Why .ie can't be Sold

jmcc

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

Out of 173k only 6.6k redirecting (or at least doing so with a 3xx status) seems surprisingly low.

Personal curiosity here, but do you have a breakdown on the 301/302 usage? Even a rough % would be interesting.

Those were the .com figures.
This is a full breakdown (preliminary) for Irish hosted .com websites:

Active websites: 51.30%
Brand Protection: 1.22%
External TLD Redirect: 1.94%
Forbidden: 1.21%
Government: 0.03%
Holding Page: 12.54%
Internal Site Redirect: 5.31%
Matched External TLD Redirect: 1.75%
Duplicate Content Neworks: 0.69%
PPC Parking: 15.77%
Redirect (unclassified): 0.26%
For Sale: 0.03%
Unavailable: 0.38%
Compromised/Hacked: 0.08%
Same TLD (in zone) site redirect: 4.67%

The methodology is a bit more advanced than just counting 301s/302s as it analyses the redirect to determine where it is being redirected. The algorithms are still running on the data so the Active figure will fall slightly.

Basically there are five types of redirect in this classification:
Internally to a different page. (www.example.AAA to www.example.AAA/shop/index.php)
Externally to a matched domain website (example.AAA to example.BBB) in another TLD.
Externally to unmatched domain website in other TLD.
To other site in same TLD (example1.AAA to example2.AAA)
Uncassified (missing or broken destination)

Regards...jmcc

meglome

jmcc wrote: »

This perception that one person's right (or need) for a domain is greater than that of the registrant is at the heart of a lot of allegations of cybersquatting. The problem with this is that the registrant has just beaten the person who wants the domain to the registration. The most important issue in dealing with cybersquatting issues is what rights each party has to the domain. If you've a trademark and someone goes and registers a domain using that TM then you've got to take action. However if you have no intellectual property rights to the domain someone else has registered then it is not necessarily cybersquatting.

Regards...jmcc

I'm not saying anyone has the right to purchase a domain. What I'm saying is with any commodity there is an associated value. It will be usually based on factors like rarity and demand. So when a domain is unused and is being held by companies who buy and sell domains in principle you should be able to purchase it for a fair market value. But I have got an independent values on domains and offered sometimes three times that valuation and they wouldn't sell. What they did instead was make an arbitrary demand for thousands which was not based on the value of the product in any way shape or form. It was, IMO, basically extortion. That cannot be right.

jmcc

meglome wrote: »

I'm not saying anyone has the right to purchase a domain.

But in an open TLD like .com, this is exactly what happens. It was a landrush initially were you could register anything and much of the cybersquatting law only developed in the last twelve years or so.

What I'm saying is with any commodity there is an associated value. It will be usually based on factors like rarity and demand.

There are only about 300K domains that are considered high value generic domains and they tend to get registered across TLDs. With rarity, you generally start on the single character, two character, three character domains and then move on to the short numerical domains.

So when a domain is unused and is being held by companies who buy and sell domains in principle you should be able to purchase it for a fair market value.

It is a free market. Some companies buy domains to monetise them and their equations as to the domain worth are based on its earning potential. These companies are more likely to drop a domain once it fails to make enough to cover its registration. However many good generic domains do cover their registration fee in PPC revenue.

But I have got an independent values on domains and offered sometimes three times that valuation and they wouldn't sell.

Independent valuations are often quite flakey and they are rarely worth paying for unless there is some genuine expertise behind the valuation. Often the people evaulating a domain don't have any idea of the earnings of a domain or how the registrant intends to use it.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

jmcc wrote: »

It is not unusual to see domains being registered purely for e-mail purposes. Some businesses will use a different TLD for their e-mail traffic to that of their main brand website. With the larger companies, this is more common, especially if the company operates in a number of markets. Brand protection also means that domains will be registered in a TLD but they may not even be used or set up properly in DNS.

If only people would set up proper 301s and 302s. It would make life somewhat simpler. Many smaller web developer operations do not set up proper redirects with the effect that duplicate content is an issue for many of their sites. One common problem is that they point unused domains to their main website without a proper redirect. This can mean that a search engine can see ten or twenty duplicate content websites.

