PUNTUEUS is a non-profit organization responsible for monitoring and promoting the .EUS top-level domain. Its primary mission is to foster the growth of the Basque language and culture within the digital sphere, creating a strong, recognizable digital identity for the Basque Country. To measure its impact and monitor the health of the Basque language online, PUNTUEUS operates the PUNTUEUS Observatory.
To gain deeper insights into the digital landscape, PUNTUEUS partnered with The Bright Initiative powered by Bright Data, a global organization that leverages data collection technology to drive positive social and environmental impact.
The Challenge:
Accurately mapping the presence of a minority language online is a massive technical hurdle. To evaluate the presence of the Basque language, the PUNTUEUS Observatory conducts an annual survey of the .EUS domain and the wider digital ecosystem in the Basque Country.
However, traditional web scraping methods often miss dynamic or deeply buried content, leading to an incomplete picture of language use. For years, these annual surveys estimated that around 15% of active websites in the Basque Country contained Basque language content. PUNTUEUS suspected that this figure was underestimating the true scope of the Basque digital footprint due to the technical limitations of existing data collection tools.
To effectively advocate for the language and accurately monitor user trends, such as the digital signals from browser language settings, the non-profit needed an advanced solution. Through the use of Bright Data’s Web Unlocker, PUNTUEUS leveraged advanced collection capabilities across hundreds of domains—scanning previously hidden layers of the web.
The Impact:
By integrating Bright Data’s advanced data collection technology, PUNTUEUS revolutionized its measurement methodology for its 2025 study. The partnership unlocked unprecedented visibility, scanning thousands of websites that were previously undetectable.
- The study revealed that 20% of active websites in the Basque Country contain content in Basque—a 5% increase from previous estimates, driven entirely by the ability to uncover hidden content.
- The data collected confirmed that domain choice is critical for linguistic survival. The .EUS domain emerged as the true stronghold for the language, with 74% of its websites featuring Basque, compared to just 15.3% on .COM and 9.8% on .ES.
- Bolstered by a highly loyal community with a 90% annual renewal rate (compared to the 70% global average), the .EUS domain grew by 4.6% in 2025 to reach 16,393 domain names—outpacing global top-level domain growth by nearly four times.
Through this collaboration, PUNTUEUS and The Bright Initiative have provided the most accurate picture of the Basque internet to date, validating the vital role of the .EUS domain in sustaining the language’s digital vitality across businesses, education, and public institutions.
Read the full report here.
