancing user experience. Google recommends a responsive design as it helps to index content and avoids duplicated content.
2. Good loading speed
Loading speed is crucial for mobile SEO. Mobile users tend to abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Improving the loading speed can reduce this and increase the time users stay on your site. You can use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to identify any issues with speed.
3. Content optimisation
Content must be easy to read on small screens. Use short paragraphs, lists with bullet points and clear headings. Well-structured content facilitates the reading experience for users. Adapt content for mobile devices with simple and direct language, and make sure that calls to action (CTA) are accessible.
4. Avoid Flash and intrusive pop-ups
Flash is not compatible with many mobile phones and pop-ups can be very annoying to users. Steering clear of these improves user experience and avoids penalisations from Google. Use tech such as HTML5 instead of Flash and configure pop-ups to be less intrusive, or get rid of them altogether.
5. Local search optimisation
Many mobile searches are local in nature. Optimise your site for local searches adding relevant information such as addresses, phone numbers and opening times. Local searches can bring highly interested traffic to your services and products. Register your business on Google My Business and make sure your local information is accessible across your whole site.
6. Implementaton of structured data
Structured data are fragments of code that help search engines such as Google to understand website content better. You can use Schema.org to mark elements such as products, reviews and events.
Structured data can improve the visibility of your website in search results with rich snippets. With the help of an expert in programming, add structured data tagging to HTML code on the site following the Schema.org directives.
7. Use of Accelerated Mobile Pages
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are a Google initiativeto accelerate page loading on mobile devices. It’s a good idea to implement the AMP version of website pages as they load almost instantly, improving user experience.
8. Monitoring and analysis
Finally, it’s crucial to monitor the performance of your website and make constant adjustments. Regular monitoring enables you to identify problems quickly and adapt to new SEO trends. Use tools such as Google Analytics, Search Console and other SEO tools to monitor the performance of your site and get valuable information.
We hope this article helps you understand the importance of taking SEO for mobiles into account, and helps you optimise your website’s position and the experience of users who access it via mobile.
The .barcelona domain will be taking part in the GeoTLD group meeting in London on 5 and 6 September. The meeting is set to bring together representatives from various top level geographical domains (geoTLD) to discuss the opportunities and challenges for domains in today’s digital age.
The meeting will look at the evolution of the geoTLD market in the context of broader economic trends and ongoing digitalisation. There will be a review of factors such as economic growth, changes in internet use, the increase in the number of internet users and the growth of e-commerce. The goal is to critically assess how the geoTLD market works.
One of the essential topics in these meetings is security. Because of this, one of the sessions will look at aspects such as DNS abuse in geoTLDs, the efforts to keep these domains as secure spaces and strategies to show geoTLDs as safe online spaces.
The meeting will also look at the implementation of the NIS 2 directive, the EU regulation that will bolster cybersecurity measures to protect critical networks and information systems, broadening their scope and demanding greater coordination and resilience against cyberattacks.
Finally, there will be a talk with updates on the register, with each participating geoTLD sharing recent news and current developments.
The meeting rounds off with a summary of the questions still to be resolved and planning for the next meeting.
The third edition of the Neighbourhood Plan, the series of small-scale actions to reduce inequalities in specific areas of Barcelona, is under way. The plan targets those who suffer the effects and consequences of vulnerability the most, such as women, elderly people, teenagers and migrants.
The plan should reach a quarter of the city’s population, around 27 neighbourhoods in seven different districts, with an overall investment of 300 million euros. Two unique urban regeneration plans will be added from 2025, for the mountain neighbourhoods and for La Marina del Prat Vermell.
The new Neighbourhood Plan consolidates some of the policies already started and acts in a more specific and intensive way in neighbourhoods covered in the previous editions. The plan is distributed in three main spheres: education and culture, public space and accessibility, and housing and renovation, with new strategies in the fight against inequalities.
In a context of climate emergency, the search for innovative solutions to achieve greater comfort and energy efficiency in buildings is essential. Barcelona is testing three prototypes that use industrialised construction to respond to the challenge to improve the habitability and sustainability of existing buildings, reducing CO₂ emissions and energy consumption.
