The .IE domain registry, WeAre.IE (also known as IEDR), has released its latest .IE domain registrations report and found a staggering number of statistics.
One analysis revealed that 65% of content rich .IE websites are secured with an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate. This means that there are still many .IE websites out there that are vulnerable to hacking with a lack of security in place. People that are trying visit a website without an SSL Cert are met with a notification blocking them from being able to actually go onto the website. Google deems these websites as being dangerous and results in a decrease in visits and profits for the business. Don’t be one of these businesses and grab an SSL Cert quickly. There were 211 .IE cybersecurity attacks from January to June this year so it’s important to keep your website protected.
The report also found that there was a decrease in the number of .IEs registered from January to June 2022 than that time in 2021. This is a fall after the ‘pandemic effect’ which saw a huge increase in .IE domains being registered as the world shifted to doing the majority of shopping online because of the governmental restrictions on physical shops. As the pandemic evolved, we all saw registrations that were directly related to lockdowns, PPE etc. Now as the world has morphed into “the new normal” many of those terms are no longer in use and so products and service demand has changed, and the number of .IE registrations are returning to per-pandemic levels.
Even though .IE is an Irish ccTLD, many businesses in other countries have used a .IE domain to sell to their Irish customers. In fact, the majority of these came from Great Britain, despite the economics effects it faces by selling and shipping to Ireland following Brexit. On top of this, new registrations declined year-on-year by 38% in H1 2022 (January to June), from 792 to 491. Focusing on registrations close to home, the top keyword in new .IE registrations in Carlow (where we’re based) is ‘Roofing’, believe it or not. ‘Retrofits’ took the top spot in Tipperary, it was ‘Coaching’ in Cork, and ‘Boat’ in Donegal.
Overall, the category with the biggest growth was Computers and Electronics and the lowest was Science. It’s unlikely that these websites were created to sell online as only 23% of content rich .IE websites are e-commerce enabled. So the majority of .IE websites could be blogs, or some form of social-sharing site where people are sharing their stories and opinions. Want to share some of your own? Set up a blog and get a .BLOG or .WIKI website in minutes with Blacknight.
Search for your own .IE domain here and read all the facts and more here.
About the Author: Aoife Wright
