Top Irish Web Hosters - June 2007

The term BIONIC refers to the sum of Biz, Info, Org, Net, IE, Com domains on a hoster. The Sample dates are 01 May 2007 and 01 June 2007. The diff is the change in numbers between those dates.

The statistics above are from the latest HosterStats report published monthly by WhoisIreland.com

Tags: Irishblogs , IEDR , Domains , .ie , Internet Statistics , Comreg , domainnames

Written by John McCormac on June 11th, 2007 with 2 comments.
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Google Recovers Typosquatted .ie Domains

Google recovered a number of .ie domains that were typosquats of Google. The domains (googol.ie, gogle.ie, googl.ie and googel.ie) were part of a terminated IE Dispute Resolution Proceeding against Gabor Varga and Joszef Petho of eubrowser.com. The domains were transferred in the last month. A number of other domains that, potentially, infringe on the trademarks of others have been registered by Eubrowser.com in the last few years. A number of other blogs such as Michele’s, Ambrand and Brian Greene also covered this pattern of questionable domain registration.

Adidas.ie was recovered after Adidas took an IEDRP against Eubrowser.com. The WIPO decision DIE2006-004 makes interesting reading as Adidas effectively demonstrated the bad faith nature of the registration. It also mentioned a letter from IEDR “indicating its belief that the Registrants have been manipulating the criteria for .ie domain registrations is further evidence of bad faith.”

Eubrowser.com’s registration of generic .ie domains is not the problem. The problem arose when it infringed on the intellectual property of others. But IEDR should really have been paying attention to these questionable registrations. Surely when someone tries to register the domain name irishindependent.ie and they are not representing one of the best selling newspapers in Ireland (The Irish Independent), some questions should be asked about the veracity of the registration and the quality of those doing the checking. It is clear that the rules were gamed.

The domains were shifted to the nameservers of Markmonitor.com and are now registered to Google.

Tags: Irishblogs , IEDR , Domains , .ie , Internet Statistics , Comreg , domainnames

Written by John McCormac on June 9th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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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.
Tags: Irishblogs , IEDR , Domains , .ie , Internet Statistics , Comreg , domainnames

Written by John McCormac on March 21st, 2007 with 6 comments.
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Is New Legislation A Death Warrant For IEDR?

The Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2007 published on Friday may potentially be a death warrant for the IEDR. It contains enough provisions to effectively remove the administration of .ie ccTLD from IEDR should the Communications Regulator (ComReg) so wish. It also allows Comreg to levy IEDR and if necessary, fine it for non-compliance.

The first interesting amendment is this:

32.—(1) The purpose of this Part is to facilitate easy comprehension, fairness, transparency, avoidance of deception, promotion of fair competition and public confidence with respect to the use of ‘.ie’ domain names.

While it looks harmless it is rather powerful. Domainwarehosing and cybersquatting operations are effectively covered by this. The main domain warehousing/cybersquatting operation in .ie ccTLD is EUBROWSER.COM. It has over 500 .ie domains registered and has registered a number of high profile trademarks such as ADIDAS, NIKE, BEBO, ONECARE, WINDOWS-ONECARE as .ie domains using Registered Business Name certificates. It has also registered IRISHINDEPENDENT.ie, the name of one of the largest daily Irish newspapers using an RBN. This certainly falls under the “avoidance of deception” aspect of the above.

32.—(3) The Commission may make regulations for
the purposes of this section, but only after consul-
tation with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and
Employment and such other persons and public
bodies (if any) as the Commission thinks
appropriate.

That subsection is where IEDR is effectively stripped of deciding the registration policy for .ie domains. Under this subsection, it is now the province of Comreg though it has to consult with the Minister and others. This is a big win for the industry. The members of the board of IEDR are just there because of who they know rather than for their industry expertise. This contention that the board of IEDR was a dumping ground for UCD and former Telecom Eireann staff and their friends was a commonly held one during the IEDR’s Fagan years and it was a source of irritation for the Irish internet industry. None of the board of IEDR has any known operational experience of the domain name and hosting industry.
Subsection 4 effectively gives Comreg complete power over .ie ccTLD: designating the authority to register .ie domains; setting renewal periods and conditions; revoking registrations, registration conditions; pricing of .ie domains and appeals against revocation of registrations.

Timetravel, it appears has been discovered. According to subsection 5, this law is retroactive:

32.—(5) The regulations shall provide that persons who have registered ‘.ie’ domain names before the regulations came into operation are taken to have
registered those names under the regulations.