The three winning projects from the ideas competition launched in 2022 by the Fundació BIT Habitat and the Municipal Institute of Urban Planning are the prototypes ALIGRA, Regenerar Barcelona and InnoFAB. The projects consist of large modules that resemble three building façades, designed to adapt to existing residential blocks.
Made of wood and metal, the structures add a new façade to buildings and help create new spaces (balconies, new rooms and communal areas), or to improve their insulation and the impact of the sun. Constructions are also planned for rooftops, to add solar panelling, green rooftops and enable buildings to collect and reuse rainwater. These industrial systems can be manufactured in parts in workshops and then assembled directly on buildings quickly, easily and economically.
The three prototypes will be monitored for 12 months at a site on the Campus Diagonal – Besòs of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), in Sant Adrià de Besòs, to assess their impact for health and comfort, urban resilience, energy efficiency, circular economy and biodiversity. This will be possible thanks to the installation of a smart sensor system able to continuously measure various parameters. You can find more information on the website bithabitat.barcelona.
If you’ve recently registered a .barcelona domain and you already had a website, now it’s time to migrate your website to the new domain. We know this can be a complex task and that it needs to be planned properly. While we advise you to do this with the help of a programming professional, here we explain what you need to bear in mind when it comes to the migration.
1. Planning the migration and assessing the current site
Before you start the migration, you need to plan the change properly and review the state of the current website. This is a good time to produce an inventory of the content and decide what we want to keep and what’s now obsolete.
One way of knowing what content generates the most interest is to analyse the traffic that your site gets, this way you can see which pages get the most visits and the resources used the most by your visitors.
2. Preparing the new domain
If you haven’t done so already, before the migration you need to register the .barcelona domain: Make sure the new domain is registered and configured correctly. To do this, check the list of accredited registration companies that appear on our website. Here you’ll find the services they offer, as well as their set-up and renewal charges.
Once you have the domain registered, you need to configure the new hosting: If you’re changing your hosting service provider, make sure the new server is ready for your website. If you’re unsure, contact your new provider for help.
3. Transferring content
This is one of the key points in the migration. We recommend that from this point on you proceed with the help of somebody with programming knowledge.
You’ll need to make a complete back-up copy of your current site, including all the files in the database. Once you’ve made a copy of the files, the transfer to the new server associated with the .barcelona domain can be carried out.
Besides the files, you also need to migrate the database from your current website and import it to the new server.
4. DNS configuration
DNS configuration is crucial for your new .barcelona domain to lead to your website correctly. You need to access the control panel of your domain and update the A and CNAM registers with the IP address of your server. These changes can take up to 48 hours to be applied across the whole of the internet. Finally, you need to check that your website loads correctly and that all the links work.
5. Redirections and SEO
To maintain site traffic and SEO when you carry out the migration to the .barcelona domain, you need to configure 301 redirections from the former domain to the new one and ensure that visitors and search engines are directed correctly. You will also need to update all external links, as well as sitemap.xml and robots.txt files to reflect the new URLs. The permanent redirections will help preserve the position of the website and the authority of your website.
6. Verification and testing
After migrating to the .barcelona domain, check that all the pages load correctly and there are no 404 errors. Check all the forms and links work as they should. You can add the new domain to the Google Search Console to monitor its performance and ensure that Google Analytics is configured to monitor the traffic to the site. Keep checking the website to detect and solve any issues.
7. Communication with users
After migrating to the .barcelona domain, inform your users and customers of the change through communications and updates on social media. Make sure that all platforms and marketing materials reflect the new domain. Establish a support channel to help users with any problems they might have. Monitor your site to identify and quickly solve any issues that appear after the migration.
Finally, we recommend you carry out the migration at a time when your website has little traffic, so if something isn’t working you can always recover the website with the back-up copy you made at the start. We hope this step-by-step process will help guide you with migrating your website to the .barcelona domain.
