.ie or .com

yellow

I am launching a website for the 15 to 17 year old market.
Do ye think whether it is a .ie or .com will matter to this segment of the market????

Cabaal

.com is cheaper but if your only targetting at Irish people personally I'd go with .ie.
Why not cover both bases and get .com and .ie?

yellow

Sorry ya i am just targeting the Irish market.
But should I then promote it as a .ie or .com?

LegacyUser

If your targeting an Irish audience then go with an .ie,
pm me and I will sort ye out with a good deal!

Cabaal

yellow wrote:

Sorry ya i am just targeting the Irish market.
But should I then promote it as a .ie or .com?

Personally I'd go with .ie then,
Places like http://www.blacknight.ie/ allow you to reg em for a decent enough price

steve-hosting36

Get both, you'll only pay a few euro more for the .com

Why not grab .co.uk and a .net and .org at the same time, it's about brand protection

LegacyUser

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Get both, you'll only pay a few euro more for the .com

Why not grab .co.uk and a .net and .org at the same time, it's about brand protection

Actually, thats not a bad idea. Probably best to buy it in all 'dots', especially if it is going to be a business plus kind of website. The last thing you need is there being www.yoursite.com, and some shmuck coming along and buying www.yoursite.net etc.

yellow

Thank you all for your feedback.

For those of you who think the dot ie would be more appropriate for this segment, any reasons?

I actually have the dot com already registered and it is only the additional dot i.e I am considering registering. If I was to consider registering all the dots would it not simply be worth my while and money to trademark the name.

LegacyUser

yellow wrote:

I actually have the dot com already registered and it is only the additional dot i.e I am considering registering. If I was to consider registering all the dots would it not simply be worth my while and money to trademark the name.

It can be incredibly difficult to get a trademark, my dad has a business and he spent a couple of grand trying to get his act together to qualify for trademark, he was turned down.
Buy multiple dots can often be a cheap and less hassle way of cementing your brand.

As for why .ie, well even though the .ie has taken a bit of a hiding over recent months, it is still recognised as being a 'higher quality' site.

mneylon

If you own a .ie it shows that you have proved your identity.
There is nothing to stop you registering a .com with completely bogus details as there is practically no verification.
If your business is going to be worth anything to you in the long run you need to protect its identity. It's far cheaper to register the most common domain extensions now than have to worry about the hassle and costs of getting back "your" name later.

Registering "all" the dots would be impractical as there are over 250 domain extensions

fintan

another reason for registering a .ie is for the searhce engines

If some types in the keywords for your site and ticks the "sites from ireland" button in their search engine, you will have a better chance of appearing in the search results.

Best of luck with the new site!

mneylon

Fintan - Hosting on Irish IP space also helps

yellow

To blacknight,
I am setting up this website from scrath, with no existing business nor a business registration number so how do I go about proving my identity if I want to register the dot ie?

steve-hosting36

Grab a €20 RBN as a Sole Trander at www.cro.ie and you can secure the domain without issue.

mneylon

As Stephen said. If you do it online you will see your RBN in the CRO database within a week (as long as you've sent them the cheque )

fintan

When registering a business don't forget that you have filing obligations with the CRO.

madramor

sillysausage wrote:

It can be incredibly difficult to get a trademark, my dad has a business and he spent a couple of grand trying to get his act together to qualify for trademark, he was turned down.
Buy multiple dots can often be a cheap and less hassle way of cementing your brand.

As for why .ie, well even though the .ie has taken a bit of a hiding over recent months, it is still recognised as being a 'higher quality' site.

it is incredible easy to trade mark a name, its 1 form and then
70euro application fee + another 177euro if the application is
successful ie(not already registered)

is_that_so

fintan wrote:

When registering a business don't forget that you have filing obligations with the CRO.

Don't register a company initially. For a sole trader registering a business name is probably good enough and has no filing requirements, just tax liabilities. Then you become my name trading as my business name

My tuppence worth is, if you go for ie you might as well pick up the .com as well.

vector

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Grab a €20 RBN as a Sole Trander at www.cro.ie and you can secure the domain without issue.

While that is the easiest route, and now is quite cheap also, I think people should be careful, should there be an economic downturn the revenue comms, under the instructions of their masters, will use the RBN database to find the names of the small people with perhaps undeclared income.

RainyDay

vector wrote:

While that is the easiest route, and now is quite cheap also, I think people should be careful, should there be an economic downturn the revenue comms, under the instructions of their masters, will use the RBN database to find the names of the small people with perhaps undeclared income.

Is there some good reason why 'small people' should be allowed to evade tax?

vector

For the avoidance of doubt one does not condone tax evasion.
However, cognisant that the some of the readers here may have less then squeaky clean tax profiles I feel it necesssary to highlight the possible consequences of an RBN.