Registration of IE domains in Limerick increases by almost a third
THE number of 'dot ie' domains registered across Limerick last year increased by more than 30%, a new report has shown.
It appears many companies and individuals spent much of the 2021 lockdown creating new web sites, with the figures from .IE, Ireland's country internet domain manager revealing 1,738 new domains of this type were registered in Limerick.
It's a growth of 31.1% on the pre-pandemic level from 2019.
Two of the most frequently used .ie domain keywords in Limerick in 2021 were ‘beauty’ and ‘home’
In total across the province of Munster, 11,859 .ie domains were registered last year.
Just over half of these have a security certificate, with .IE warning Limerick businesses of growing cyber threats.
“In the months of 2021 when Ireland was in strict lockdown and non-essential retail was closed, new .ie domain registrations surged,” said David Curtin, the chief executive of .IE.
However, the pandemic’s link to new .ie domain registrations appeared to ‘decouple’ in August as .ie domain registrations once again increased despite the government’s accelerated reopening plans.
“We believe this decoupling occurred when it did because the Irish economy has, for the most part, exited the ‘acute response’ phase of the pandemic. Businesses have factored-in the uncertainty of restrictions and reduced trading ability to their commercial operations and planning," Mr Curtin added.
Nationally, at 6.5% year-on-year growth, the .ie domain remains one of the fastest growing country domains in Europe, behind only .ee in Estonia, and .pt in Portugal.