Domain Names for Sale – You can now buy two character .ie domain names. Fairly cool for a brand like Brian O’Driscoll, 13.ie, perhaps. Unfortunately, an advertising agency got that domain before Brian, maybe he wasn’t even interested as Brian is an International Brand, a .com encompassing his name and brand is the right strategy, brianodriscoll.com – a strong corporate image. Fair enough, solid decision.
When the IEDR decided to release two-character domain names for the .ie market, a bidding process was initiated (they did, back in the day make exceptions for already established brands such as 02 for example, but very rare). The price paid for IT.ie was almost 11K euro. Good publicity for 11 Grand I suppose and probably a load of decent PageRank backlinks, in fact 162 according to Semrush. And we all know about backlinks, PageRank and SEO…
Well, it’s hard to get a handle of what people historically paid for .ie domain names in the past as this was forbidden by the IEDR. You couldn’t sell a .ie unless it was part of the company assets that you were buying. Technically! I myself bought a .ie with a ‘s’ at the end of a two-word string for €1100, just to protect my primary brand and set it to redirect. However, you can now buy and sell .ie domain names without selling a company. So, how much?
So, what are .ie’s going for? I recall hearing a story Denis O’Brien paid 1M for jobs.ie back in the boom days (2005), any truth in it? I don’t know. But there was a active live website with advertisers, so not just a domain name but an online recruitment business. This is what jobs.ie looked like in 2007 (awful really!):
Paddy Cosgrave claims he paid 10K for WebSummit.com from an asking price of 100K, a claim which is very very hard to believe (show me the proof please?), especially when you consider Teamwork.com was sold for €500K to Teamwork, another Irish company. Two companies who built a brand and forgot about international expansion, where was the scenario planning!?!?! They lost an awful lot of negotiation ‘position’ once the brand was created.
Now that you can buy and sell .ie domains, let’s take a look at www.sedo.com and see what .ie’s are actually going for? Domains with an asking price attached (May 2018)…
Therapy.ie 35K Beijing.ie 40K
Insider.ie 13K Internet.ie 50K
Christ.ie 35K Creation.ie 50K
Webcam.ie 25K Linger.ie 50K
Download.ie 30K Jewellery.ie 30K
Edify.ie 38K Amsterdam.ie 20K
BailBonds.ie 40K Rome.ie 50K
Cool.ie 25K Drink.ie 20K
Baby.ie 50K Billionaire.ie 50K
SL.ie 50K HomeHelp.ie 40K
SunHotels.ie 50K WhitePages.ie 50K
SelfDriving.ie 50K SelfDrivingCars.ie 50K
Winter.ie 13K Gender.ie 1.5K
Swimsuit.ie 2K Herbal.ie 1K
Sting.ie 12K Slack.ie 11K
Cuba.ie 14K Nerd.ie 4K
Rave.ie 7K Celebration.ie 2K
21.ie 2K Al.ie 30K
Oi.ie 7K Netserve.ie 10K
Kyl.ie 20K PokerPlayer.ie 10K
AllAboutBaby.ie 10K
I did get a great laugh when I found out that ScumBag.ie was going for 2K!!! It’s a funny world! So, would you spend 50K on Internet.ie? Well, if it was Internet.com – maybe, .ie with a population of 5 million, I don’t see it. WebSummit.com for 10K, a ‘steal’ if its true, which I doubt very much.
Your Product & Service Market – if its got international potential, don’t bother with a .ie – however, if your initial market is Ireland only, then absolutely. See this blog post regarding International SEO.
What are the search volumes of that domain name? The keyword, is it significant? Maybe it isn’t at all. And is it a new trend, study the search volumes over the past number of years, are they upwards?
Are there possible alternative domain names?
If you decide to go with a search query as domain name, then make sure that string encompasses the generic sector you are in. And, can that string be developed into a brand? Otherwise go with a brand.
If you are a company that wants to build a world class website or needs help with your organic search position, Digital Strategy or generating online sales……do the necessary!!!…contact the Digital Sales team direct send us a mail at: info@digitalsales.com, see our contact us page for our office locations.
Diarmuid Haughian – Business Development Director – Digital Sales
Dip. International Selling, Cert. Digital Marketing, MSc. BITS, MA Career Guidance
