Personal .ie Domain Names

Host.ie

Today the Irish Domain Registry ( IEDR ) have finally announced that they will be releasing personal .ie domain names on the 31st October.

What does this mean:

It means that individuals can now register their own names as example www.joebloggs.ie

The registration of personal domain names will be open to all individuals who can authenticate a claim to the domain name and who have a real and substantive connection to the island of Ireland. To authenticate a claim, a copy of an identification document is required, for example an Irish utility bill or driving license

This is just a heads up for everyone, its long overdue, and i do think very important step. Oner thing to note, this will be on a first come first serve basis, so if there are 2 John Smiths out their, who ever gets their application in first with the correct documentation will get the name.

mneylon

It's also worth noting that the IEDR will not be allowing ANY applications for personal IE domains for at least 30 days before the "go live" date.

More coverage:
http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2007/09/12/iedr-relaxing-personal-name-policy-at-last/
http://blog.blacknight.ie/personal_ie_domains_go_live_en.html
http://www.mulley.net/2007/09/12/personal-domain-names-come-to-ireland-kinda/
http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com/domains-domaining/2484-iedr-announce-personal-domain-names.html
http://www.edenweb.co.uk/blog/2007/09/12/yournameie/

steve-hosting36

Also http://blog.register365.com/?p=10

kerplunk.

Host.ie wrote:

Today the Irish Domain Registry ( IEDR ) have finally announced that they will be releasing personal .ie domain names on the 31st October.

QUOTE]

For full IEDR press release please see

randombar

Do people know what the cost of registering the .ie? Or will it be the same price as it is now i.e. way too much!

steve-hosting36

Exactly the same price as any other domain. .ie is still expensive (compared with .com) but 25 euro isnt too bad for a .ie domain.

randombar

Will google still value the .ie more favorably ratings wise? and why the extra cost?

forbairt

GaryCocs wrote:

Do people know what the cost of registering the .ie? Or will it be the same price as it is now i.e. way too much!

Georgie Casey had a good rundown of the prices on his blog

http://www.georgiecasey.com/2007/09/10/price-comparison-of-ie-domain-name-registrars/

steve-hosting36

.ie will get you listed on the 'pages from ireland', as will hosting in Ireland. The .ie domain is 'managed' and, generally, consumers tend to 'trust' .ie brands more for local purchases, etc.

randombar

Bloody hell what are magnet up to??

forbairt wrote:

Georgie Casey had a good rundown of the prices on his blog

http://www.georgiecasey.com/2007/09/10/price-comparison-of-ie-domain-name-registrars/

steve-hosting36

Hey! 300 euro to reg a .ie and point it at a third party DNS is sweet cash

forbairt

I was wondering what you were on about and checked their site ... sweet zombie cheeses ... !!!

I remember someone asking on here how much they could charge to transfer a domain ... before ... I think a LOT if he adopted the magnet way ...

CoNfOuNd

I can't believe I missed out on the opportunity to paste the IEDR press release word for word. Oh well, here goes..

http://www.spiralhosting.com/blog/read/47

It will be very interesting to see how well the IEDR can cope with the launch. Even with extra staff and special procedures brought in, I imagine there will still be something for us to complain about.

The relaxation of the registration policy is good news, but people still won't be able to register a domain name for their whole family under this new category. e.g. bloggs.ie
They'll have to register a different domain for every family member, which isn't going to happen.

mneylon

Hopefully it will appease some people

WeeDiddly

modata.ie wrote:

Domain Registration Charges

Dot IE www.yourname.ie €100.00 p.a.

thats excluding VAT!!
and i know someone who bought two domains... hosting was €90 on top.

I could have done it for €100 instead of a ridiculous €300. and you wouldn't mind if the hosting/domain was half decent...

zokrez

I read somewhere that the cost of .ie from the mothership is €69 plus vat. Is this every year? The wholesale rate or the RRP ? If letshost & hosting365 have reduced their price down to €25 are they taking a hit in the hope that joebloggs.ie will host with them? Why do some resellers only offer .ie for one year and not 4,5 10 etc ?

- Blacknight are you gonna be reducing your prices and offering customers to register for more than 1 year ?

mneylon

Zakrze wrote:

- Blacknight are you gonna be reducing your prices and offering customers to register for more than 1 year ?

As soon as the registry supports multi-year registrations we will offer them.


As for pricing - we review pricing on a regular basis and run special offers from time to time. We wouldn't, however, drop our prices as low as some are willing to do until the IEDR reduces our cost - though we might offer reduced rates for a couple of weeks

zokrez

blacknight wrote:

As soon as the registry supports multi-year registrations we will offer them.


As for pricing - we review pricing on a regular basis and run special offers from time to time. We wouldn't, however, drop our prices as low as some are willing to do until the IEDR reduces our cost - though we might offer reduced rates for a couple of weeks

Thanks for very quick reply but how come register365.ie are able to offer multi year registrations then ? I presume you are just been sensible in not engaging in price war just to compete whereas the reality is multi-year registration means little or no profit?

If I wanted to register a .ie domain name for say 5 years costing €129.75 with register365.ie could I then transfer to you to provide my hosting and pay for just the hosting. Would my 5 years be then in credit?

Am I missing something?

mneylon

If you get a multi-year registration from anyone at the moment its not actually registered with the registry for more than one year.

steve-hosting36

Hi Zakrze,

You can register for 5 years with us, but it means you will not be able to move the domain name to another provider for that period. You can of course use any DNS servers you wish, and host the domain anywhere you wish.