Regards...jmcc

Re: email - yes, but it's hard to "see"

As for 301s etc., why would I? I might want to do something else with other subdomains, so meh

jmcc

Blacknight wrote: »

Re: email - yes, but it's hard to "see"

Beyond the simple mailserver analysis and digital footprints of a domain, it is almost impossible to quantify usage.

As for 301s etc., why would I? I might want to do something else with other subdomains, so meh

Subdomains aren't the problem. The problem is when people point twenty or so unused domains (often semantically unrelated) to their main website in the hope they'll provide search engine juice. The reality is that search engines may hit them with a duplicate content penalty for doing this. You rarely see it with large hosters but small web developer operations frequently do this. After cleaning the index, the hardest part of search engine development or TLD web surveys is deduping and figuring out which is the correct website for a cluster of duplicate sites.

Regards...jmcc

meglome

jmcc wrote: »

It is a free market. Some companies buy domains to monetise them and their equations as to the domain worth are based on its earning potential. These companies are more likely to drop a domain once it fails to make enough to cover its registration. However many good generic domains do cover their registration fee in PPC revenue.

I have no problem with the free market. As I said my experience with most of these domain hoarders is they are basically using extortion. If you want the domain, no matter how crappy the domain name to most they will look for thousands. And if you don't want to pay thousands they'll leave it sit there for years since the registrations are cheap. One of the big things they do is to register all expired domains just in case someone has forgotten to renew, then demand thousands.

Eventually they may drop a domain as they cannot get anyone to buy it. I had that happen but I had to wait for years for a service which we were going to provide for free.

jmcc

meglome wrote: »

I have no problem with the free market. As I said my experience with most of these domain hoarders is they are basically using extortion.

Some domains are junk and people become emotionally attached to them.

One of the big things they do is to register all expired domains just in case someone has forgotten to renew, then demand thousands.

Not any more. They used to do this about five years ago and it got so bad that it facilitated massive cybersquatting. The entire day's drop for some TLDs such as .org were being registered and tasted (Domain Tasting) for five days or so by registrars without having to pay for them. The domains that made their money back in PPC revenue where held and the rest of the domains were then dropped. ICANN changed the regulations to limit this activity though the .ORG registry (PIR) did it before Verisign (COM/NET).

Some registrars move expired domains to auction rather than letting them drop and this is why you are not seeing domains that might be valuable drop straight away. It short-circuits the whole registration/drop process. However some of these domains have traffic and links and this is often what makes them "valuable".

Eventually they may drop a domain as they cannot get anyone to buy it. I had that happen but I had to wait for years for a service which we were going to provide for free.

It is not a perfect system but it is a hell of a lot better than the one that existed from 2003 to 2009.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

Sorry John, I agree with you on most things but domaining - a retarded phrase in and of itself - isn't one of them. I have as much respect for people that sit on domains with no intention of developing them as I do those that do the same with physical property; which is precisely none. In both cases, I'd like to see the property taken from them and put on the open market for legitimate owners.

jmcc

dahamsta wrote: »

Sorry John, I agree with you on most things but domaining - a retarded phrase in and of itself - isn't one of them. I have as much respect for people that sit on domains with no intention of developing them as I do those that do the same with physical property; which is precisely none.

But some of them do develop the domains, Adam,
It is a complex issue because some buy to park (though with the lower PPC revenue and the end of easy credit, they are probably lower in number now), some buy to develop, some to flip the domain for a profit and some buy because they just like the domain. Domainers are actually a very small part of a TLD's ecology - much smaller than people think.

What frequently happens when someone lands on a PPC parked domain is that they immediately think that it is a domainer that is holding the domain. In most cases, the assumption is wrong. This is because most large scale webhosters park unused domains or allow the registrants to park their domains on PPC landing pages. The bulk of what people see is registrar or ordinary registrant parked domains rather than domainer parked domains.

There are large companies that buy domains to park them and the top of the foodchain has quite a few of them. If you look at the top 50 .com hosters ( http://www.hosterstats.com/Top50-webhosters-com.php ), the main PPC players are sedoparking.com, dsredirection.com, cashparking.com, internettraffic.com, above.com and fabulous.com. There are also domain resellers like buydomains.com etc. But right there are the very top is Godaddy and it has its own PPC landing page for unused domains. Godaddy is the single largest registrar and it also has an associated PPC parking operation, cashparking.com.

