Why do .ie domain names cost so much???

petangels

I have little experience and knowledge in the land of website technology. Today I purchased both a .ie and .co.uk domain name and found the difference in price considerable. Along with that the process involved is ridulous when you buy a .ie because they're now asking me to fax over proof that the domain name will be used for non associated purposes??? I did not need to supply anything addtional for the .co.uk domain.

Prices: .ie - €45.90 - 2yrs
.co.uk - £9.90 - 2yrs

Dose anyone know why we pay so much more for .ie domain names and whats with the paper work and processing after purchase?

ionix5891

good question

why does a few characters stored in a database be worth so much?

domain names are like text messages the ultimate rip off

thebman

Because they can. Smaller market maybe but mostly because they can.

Sposs

Because the IEDR is a managed domain registry , which means every single domain order has to be manually approved by a human being , this is a timely and costly procedure and results in higher costs. Saying that the costs have come down massively in recent years , only a few years ago you were looking at 80 - 100 euro per annum.

Liam Byrne

Plus the fact that the above usually stops someone else grabbing a similar name and hijacking your traffic.

Worth the extra, if you ask me.

mneylon

It's still very manual, so it costs more for everyone involved in the process

.eu / co.uk / com etc., are all completely automated

Eoin

Liam Byrne wrote:

Plus the fact that the above usually stops someone else grabbing a similar name and hijacking your traffic.

Worth the extra, if you ask me.

I agree completely, plus I think .ie has a bit more weight in Ireland, over a .com that can be anywhere.

€30 is hardly the end of the world. Not that long since it was a multiple of that.

ionix5891

blacknight wrote: »

It's still very manual, so it costs more for everyone involved in the process

.eu / co.uk / com etc., are all completely automated

why not? why are we so "special"

talk about one hell of a boring over glorified data entry job

suppose that just further highlights the sort of excesses that this country has taken on

Plus the fact that the above usually stops someone else grabbing a similar name and hijacking your traffic.

uhm no not really, a better way would be to have a good complaints/arbitration process

do remember that this post takes more space in a database than your typical domain entry in the DNS system, where my 30quid

Bluefoam

.ie is regulated, therefore offering a more exclusive product. Only companies legitimatety operating in Ireland can use it. The same cannot be said for .co.uk which can be used by any knob head, thus devaluing it as web realestate.

ionix5891

Bluefoam wrote: »

.ie is regulated, therefore offering a more exclusive product. Only companies legitimatety operating in Ireland can use it. The same cannot be said for .co.uk which can be used by any knob head, thus devaluing it as web realestate.

product? realestate?

i am sorry but what a way to describe a few characters in a database

come of it (yes i do own .ie domains) domain squating is a huge issue but having the price so high is not an answer, most of the domainsquating in .com and other main domains is done by the registrars themselves such as Network Solutions "tasting" domains for free > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting

actually .ie is a rip off, ill give you an example why

.it domains are also managed and you have to be an eu company to buy one, the process involves faxing proof of address and other documents, and waiting a long time for it to be manually reviewed, BUT its alot cheaper than .ie,

i know as my company owes the second largest .it domain now (first being Google) and it took alot of patience to get it

mickoneill30

ionix5891 wrote: »

actually .ie is a rip off, ill give you an example why

.it domains are also managed and you have to be an eu company to buy one, the process involves faxing proof of address and other documents, and waiting a long time for it to be manually reviewed, BUT its alot cheaper than .ie,

There's a potential answer so. Outsource the .ie domain name registration to companies in Italy. What's the average wage in Italy again?

ionix5891

mickoneill30 wrote: »

There's a potential answer so. Outsource the .ie domain name registration to companies in Italy. What's the average wage in Italy again?

why not outsource it? if it means lower costs...

theres no minimum wage in Italy, a job like this wouldn't require much education and is pure beuracracy

.ie do it because they can get away with it and we Irish are used to be fleeced at every turn, so far all the attempts of justifying the price are weak and one of the people "blacknight" is involved in the business :cool:

there will be even less value next year when anyone for few hundred K can setup and maintain and resell their own .whatever

what do they do with them money? buy gold plated DNS servers?

Eoin

There is very little money to be made in reselling domain names, so people in the reselling business don't have that much of a vested interest.

uhm no not really, a better way would be to have a good complaints/arbitration process

So you have to wait until after this process is complete to get your domain name back? Do you think that would be more cost effective for the consumer or the authority?

Edit - at €30 it's not the most expensive TLD either, and at least it's for the right reasons, rather than pure profiteering.

ionix5891

eoin wrote: »

There is very little money to be made in reselling domain names, so people in the reselling business don't have that much of a vested interest.



