.ie or .com

sm.org

Hi looking for some wisdom from you wizened folk

Am currently in the process of launching my companies website and I cant decided whether to go with a .ie or a .com domain. I've checked and both are available.

First of all we're an Irish company and all of our clients are Irish based. However we don't heavily promote the fact that we're Irish and I don't think this affects our clients decision in choosing us as we provide an excellent service (don't we all )

There is an element of marketing and wholesaling involved and we sell our clients products to third parties, some are in the States and Oz. Does a .com address come into peoples thinking and is it more search compatible?

My main tipple about .ie is that its considerably more expensive then a .com domain. As a very cost focused company this is a sticking point.

In a nutshell we are an Irish company and 80% of our business is in Ireland. Is a .ie the a must for us or will .com do fine?

Thanks in advance

forbairt

80% of your business is in ireland ? and you can't afford 30 euro a year ? and an extra 6 quid for a .com ?

My personal opinion would get both if they are available.

not too sure which you should use ... maybe use both ... 1 for your US / Oz market and the other for the irish ?

Making sure its different content to some extent on both targeting its respective market.

Just a few late night thoughts

sm.org

Its not that we cant afford it. Its just I hate spending money without reason.

But your right We're probably scrimping in the wrong area's. Two domains is probably a good idea if only to protect us from copycats.

Thanks

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Tony

The .ie is vital if you want to do well on Google with Irish customers. Get the .com too but if you intend having identical content on both sites then I would ask your ISP to put a permanent redirect on the .com to point at the .ie site

sm.org

Thanks thats a really good point

heggie

both for sure, having both available is a real luxury these days, take advantage.

Joseph

Get both!

Tony

sm.org wrote: »

Thanks thats a really good point

Your welcome, google is even going so far as to localise results based on the server location so keep that in mind too when choosing an ISP. I use these guys and have found them to be very helpful http://www.hostingireland.ie/ If you really weant to go the whole hog register some common mispellings of the name too eg. www.satelite.ie (sic)

sm.org

Thanks Tony that was my next question. I Googled domain registration and couldn't see much difference between the five sites I went through.

heggie

be careful, just because a host has 'ireland' in the title doesn't actually mean their servers are in ireland.

jmcc

sm.org wrote: »

First of all we're an Irish company and all of our clients are Irish based. However we don't heavily promote the fact that we're Irish and I don't think this affects our clients decision in choosing us as we provide an excellent service (don't we all )

Then register the .ie and the .com version (if available) and make the .ie your primary brand/website.

There is an element of marketing and wholesaling involved and we sell our clients products to third parties, some are in the States and Oz. Does a .com address come into peoples thinking and is it more search compatible?

Use the .com for non-Irish operations. Be careful with brand dilutions in those markets where your local distributor might register the local ccTLD version of your domain.

The .com price is cheap compared to the .ie price. However getting both could save a lot of trouble in the future. If the .com is available get it now and if possible get the net/org/biz/info/eu/mobi.

Regards...jmcc

Tony

heggie wrote: »

be careful, just because a host has 'ireland' in the title doesn't actually mean their servers are in ireland.

In the case of hosting Ireland their servers are in Dublin

forbairt

jmcc wrote: »

The .com price is cheap compared to the .ie price. However getting both could save a lot of trouble in the future. If the .com is available get it now and if possible get the net/org/biz/info/eu/mobi.

Regards...jmcc

Get them all if they are available ... you're talking what 50 - 80 quid a year to register the whole lot if its available.

1 advert in a paper for 1 day = 800 quid ? (and so on with justification)

sm.org

Thanks for all your responses, there is some really good info in there, some of which I had no awareness of.

jmcc

forbairt wrote: »

Get them all if they are available ... you're talking what 50 - 80 quid a year to register the whole lot if its available.

1 advert in a paper for 1 day = 800 quid ? (and so on with justification)

Yep. It is peace of mind and brand security. At least the .ie and com should be registered. If the brand is trademarked in the future, it will also save a few problems. The cost of getting a .net or .org back after the .ie or .com becomes famous or well known will be much higher.

Regards...jmcc

byrne0f56789

Get both but make sure you have a Linux server. You need this to do a 301 redirect using .htaccess. This is very important as you will need to redirect the dot com to the dot ie and then redirect the http://yoursite.ie to http://www.yoursite.ie.

I was stung with a Windows server which is a total pain to do the 301 (search engine friendly) redirect on.

yop

Personally I will always take a .IE site over a .COM one, maybe my logic is flawed on that decision, but put it this way, if you are in Lanzarote and you have 2 pubs in front of you, Paddys Bar (Irish) and The Queen Vic (British), which one are you going to pick, assuming you are Irish

R3al

yop wrote: »

Personally I will always take a .IE site over a .COM one, maybe my logic is flawed on that decision, but put it this way, if you are in Lanzarote and you have 2 pubs in front of you, Paddys Bar (Irish) and The Queen Vic (British), which one are you going to pick, assuming you are Irish

If most of your customers and business is in Ireland then you should definitely go with a .ie domain as this will carry more weight with search engines when people are searching for products/services in Ireland. .ie domains are more expensive as the applicant must provide evidence of entitlement to the domain, this means that there is a higher administrative overhead, but is beneficial as it is less likely that someone else has already registered your domain.

.com domain names are better for international trade but it is much harder these days to find meaningful domain names in the .com range as there are no restrictions on registration, therefore most of the common words and phrases (if not all) have been taken at this stage.

If you go for both a .com and .ie domain you should redirect the .com to the .ie, you do this so that the search engine does not interpret both domains pointing at the same website as a form of search engine spamming which can be detrimental to your website ranking

Sonnenblumen

yop wrote: »

Personally I will always take a .IE site over a .COM one, maybe my logic is flawed on that decision, but put it this way, if you are in Lanzarote and you have 2 pubs in front of you, Paddys Bar (Irish) and The Queen Vic (British), which one are you going to pick, assuming you are Irish

What choose between two 'Breakfast all day' joints, I'd run a mile!!!

For me .ie = parochial, .com= wider appeal, latter more important for spreading the word.

CallieO

Have you looked to the future - .mobi is the new big thing?

sm.org

Yeah but because its so mobile phone targeted you'd effectively have to run two sites one for pc and one for cells. I'd need to do some research and get some stats on it before considering the extra expense.

CallieO

originally .com was for companies, .org for organisations and so on. You could consider .eu?
Assuming the domains are available for the name.

Its always worth considering what you actually do? If you are wanting customers to find your business through search engines it might be worth incorporating the business function in the domain name.

justsomebloke

yop wrote: »

Personally I will always take a .IE site over a .COM one, maybe my logic is flawed on that decision, but put it this way, if you are in Lanzarote and you have 2 pubs in front of you, Paddys Bar (Irish) and The Queen Vic (British), which one are you going to pick, assuming you are Irish

but given that there are more english people in Lanzarote then Irish people, calling your pub the Queen Vic (even if you are Irish) would potentially give you a bigger potential market to aim for.

As everyone has said get both as the .com may make it slightly easier to use it advertising your company to a non Irish market and although that is currently only 20% of your trade you might aswell get it in case you you try to expand that proportion

Aelfric

I went for a .ie for my business, as the .com was taken by a UK business with a similar name. That said, I wouldn't have gone for the .com anyway, as if I'm searching the web for an Irish-based service or product, I always choose .ie sites over any other, as the likes of Google etc sometimes pick up American & British suppliers even if you specify 'pagesfrom Ireland'.