Development takes time and costs money. That's why there's often a lag between a domain being registered and a working website appearing. But with low cost TLDs such as .com, there's an incentive to speculate driven by the low cost. Many of these low end domains will never be developed and may stay on PPC parking or a holding page for the duration of their lifespan. Most web developers don't scale well horizontally and they may take years or months to get around to developing that domain that they registered.

In both cases, I'd like to see the property taken from them and put on the open market for legitimate owners.

Yes but in reality, the legitimate owners have paid for them and they got there first. This is the advantage of a ccTLD like .ie - the domains people want may be available and there is some level of entitlement required. A "must develop" stipulation for each new registration might be a good thing but it may also slow down the growth of a TLD.

The .mobi TLD had something like this for its prime (generic keyword) domains that were auctioned off but there was little or no development. About 42% of .mobi websites are actually parked on Godaddy's PPC landing page. However that may be a bad example.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

John, you know full well that I know the difference between undeveloped/parked domains and those squatted by "domainers". And you should know that developing something basic these days is a fraction of the cost it used to be; I throw simple no-design WP sites together for people these days for around €500, sometimes even less for really basic stuff.

The fact of the matter is that there's a rake of domains out there being sat on, and I'd like to see them back in the pool. The registrars are the ones that irk me the most, they shouldn't be allowed to pick up former customers domains.

jmcc

dahamsta wrote: »

John, you know full well that I know the difference between undeveloped/parked domains and those squatted by "domainers".

You do, Adam, but a lot of people reading this thread do not.

And you should know that developing something basic these days is a fraction of the cost it used to be;

Believe it or not, some of the smaller domainers (not the ones who have industrial levels of PPC parked domains) actually do develop their domains simply because the PPC revenue from a developed site can be higher than a simple landing page.

The fact of the matter is that there's a rake of domains out there being sat on, and I'd like to see them back in the pool.

Yes, but in doing so you may well be penalising someone for getting there before you did. And unless there's a "must develop" stipulation included then the cycle will repeat.

The registrars are the ones that irk me the most, they shouldn't be allowed to pick up former customers domains.

The whole drop cycle in the gTLDs was subverted years ago. ICANN just allowed it to happen - just like Domain Tasting.

Regards...jmcc

topdost

Can someone tell me what has been achieved SO FAR by having UN-necessary tight controls other than loosing the im share . How many millions are made for the country or the people . If they were trade-able even they are .ie they would had made lot of money by simply changing hands for the people and for the country .

I personally feel its another way of making feel the pain of Irish systems. What the point of doing something completely different from the rest of world .

If .ie would have been trade-able Ireland would have might have got lot of foreign exchange . example a domain worth over 10,000 euro can be bought for 14.99 with just one piece of a letter .

It would have given employment to people , people would have made sites sold it over at like at https://flippa.com/ , but hey it better to see Q at social welfare then doing simple things . (Remember .ie sites would have been of interest to people connected to Ireland )

There is no point of running and trying to hold those principals high which have never paid and will pay .

.ie a small domain market but still every little helps but the mentality is to keep doors closed .

Many people are confused on this thread about registering options for .ie domain but really that fair enough to have good control of owners id etc . But this thread is about .ie domain should have been allowed to be sold as they have provided no monetary benefit to system under current rules.


A simple argument , who has made the money over years , Irish idea of domains or International idea .Time to think and change .

Cianos

jmcc wrote: »

So just because someone beat you to registering a domain, they are effectively stopping you from innovating? It would seem that there's an awful lot of innovative people who complain about not being able to find domain names when you'd think that they would be innovative enough to come up with a domain name that hasn't been registered. (Then again there are hundreds of millions of domains that have been registered and dropped. The last time I checked, about 140 million were not reregistered.)

Regards...jmcc

From a branding perspective, a good name is half the battle, which carries in to marketing. Sure I could call my new web venture some variation of a spelling of a word somewhat associated with what I'm trying to do, but is it going to click with someone? Are they going to remember the name and tell it to their friend?