Breaking the rules will be expensive. The new legislation allows for a fine of up to 5000 Euro on summary conviction.

Section 33 allows Comreg to impose a levy on IEDR for funding its activities. Maybe the management of IEDR might have to take a pay cut if this is ever used. Section 34 allows Comreg to access all .ie data including, apparently, the accounts of IEDR.

Section 35 gives Comreg the power to designate an interim registration authority and defines the term of such an appointment as being 12 months. This appointment can be renewed subsequently with the consent of the Minister. That’s basically the power to strip IEDR completely of the administration of .ie ccTLD.

Had this legislation been in force when IEDR was spun off from UCD and during the Fagan years, there is no doubt that the current IEDR would not be administering .ie ccTLD. However IEDR has changed considerably since 2000. The board of IEDR is still a bunch of talking heads who are there because of who they know rather than because of their industry expertise. They are even more irrelevant now.

The most important part of this legislation is that it strips IEDR of the policy making function for .ie ccTLD. This could be a mixed blessing for the industry. The provisions to revoke IEDR’s control of .ie ccTLD are there. If this is indeed IEDR’s death warrant, then it just hasn’t been signed and dated yet. It might have the effect of making IEDR somewhat more responsive to industry concerns. But changing policy and perhaps the introduction of personal .ie domains might become a bit more complex.
Tags: Irishblogs , IEDR , Domains , .ie , Internet Statistics , Comreg , Cyberwarehousing , domainnames

Written by John McCormac on February 3rd, 2007 with 10 comments.
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Google Now Offers Domain Registration Services

Google now offers domain registrations services as part of its Google Apps package of services. The price per domain is $10 and it has partnered with Go Daddy and Enom to provide this service. It is potentially one of the biggest threats that the low end of the market has faced for some time.

The attraction of this offer is that allows the low end users to obtain an all in one package of e-mail, word processing and spreasheets, and domain registration in one place. It would not be surprising to see Microsoft playing catch-up on this one. However the main threat of this offer is to the low end of the market - the clients who just want simple e-mail accounts with their own domain and perhaps the domain pointing to their blog’s website. As with so many things, Google makes it simpler. And that is what makes it a threat to the low end hosters.
Tags: Irishblogs,Google, Domains, Google Apps, Internet Statistics, hosting, domains, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on December 27th, 2006 with 10 comments.
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Netcraft’s 100M Sites - An Illusion Of Growth?

Netcraft’s latest survey claims that it has detected over 100 Million websites on the net. The pattern of growth has been dramatic. In April 2003 it detected 40 million sites. By May 2004 it detected 50 million. By March 2005 it detected 60 million. By August 2005 it was at 70 million. In April 2006 it was 80 million and 90 million by August 2006. The November survey puts the figure at just over 100 million. It is an amazing growth pattern but it is not a natural one.

The problem of domain tasting, where a registrar will register a domain and point it to a PPC advertising page for five days and then let the registration lapse if it does not make enough revenue is the blight of the web. Millions of domains are registered each day only to be dropped five days later. And many ICANN registrars are just clones, set up for the purpose of domain tasting. The bozos in ICANN aren’t even bothered with this pollution of the web.

Filtering out the domain noise of domain tasting is a difficult thing to do with domain statistics. Some hosters are easily identifiable and many of these websites are parked on a limited set of IPs. Removing all these PPC, “coming soon” , parked and “direct navigation network” websites from a web survey would show the web to be a lot smaller than people think. But it almost gets down to the philosophical question of what constitutes a website.
So how much of the growth is natural? It is difficult to tell. But one thing is certain - a lot of it is down to domain tasting rather than the growth of real websites.

Tags: Irishblogs,netcraft, Domains, Webhosting, Internet Statistics, Irish Webhosters, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on November 4th, 2006 with no comments.
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Eircom Gets Serious About Web Hosting?

Many of the business bills sent out by Eircom this month have an advertising brochure included. The brochure, the current edition is the Autumn 2006, is the first bit of joined up thinking from Eircom’s marketing department in a long time. The days of the Eircom rat are well gone and it seems that Eircom wants to get back in the business. The key areas of interest to the Irish hosting business are the domains and hosting offers.

The prices on domains are on page 13. Billed as “eircom’s great domain name sale”, they are not exactly groundbreaking prices. The .com is being pitched at 10 Euros a year. The .eu is priced at 20 Euros a year. (Eircom.net is a .eu registrar so it pays 10 Euros per .eu to EURid.) The .ie is priced at 67 Euros per year. All three are bundled at a price of 85 Euros per year. How long this “sale” will last is not known. However Eircom will have to maintain or even lower these prices to maintain marketshare.

