More companies and sole traders are choosing to get an online presence and are doing so through a .ie domain name says the IEDR, according to the latest figures chronicling July to September of this year.
In this quarter, 8,197 .ie websites were registered — a 20.3pc increase on figures from this time last year, which recorded 6,813 .ie registrations. With these additional registrations, there are now over 110,000 .ie websites registered in Ireland to date.
The IEDR noted that of these .ie registrations from July to September, most (at 83.3pc) were registered by corporate bodies and sole traders while a further 2.5pc were attributed to personal websites, blogs or other non-commercial sites.
This, says the IEDR, puts Ireland on the level with other countries around the world for the uptake in country code top-level domains and this year for the first time the organisation offered multiyear registrations to resellers for a period of between two and ten years and plans to extend this next year by offering multiyear renewals also.
“This has been another very strong quarter for the IEDR and one we expect to see continue into Q4, when it is predicted that the number of .ie domains registered will exceed the 115,000 mark by year end,” said the chief executive of IE Domain Registry, David Curtin, in relation to Q3 figures.
“Our reseller community, in particular, has been instrumental in driving registrations again this year and, as broadband rollout and download speeds continue to improve, we expect to see more companies and small to medium-sized enterprises, in particular, availing of .ie as a secure local online environment in which to do business”
By Marie Boran