How many successful websites can you name have clunky, weird names the likes of which seem to be the only unclaimed .coms remaining?

I understand that many .coms are simply registered by someone else who hasn't followed through in the development, and that's fair enough. But parking up thousands of domains and covering your losses by the odd person who is willing to pay a couple of thousand dollars because it and all the other names on his list for his new bootstrapped venture are gone, is exploitative and hindering innovation.

UDP

topdost wrote: »

Can someone tell me what has been achieved SO FAR by having UN-necessary tight controls other than loosing the im share . How many millions are made for the country or the people . If they were trade-able even they are .ie they would had made lot of money by simply changing hands for the people and for the country .

I think the controls have been necessary and have not been a burden. Companies can generally get a domain for their company as it hasn't been squatted by some random large company.

I dont understand all the whining about registering .ie domains - its not a hard or cumbersome process and doesnt take long. It may not be instant but it can be easily setup the same day.

Can someone explain the benefit of having a fairly unregulated .ie like .com for Irish people or Irish businesses at large?
Also can someone tell me what these "UN-necessary tight controls" are that are so cumbersome or take so long?

IMO people are on here whining because they want to make money out of .ie domain market.

jmcc

topdost wrote: »

Can someone tell me what has been achieved SO FAR by having UN-necessary tight controls other than loosing the im share .

Sustained growth in the market and a higher rate of web development than other open ccTLDs. It has also avoided the boom and bust cycle that is associated with many open ccTLDs where a pile of domainers and cybersquatters rush in when the market is opened spending millions only to lose it all a few years later when the credibility and demand for the ccTLD or gTLD disappears.

How many millions are made for the country or the people .

A lot more by web development and trade than would be made flipping a few high value keyword domains.

If they were trade-able even they are .ie they would had made lot of money by simply changing hands for the people and for the country .

How many million would you pay for a high value keyword .ie domain then? 1 Million Euro? 2 Million Euro? 10 Million Euro? Could you even afford a high value keyword domain if it was auctioned off in such a manner?

I personally feel its another way of making feel the pain of Irish systems. What the point of doing something completely different from the rest of world .

You do not seem to understand that it is the Irish national ccTLD and as such it is intended primarily for the Irish market. This means that it is not a TLD like .com/net/org. It is actually not that different to many ccTLDs who also have regulations on who can register domains in their ccTLD. Even the biggest ccTLD in the world, the German .de ccTLD, has a registration condition that has to be met.

It would have given employment to people , people would have made sites sold it over at like at https://flippa.com/ , but hey it better to see Q at social welfare then doing simple things . (Remember .ie sites would have been of interest to people connected to Ireland )

No it would not. You do not seem to understand that domaining is only a small part of a TLD's market. When you get a ccTLD that is driven purely by domain name speculation web development collapses because people speculate rather than develop domains.

.ie a small domain market but still every little helps but the mentality is to keep doors closed .

It is the Irish national ccTLD. It is not .com TLD. You do not seem to understand the difference between a Country Code Top Level Domain and a Generic Top Level Domain. The ccTLD is for the national market. The gTLD is for a global market.

thread is about .ie domain should have been allowed to be sold as they have provided no monetary benefit to system under current rules.

You mean that it provides no monetary benefit to you but it does to the Irish market? Perhaps you registered a few .ie domains and now find that you can not sell them.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Cianos wrote: »

From a branding perspective, a good name is half the battle, which carries in to marketing. Sure I could call my new web venture some variation of a spelling of a word somewhat associated with what I'm trying to do, but is it going to click with someone? Are they going to remember the name and tell it to their friend?

I would agree with this. The most dangerous thing in branding is to use a spelling (typo) variation of the domain without owning the normal spelling. However branding a generic term (cars, credit etc) is a lot more difficult and expensive than branding a unique term (Audi, American Express). Typos are very difficult to market and a few years ago, flickr.com spawned a lot of *r.com type domains and many of these have dropped.

How many successful websites can you name have clunky, weird names the likes of which seem to be the only unclaimed .coms remaining?

