Adding .ie Domain History Information

The history of .ie domains seems to be something of a mystery. Some current registrants may well be unaware that their .ie domain even has a history. If your .ie domain is a generic term, then the chances are high that it has been registered before.
One feature that I was thinking of adding to the WhoisIreland.com site is a domain history for each .ie domain monitored. This site has been tracking domains since 2000 and it has built up a historical tracking record of each domain in .com/net/org/biz/info/ie (BIONIC). Some .ie domains are quickly reregistered and it seems that Google has problems detecting any difference. But then ccTLDs are a world away from the simplicity of gTLDs.
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Written by John McCormac on March 21st, 2007 with comments disabled.
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6 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Richard Hearne
#1. March 22nd, 2007, at 8:49 AM.

Some .ie domains are quickly reregistered and it seems that Google has problems detecting any difference.

Care to elaborate please on this point John?
Interested to hear more.

Rgds
Richard

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#2. March 22nd, 2007, at 4:22 PM.

Well the cues in the TLDs are easier to detect Richard,
Google does not handle the ccTLDs well and the .ie seems to be one of them. When local.ie dropped and was reregistered, Google apparently didn’t vary the PR on the site even though the ownership and IP had changed. Then factor in the synchronisation of Google dances with the .ie drop schedule - the domains could be dropped and reregistered between two spiderings. To Google, it would appear that the site (if it had been live prior to being dropped, had just shifted IPs and or undergone an update. Without actually checking the whois data against a historical copy, Google would be stuck with analysing the difference in meta data and body text. Again that can shift drastically during a change of design or SEO. So a reregistered .ie site could effectively fall between the cracks unless Google keeps an eye on the whois.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Jason Roe
#3. March 22nd, 2007, at 10:20 PM.

I know there was the case in the UK, but i think it was resolved .. Maybe .ie is still up in the air?

As far as i can see .. when a .ie domain drops, all of the links drop within a month after this the toolbar PR refreshes come refresh time. As such this is a sign that google is dropping everything. The pr will remain but that is the case with every domain.. forget about PR and look at links!

Maybe there is a loophole between refreshes in some rare cases.. Google could miss a beat on the dropped domain front! It depends how the fetch the data and how often. I know you have seen a case where a domain was dropped and re-registered on the same day, it even confused your system if memory serves me.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#4. March 23rd, 2007, at 1:07 AM.

Perhaps .ie is not significant enough for Google to worry about Jason,
With the dropped .ie domain, what would happen if the backlinks remain? Google may well miss the drop of a .ie domain unless it is actively spidering the site almost every day. The drop pattern on .ie can cause problems if a domain is dropped and reregistered between reloads. Some web directories and websites still have links back to the Web Ireland website even though it is long gone. Nua.ie also changed hands recently. It might be interesting to look at the link patterns there.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#5. March 23rd, 2007, at 1:10 AM.

The data part is easy Danny,
Integrating it with the pages might be the hard part. I was looking at some kind of callable php link or embedded javascript.