One of the strangest inclusions in the brochure is this:

“Want to develop a website?
eircom can develop a professional website tailored to your needs. Call us for advice”

Does this mean that Eircom is getting into web development too? Other ISPs have done so in the past and Esat has its own web development section that is actually more successful than its hosting section.

The data hosting pitch in Eircom’s brochure is weak on facts. It is targeted at businesses so it pitches three products: managed e-mail services; managed web services and online server backup. The Managed E-mail service is priced at 6.50 Euros per user per month. With Google making moves in the same marketspace this is a bit overpriced.

The managed webservice is low priced at 8.99 Euros per month but the quality of the package is even lower than the yellow pack hosting offers that are common in the Irish hosting market. The diskspace is only 250 MBs and it includes a .com domain. However trying to order any hosting product on the Eircom.ie website shows that Eircom has a long way to go to get back into the market - the site design is banjaxed.

Hosting, especially shared hosting and domain name registration is almost an impulse purchase now. It has become totally commoditised The market has moved on since Eircom topped the Irish hosting business. People generally do not want to ring up or be contacted about hosting after filling in a form. They want to be able to order the product and get it - immediately. They don’t want some click and drool flash advert insults potential purchasers.

Perhaps it may not have occurred to the Eircom marketing people that those in business tend to do research and probably have an understanding of hosting and domains. Eircom commits the cardinal sin of sales - it makes it difficult to purchase anything.

Eircom’s mistake is one that the Hosting Service Providers (HSPs) like Hosting365, Novara and Blacknight do not make. Ordering hosting and domains is easy - the HSPs made it easy and that’s why they have more marketshare than the ISPs. Perhaps Eircom should have their marketing department try to purchase Eircom domain and hosting products online to see what they are missing.
Tags: Irishblogs,eircom, Domains, Webhosting, Internet Statistics, Irish Webhosters, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on November 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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Digiweb’s Webhosting Landgrab

Digiweb is trying to get back in the hosting game. Its latest colour brochure boasts that it has the lowest prices for domains in Ireland. It also claims to have Ireland’s most modern shared hosting platform. I don’t think that the managment of Digiweb appreciates the gulf that has opened between it and the leaders in the Irish hosting business.

Initially a hosting company, Digiweb branched into the telco/ISP business a few years ago. It also became very successful as an ISP. But in the process it left its original core hosting business on the back burner. This allowed some of the current hosting service providers (HSPs) to get established and build up good client bases. How good? Well Digiweb is now ranked number 13 in the list of top Irish hosters with a BIONIC (Biz/Info/Org/Net/Ie/Com) domains hosted figure of 2443. By comparison, Hosting365.ie has a BIONIC of 20190 domains as of 01/October/2006.
The Digiweb business hosting plans are not exactly cutting edge. There are three: Business Starter; Business eCommerce and Business Enterprise. The prices are 9.99 Euros per month, 19.99 Euros per month and 29.99 Euros per month.

The Business Starter package is 9.99 Euros a month and provides hosting for 10 domains. It has 3G of storage space, 25GB of transfer per month, 250 e-mail accounts. Scripting and data base support is provided.
The Business eCommerce package is 19.99 Euros a month and provides hosting for 25 domains. It has 5G of storage space, 50GB of transfer per month and 500 e-mail accounts. It also has scripting and data base support. It has eCommerce support with an integrated shopping cart.
The Business Enterprise package allows for an unlimited number of hosted domains. It has 10G of space with 75GB of transfer per month and 1000 e-mail accounts. It also has eCommerce support with an integrated shopping cart.

Pricewise, the packages are similar to those of Hosting365.ie or Novara.ie or Blacknight Solutions. But there is a significant differerence. The Digiweb packages are aimed at businesses. The home/non-business section of the hosting market is important. Many of these accounts are those of bloggers and family websites. And perhaps more importantly, they are the sites of larval webmasters. These are the people who will be buying hosting in the future.

The landgrab strategy has been used before by a number of players to grow their market share. It typically involves selling near to cost or below it. Digiweb’s domain prices are close enough to cost that the profit is minimal. Buying market share has been done by WebhostingIreland.ie, Letshost.ie with the result that both are now significant players. But is it too late for Digiweb’s landgrab?

Tags: Irishblogs,IEDR, Domains, Webhosting, Internet Statistics, Irish Webhosters, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on October 17th, 2006 with no comments.
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