Few if any large websites. However many of these large ventures do a grand slam registration of com/net/org/biz/info and the major ccTLDs that they will be operating in when setting up. The cross-TLD registrations where a term will be registered in com/net/org etc is not quite as clear as people think. Approximately 83% of .com domains are not registered in net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia/tel. However ccTLDs are between 15 to 40% unique in that domains in those ccTLDs are not registered in other TLDs.

I understand that many .coms are simply registered by someone else who hasn't followed through in the development, and that's fair enough. But parking up thousands of domains and covering your losses by the odd person who is willing to pay a couple of thousand dollars because it and all the other names on his list for his new bootstrapped venture are gone, is exploitative and hindering innovation.

In a large, global, TLD such as .com it does not have that effect - it forces people to be more innovative. Google is Google because of marketing. They couldn't get searchengine or search in .com because they were long gone. In a small TLD, it is completely toxic to development and credibility. A lot of the mad crap from the DotBomb was never reregistered. Perhaps I should put out a list of com/net/org/biz/info domains from then that have been dropped and never reregistered.

The rise of ccTLDs has effectively lessened the impact of this practice in .com because the ccTLDs are precisely focused on their country markets and thus people expect businesses targeting their country to have the local ccTLD. This has shifted focus from .com in these markets to the local ccTLD. Much of .com growth, I think, is now being driven by ccTLD pairing where the ccTLD registrant is registering .com for brand protection on their new domain.

Branding and marketing (in domain terms) are often overlooked. I may build a semantic engine (concepts/terms to domain suggestions) for domain branding if I get the chance.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

UDP wrote: »

I think the controls have been necessary and have not been a burden. Companies can generally get a domain for their company as it hasn't been squatted by some random large company.

This is the confidence angle that had been mentioned earlier - it give people a sense of ownership in their national ccTLD. The sense of identity is also important because people are more certain that a .ie website is likely to be and Irish website or a website targeting the Irish market.

I dont understand all the whining about registering .ie domains - its not a hard or cumbersome process and doesnt take long. It may not be instant but it can be easily setup the same day.

In the 1990s it was a bit of a mess and it could take months to register domains. Apart from the entitlement conditions, the registration cycle appears to be close to that of the early/mid 2000s in the gTLDs. I think that the .ie zone is updated about four times a day now.

Can someone explain the benefit of having a fairly unregulated .ie like .com for Irish people or Irish businesses at large?

It makes more money for the registry and for the registrars. It makes money for a few people who manage to register and sell the high value keyword type domains. It would increase the number of registered .ie domains.

If I was to speculate, the quickest way to do this would be to introduce an Irish granny or diaspora rule for registrations in this hypothetically open .ie ccTLD. But I would also include a "must develop" stipulation.

IMO people are on here whining because they want to make money out of .ie domain market.

It is always about the money.

Domaining in a mature and large gTLD is part of the ecology. Domaining in a small ccTLD can destabilise that ccTLD in terms of credibility and consumer confidence of its local market. That consumer confidence is a very fragile thing and that's why these things have to be approached carefully.

Regards...jmcc

BnB

Blacknight wrote: »

According to who?

Most users do not care.

Bandying about misguided PR about how one domain extension is "safer" than another is rubbish. A website's safety and trustworthiness is down to a lot of factors - the domain extension chosen isn't one of them (when DNSSEC becomes common place etc., that might change)

A website's trustworthiness is indeed down to a lot of factors and the domain extension is most certainly one of them.

When I see an ie domain I know that the business has had to go through a few simple checks to prove that it is Legit entity. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to fire my Credit Card and Bank A/C number into it straight away, but at least I know it's not just some 14 year old in Hong Kong.


However, that is just an aside. In General, Cyber Squatters (or domainers as they seem to want to call themselves now) are a scurge on genuine organisations who are trying to do business the Internet.

I have had to registered 5 or 6 .com domains over the past few years and each time it is a painful painful process. You often have to come up with 40 or 50 potential names before you find one that is not taken.

If they were taken by companies who are just tyring to do business, I'd have no problem whatsoever. Fair play - beat me to it.

But the truth is that the vast vast majority are just taken by cyber squatting scumbags who are holding them to ransom to try and extort money from legitimate businesses.