So you have to wait until after this process is complete to get your domain name back? Do you think that would be more cost effective for the consumer or the authority?

little money? whats the markup on looking over an application and reviewing/updating a row in a database??

whats wrong with having an arbitration process where the looser would have to pay the admin fees, that will definitely put off squatters

Eoin

I said reselling domain names - that is not the IEDR.

whats wrong with having an arbitration process where the looser would have to pay the admin fees, that will definitely put off squatters

No, it will put off people who want their rightful domain name. €30 is not the end of the world unless you're registering lots of domain names. And if you're doing that, you're most likely a very big company or a domain speculatator.

Here are some more TLDS by the way:

.fm: $95.00
.co.ck (hee hee): $75
.tv $39.99
.jobs $125
.tm $ 1100.00 for 10 Years Registration
.co.tt $100
.tt $1000U

Dades

ionix5891 wrote: »

come of it (yes i do own .ie domains) domain squating is a huge issue but having the price so high is not an answer, most of the domainsquating in .com and other main domains is done by the registrars themselves such as Network Solutions "tasting" domains for free > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting

Personally I fail to see why a legitimate business would gripe over paying €24 (the price I last paid) for their domain, given the system is set up to protect that domain from falling into the hands of a squatter.

And to suggest that a lengthy arbitration process after a domain has been taken would be more effective than protecting the domain in the first place, leads me to believe you are either completely naive or a troll.

USER X

The IEDR are the most anal shower of cu*ts, ive ever had to deal with. This new requirement they brought in (A year or two ago) that you have to have name servers setup before they will complete the registration is a load of fubbin boll*x. The reason I object so strongly to this requirement is that if I set the TTL of the DNS records down to a minute, I can change where the domain points in a minute and it could be pointing to absolutely anything so what was the point of having this requirement in the first place. Thankfully when you purchase a .ie domain name through a reseller, you can deal with the administration of it directly with IEDR (e.g. NS changes), I bought a .ie domain through a reseller because it was so much cheaper but I was literally banging my head off the wall trying to get a straight answer out of them (the reseller).

I think I would agree with the IEDR's requirement to prove a vested interest in a domain name because with .coms, it seems to be pretty much impossible to get a domain which is 4 characters or less. The reason being, theres people just sitting on the majority of them, hoping to charge an extortionate amount (few thousand $) to some poor unfortunate who needs it to further a business venture.

ionix5891

Dades wrote: »

Personally I fail to see why a legitimate business would gripe over paying €24 (the price I last paid) for their domain, given the system is set up to protect that domain from falling into the hands of a squatter.

And to suggest that a lengthy arbitration process after a domain has been taken would be more effective than protecting the domain in the first place, leads me to believe you are either completely naive or a troll.

aint calling someone you dont agree with a troll against this sites charter?

i don't mind paying money if i can see the value added in it, in case of .ie domains its an obvious money milking scheme considering the costs are non-existent

mneylon

USER X wrote: »

The IEDR are the most anal shower of cu*ts, ive ever had to deal with. This new requirement they brought in (A year or two ago) that you have to have name servers setup before they will complete the registration is a load of fubbin boll*x. The reason I object so strongly to this requirement is that if I set the TTL of the DNS records down to a minute, I can change where the domain points in a minute and it could be pointing to absolutely anything so what was the point of having this requirement in the first place. Thankfully when you purchase a .ie domain name through a reseller, you can deal with the administration of it directly with IEDR (e.g. NS changes), I bought a .ie domain through a reseller because it was so much cheaper but I was literally banging my head off the wall trying to get a straight answer out of them (the reseller).

I think I would agree with the IEDR's requirement to prove a vested interest in a domain name because with .coms, it seems to be pretty much impossible to get a domain which is 4 characters or less. The reason being, theres people just sitting on the majority of them, hoping to charge an extortionate amount (few thousand $) to some poor unfortunate who needs it to further a business venture.

The IEDR technical requirements have been there for years.
The TTL of your zone file is irrelevant - if your SOAs don't match you will have issues.

Compared to a lot of the cctlds the IEDR technical requirements aren't that strict

Eoin

ionix5891 wrote: »

i don't mind paying money if i can see the value added in it, in case of .ie domains its an obvious money milking scheme considering the costs are non-existent

I just posted a list of TLDs that are more expensive, and that don't protect you against squatting. They are the ones that are purely profiteering. So not only is a .ie domain name not the most expensive, but it also provides more value for money IMO.

ScumLord

Wow, .ie has really come down in price. We paid well over €100 when we got ours.

.ie is a quality domain no matter which way you look at it, from the internet users point of view you know a .ie won't be full of garbage. Sure it's a bit more expensive than others, welcome to Ireland stay away from petrol stations.

petangels

You guys certainly know what you’re talking about but still think that although yes there should be an addional charge for processing etc, surely it shouldn’t amount to that much of a difference for each one! I gave up on a .com as the chances of finding one would be the same as striking gold..

