google.ie

do you really need .ie domain?

[wruk999]

I have had a clients site now, for nearly a year, and it is running well, with good SERPS when searching google.com for "keywords...ireland"

But when I go to google.ie, and perform the search without the ireland, but having the Ireland filter on - ziltch results returned!

it is a .com domain - but directly aimed at the Irish market.
It is hosted on my servers, over here in England.

Does my client need a .ie domain / his website hosting on an Irish IP range?
What else could get him into google.ie?

Any thoughts.

Regards,
William

[quiet_man]

Yes, you probably do need either a .ie domain (good luck. They're not as straightforward as most other domains to acquire) or hosting on an IP range that Google recognises as being Irish. I say this because there are Irish-based servers that Google does not acknowledge in its 'pages from Ireland' results.

[jmccormac]

It is as quiet_man has said. Google's index of what it considers to be Irish sites seems to be based on what is hosted on Irish IP ranges and ends with a .ie. It is a pretty poor way of deciding what is an Irish site since most Irish sites (probably over 50%) would be hosted on servers in the US or the UK.

A .ie may get you into the 'pages from Ireland' index however it is an expensive way to do it. To get a .ie, you would need some connection to Ireland (regged company/business etc), a business name registration cert (about 30 Euros) and then you would have to pay for the .ie - anything from 65 to 156 Euros per year. This may chance though as the Irish government is considering deleting the company that currently administers the .ie domain so there is the chance that the price could fall.

An alternative method would be to get into the Irish section of [dmoz.org...] as Google uses this as search fodder.

Regards...jmcc

[wruk999]

Thanks both for your responses.

Accquiring a .ie domain, will be quite easy as the client is based out/registered comapny in Ireland, and has given quite a large budget to SEO this year ;)

It was the Irish IP range bit that just concerns me - if accquiring an .ie domain doesn't solve it, are Irish servers the next thing to look at?

Regards,
William

[engine]

>Irish servers the next thing to look at?

If you want to take the belt and braces approach, I suggest do it all in one go rather than have the hassle involved in transferring the domain later.