The Irish System of registering .ie domains exists, because scumbags like this exist. Fair play to them for putting the controls in place and not allowing .ie domains be held to ransom by "domainers".

topdost

jmcc wrote: »

It is the Irish national ccTLD. It is not .com TLD. You do not seem to understand the difference between a Country Code Top Level Domain and a Generic Top Level Domain. The ccTLD is for the national market. The gTLD is for a global market.

Regards...jmcc

Ok let compare .co.uk / .uk and .ie , (why you keep on comparing with .com )

So same question again , who has traded better , who has made money , who is the winner in money terms .co.uk or i.e , in past years .

.ie is for IRISH MARKET same is .CO.UK for UK MARKET .

Look at this 560,000 for a .co.uk domain , (not a .com)

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/domains/most-expensive-co-uk-domain/

That domain was cruise.co.uk if it was in ireland the seller would have to sell his cruise business to sell it . So someone changed hands for a massive £560,000 in UK but hey in Ireland buy this for 14.99 . and if dont want to keep it loose it for for free which is worth main name cruises.co.uk changed hands for a massive £560,000 in other markets.

Oh yeah globally domain are sold like this
http://www.123-reg.co.uk/blog/archives/whats-your-domain-name-worth/

1. sex.com – $12 million
2. porn.com – $9.5 million
3. business.com – $7.5 million
4. diamond.com – $7.5 million
5. beer.com – $7 million
6. casino.com – $5.5 million
7. asseenontv.com – $5.1 million
8. korea.com – $5 million
9. seo.com – $5 million
10. shop.com – $3.5 million
    
    
    
    IEDR simply has stupid rules like as you mentioned before to issue domains to only comapnies in past which they removed . I think over the time they will allow them to be traded as well like most of other reputed countries do .

UDP

Who cares how much domains sell for? Who cares if .co.uk ccTld makes more money. The iedr are a not for profit organisation so money does not come into this from a management point if view. Squatters and registrars are the only ones who make money with less regulation - that is not good for irish people or irish businesses.

jmcc

topdost wrote: »

Ok let compare .co.uk / .uk and .ie , (why you keep on comparing with .com )

Because you want to turn .ie into the same kind of unregulated TLD as .com TLD.

What you don't seem to understand is that .ie is the national ccTLD for Ireland.

Look at this 560,000 for a .co.uk domain , (not a .com)

The UK has at least ten times the population of Ireland. It has a larger market than Ireland and it has over 9.8 million domains registered. Not all of them are actually in use. It is a more open ccTLD than the .ie ccTLD and there is a lot of domain name speculation. However the size of the market supports the level of domaining. The price a domain fetches on the open market is very much related to the size of the market. This is a very important point for ccTLD domains.

Oh yeah globally domain are sold like this

Really? People can just buy domains and sell them for all that money? Have you just discovered domaining?

IEDR simply has stupid rules like as you mentioned before to issue domains to only comapnies in past which they removed . I think over the time they will allow them to be traded as well like any most of other reputed countries do .

Perhaps. But the regulations now do not allow for that kind of trading.

The worst thing that .ie could do would be to completely deregulate so that it becomes a mess of a ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

BnB wrote: »

But the truth is that the vast vast majority are just taken by cyber squatting scumbags who are holding them to ransom to try and extort money from legitimate businesses.

No they are not. So you had an idea that someone had before you and they beat you to the domain. That's life. But to dismiss the entire .com TLD just because you couldn't get the domain you wanted is a bit much.

The Irish System of registering .ie domains exists, because scumbags like this exist. Fair play to them for putting the controls in place and not allowing .ie domains be held to ransom by "domainers".

Actually it does not. There's a lot of history to the evolution of the .ie ccTLD and domainers play a very small part in it.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

jmcc wrote: »

The worst thing that .ie could do would be to completely deregulate so that it becomes a mess of a ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

I'd have to disagree with you.

Roll on new TLDs!

jmcc

Blacknight wrote: »

I'd have to disagree with you.

Roll on new TLDs!

Rare footage of the board of ICANN's new gTLD process.

Regards...jmcc