You say some people buy similar domains names so they can steal traffic, should I then buy more to protect mine? Advice is much appreciated

Eoin

But it's not a massive amount of money; the prices have dropped considerably.

petangels wrote: »

I gave up on a .com as the chances of finding one would be the same as striking gold..

That actually demonstrates exactly why it can be a good thing that .ie domains are more expensive and harder to register!

mneylon

petangels wrote: »

You guys certainly know what you’re talking about but still think that although yes there should be an addional charge for processing etc, surely it shouldn’t amount to that much of a difference for each one! I gave up on a .com as the chances of finding one would be the same as striking gold..

You say some people buy similar domains names so they can steal traffic, should I then buy more to protect mine? Advice is much appreciated

IEDR sets the wholesale rate and then the rest of us mark it up to cover our costs and make *some* money (amount varies from company to company)

If the registry operator (IEDR) were to drop the wholesale rate of IE domains to 5 euro, then you'd probably see them being available for 10 euro or under ... though I wouldn't hold my breath

ionix5891

blacknight wrote: »

If the registry operator (IEDR) were to drop the wholesale rate of IE domains to 5 euro, then you'd probably see them being available for 10 euro or under ... though I wouldn't hold my breath

why is there some sort of a cartel going on there? what sort of businesses don't drop prices when the costs go down? is there collusion or monopoly or lack of competition to do so?

i am asking as someone who bought the .ie domain with your company and was not happy with the price or the procedure

and fail to see where the "quality" that is spoken about in this thread is

also would be nice to disclose the breakdown of what % of the money for .ie domain registration goes where, to whom and for what exactly

.

CuLT

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Plus the fact that the above usually stops someone else grabbing a similar name and hijacking your traffic.

Worth the extra, if you ask me.

You'd think so wouldn't you.

STBR

Well this is a great point.

It's because of this that I wouldn't even consider buying one.

I've got my name .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .mobi, etc. and EVEN .co.uk

But unless they lower their prices, they can keep it.

mneylon

ionix5891 wrote: »

why is there some sort of a cartel going on there? what sort of businesses don't drop prices when the costs go down? is there collusion or monopoly or lack of competition to do so?
.

I think you misunderstood my post. If the IEDR dropped the wholesale rate we'd pass on the savings as best we could.

As for businesses not dropping prices - check the price of milk. The amount paid to the farmers has dropped significantly over the last 12 months, but you don't see the cost of litre dropping in your local supermarket ..

ionix5891

blacknight wrote: »

I think you misunderstood my post. If the IEDR dropped the wholesale rate we'd pass on the savings as best we could.

As for businesses not dropping prices - check the price of milk. The amount paid to the farmers has dropped significantly over the last 12 months, but you don't see the cost of litre dropping in your local supermarket ..

I sure hope you do pass on the savings, thanks for answering

as for milk, the market is rigged with all sorts of quotas and don't get me started on CAP as otherwise we would end-up with lakes of milk

and the the last link in the chain (supermarkets) are rather greedy, i hope thats not whats happening here, tho i do remember a certain supermarket lowering milk prices only to end up being mobbed by farmers

RoadKillTs

Well this is a great point.

Agreed.

The point that we pay more for a .ie domain in return for having the TLD better protected against squatters and the like is nonsense.

I have registered .ie domains before without having any right to them.
I also noticed that some resellers are stricter than others when it comes to registering .ie domains.

generalmiaow

Sorry to resurrect this thread, I think it's mostly played out but I reckon I'll be on topic...
I once wrote the IEDR an angry email (I think this is when UCD ran it) saying very much the same thing as ionix5891, but I got a nice reply explaining much of what has been said in this thread.

I like the idea in theory, especially with all these domain hacks (hipp.ie is a wasted domain imo) and so forth. Even though at the end of the day it's just a few letters, the .ie is distinctive and call me naive (probably no more so than one's customers tbh) but when shopping online I feel a sense of reassurance when I spot the TLD, since I know the hassle they went through to get it, rather than replicating uk.buystuffssss.com with a subdomain for every CC. You get the sense that they "do business" here which I believe is huge.

Not sure how it pans out in practise. I have registered a couple of ie domains since then and noticed a few loopholes, like companies retaining domains after being struck off or changing names, various registrants who seem to have friends in the IEDR, the funny stuff about the way publications and discretionary names can be used, or those mysterious companies called Google McYahoo Ltd. trading as Ebay O'Fiannafail who are able to speculate multiple domains based on pieces of the company name once they pay their CRO fees.

I reckon it works though, since every time the entepreneurs I know come up with an idea, there's usually an IE domain waiting for it, untouched by the bot hordes. I wouldn't change the current system, though sadly 25 quid is the sort of money I need to keep track of these days....:(