As soon as the IEDR support multiple year registraton, all prepaid domains will be syncronised with the IEDR.

A lot of the smaller hosting companies make excellent margin from .ie domains (the wholesale rate is 25 euro per year) which they use to subsidise or grow their businesses. Not everyone can afford the 'price war'.

mneylon

steve-hosting36 wrote:

A lot of the smaller hosting companies make excellent margin from .ie domains (the wholesale rate is 25 euro per year) which they use to subsidise or grow their businesses. Not everyone can afford the 'price war'.

That's amusing coming from you. You only dropped your pricing recently from charging the same as Novara

steve-hosting36

We changed our pricing when we launched our new management systems, allowing us a high level of automation and removing the manual labour that had previously been associated with .ie domain application processing.

cgarvey

Surely there's another host who can post a link to a blog entry? FFS lads, this is a community site, not an advertising facility. If you've something to say, say it, but meaningless pointers to meaningless blog posts (for your own gain, not that of this community) are, well, pointless!

Damien Mulley's blot post was the only link to mention the new formats allowed (e.g. joesoap.ie, jsoap.ie, etc.). Every other link, with the exception of Georgies' price research post, had nothing to offer other than the IEDR press release (and most didn't even point to it).

[EDIT: I meant every link to a host blog, more than Every link, sorry]

Multi-year registrations aren't supported by the registry, so paying for 5 years puts you at the mercy of Company X for 4 years, as well as giving them interest potential on your money. If you have a need to not rely on annual renewals (can't think of any case), then make sure you trust Company X. Hosting 365 have been transparent about this here, but it's not clear at all from their website (Steve, www.websitealive7.com is REALLY slowing down register365 site).

So hosters, in the interests of the community, if you have nothing to say, say nothing. Please.

cgarvey

As for the cheapest? Well that would appear to be iccmhosting.com, but then Lets Host have historically been the cheapest for a while now, and offer a guarantee to beat any price.

But, as the hosters will all plead, it's not just about the base price:
+ Is hosting required, or optional? (Up to you to decide on the quality/value of the hosting separately)
+ Can you use your own name servers? If so, at what charge, and how easy it is to setup/change?
+ Does the price include VAT? (you'd be suprised the number of resellers in blatent breach of the law on this. Usually the small 1/2-man home-based resellers, in fairness to the big hosts, but still!!)
+ What's the price after the 1st year? The dirty little secret of low-cost domain registration!!
+ What additional services are bundled? (e.g. cloaked/uncloacked web forwarding, single email forwarding, catch-all email forwarding, nameserver management, etc.)
+ Can you phone? If so, will the person speak English well enough for you to understand each other? Is it freephone, lo-call, call-save, national, universal, international, premium rate?

Of course these are all questions hosts can answer. A significant proportion of your value evaluation should also be based on personal experience. Have they open forums? Any other users' opinions/reviews (here or any other site)?

Some personal opinions of the "cheap" resellers (as researched by Georgie):
+ Letshost.ie : GOOD: Easy to contact by phone, quick to sort out problem. Cheap as it gets, guaranteed. BAD: Small US-based cPanel resellers, if you're getting hosting, or are concerned about DNS location
+ Hosting 365: GOOD: Big. Independent network/facilities. Phone support. Cheap. BAD: Power issues aside, despite claims to the contrary, I've found their support to be amongst the poorest of the Irish hosts I've had direct experience with.
+ Switch Media: Won't say anything here at the risk of being sued
+ Digiweb: GOOD: Cheap, independent network (if you're hosting), new to the game (digiweb as a host pre-Dan King is just a good joke). BAD: New to the game, so hard to tell yet.
+ Darklite: No personal experience and have read mixed reviews via Google.
+ Blacknight: GOOD: Network in good data centre, great support, open to non-run-of-the-mill stuff. BAD: Now in the mid-tier price bracket, so you'll need to be getting hosting to get value for your domain reg fee.

My recommendation: If you have your own setup / don't need hosting/support (for what it's worth), LetsHost. If you do need hosting, Blacknight (with Hosting 365 not far behind.. but Blacknight's support level beats H365 hands down in my experience).

Tip of the day: Look at renewal price, before committing!

steve-hosting36

Great post cgarvey, altho I would state that I believe our support levels have been improving in leaps and bounds over the last while. Your experience might be a while ago? We now have over 50 people delivering true 24/7 round the clock support, on email, livechat and freephone, and are working hard to delivery consistently exceptional service.

As for the renewals, we charge the exact same for new reg, renewal and transfers, and don't believe in 'specials' or 'bundles' to give good pricing.

Random

Anyone know if .ie domains can be preregistered for when you can have personal www.firstnamelastname.ie ?

mneylon

ciaranfo wrote:

Anyone know if .ie domains can be preregistered for when you can have personal www.firstnamelastname.ie ?

The IEDR explicitly forbid it.

steve-hosting36

um, I know Novara already are taking pre-regs.

mneylon

steve-hosting36 wrote:

um, I know Novara already are taking pre-regs.

They must be using some kind of queue system on their end

We've been looking into something similar.

The problem with queues is that there are ZERO guarantees.

steve-hosting36

We're now also offering Queue for personal domains. No guarantees, but we will provide an unequivocal refund in full to anyone who is not successful (or allow them to change to another domain combination).

Random

Can you give a link to the queue steve?