Hosting - Domains - Blacknight Blog: Domains Archives

TRAFFIC Dublin

By Michele Neylon on August 24, 2010 10:13 AM | 5 Comments | No TrackBacks

I'm at TRAFFIC Dublin for the next couple of days.

It's nice to not have to get a plane to attend a domain industry event!

The schedule for the two days is interesting but, in common with most industry events, the real work and interest is in what goes on in the corridors.

Dublin's Shelbourne hotel has been invaded by internet industry professionals from the four corners of the globe!

Tomorrow's live auction should be fun and I'll try to post the results as soon as I have them

Adding More Horses To Our Stable - Or How To Abuse Metaphors Badly When Talking Domains

By Michele Neylon on August 18, 2010 11:28 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We are always working on adding new products and services to our portfolio, so I am delighted to announce the addition of 5 new domain name extensions.

We are now offering domain registrations in Antigua (.ag), Honduras (.hn), Saint Lucia (.lc),
Mongolia (.mn) and Saint Vincent and Grenadines.

All of the domain extensions are available for registration periods of up to 10 years.

TRAFFIC Is Coming To Dublin - Want To Win A Ticket?

By Michele Neylon on August 11, 2010 4:41 PM | 15 Comments | No TrackBacks

The TRAFFIC conference is being held in central Dublin later this month (August 24th - 25th)

They've chosen the Shelbourne, which is possibly the most centrally located hotel in Ireland's capital!

TRAFFIC is one of the top events in the world for the domain industry and brings together domain name industry experts from the four corners of the globe for several days of talks, networking and a domain auction.

The full list of domains being auctioned during the Dublin event hasn't been released yet, but there are some gems coming under the hammer, such as:
ulster.com
northernireland.com
gold.co.uk
lifts.com
supremecourt.com
mouse.com
keyboard.com
photograph.com

You can peruse the schedule for Dublin and book your place if you haven't done so already.

The organisers of TRAFFIC have given us a couple of tickets to give away to you, our faithful (or long suffering) readers.

So how can you win one?

Pretty simple. Either post a comment here OR link to a blog post telling us why you deserve to get a freebie and we'll choose the best entries in the next couple of days.

Want A Domain? Why Not Try .Gl?

By Michele Neylon on August 9, 2010 2:20 PM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

One of the things we're working on all the time is adding more services.

So when the opportunity presented itself to offer a "new" domain extension to our clients we jumped at it!

We are now offering .gl domain name registration

What is .gl?

.gl is the country code domain extension for Greenland.

Are there any restrictions on .gl domain name registration?

No.

How much does it cost?

We're offering .gl domains for €49.99 / year.

How long can I register a .gl domain name for?

The maximum period you can register a .gl domain name is 2 years.

Check to see if your chosen .gl domain name is available for registration now

Register a co.uk Domain and Win!

By Michele Neylon on August 4, 2010 2:52 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Nominet, the registry operator for co.uk, is running a promotion from now until September 27th 2010.

If you register a co.uk domain between now and September 27th you can enter a draw for daily prizes of iTunes vouchers, as well as weekly prizes of iPads.

NB: The draw is open to UK residents only - see full terms and conditions

Sick of .com? Meet .co!

By Michele Neylon on July 22, 2010 5:47 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We're delighted to announce that we're now offering the .co domain extension for registration. But what is it you may be asking yourself?

.co is a strange beast, as it's being hailed as the "next big thing" and I guess your question should be, is it going to be ?

Well the .co registry are investing heavily in it and doing a lot of marketing to make it so, but is it working?

Based on what we've seen so far it looks like it could well be..

The first 15 minutes saw 90,000 .co domain names being picked up and it has being going strong ever since. After being available for regisration for only 3 days already there are over 280,000 domain names registered!

It's the country-code TLD for Colombia, but as I said its not being marketed as such its being marketed as an international domain extension to combat the heavily saturated .com marketplace

So should you register a .co?

An article on PCPro.co.uk seems to suggest that google will be allowing the .co extension to target the international domain market as opposed to the country specific and that should mean good things for international business sites.

With the vast majority of .com names being gone (90 million .com domains are currently registered give or take a million have you found a good one recently) or being up for sale for a lot of money have you thought what you could do with .co ?

So who are buying them, already the likes of twitter have picked up some premium domain names t.co for example ( will that be one of the smallest link shorteners on the market? possibly even rivaling our own link shortner Blacknig.ht :) )

If you like your stats you can see a rather interesting break down of who is currently purchasing them http://opportunity.co/pigsfly/.

You'll see registrations in the US and Europe are currently going strong.

If you're a company, corporation, community or even a contest does a .co make sense to you?

Blacknight is currently offering .co domains at just €29.99 one of the lowest prices on the market.

As one of the newest domain extentions you have a lot of choice for now so don't delay have you thought about protecting your brand?

Or registering something cool? Let us know

Doing Business In China? Save Big On Cn.com Domain Registration

By Michele Neylon on July 15, 2010 1:01 PM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

If you're doing business in China then you need to use a domain that "speaks" to China.

So why not grab a cn.com during our special sale?

We've reduced the price on cn.com domain registration by more than 50% - register a cn.com domain name for only €9.99 / year!

You don't need any special coupon codes - just place the order online

Are Your Hands Tied?

By Michele Neylon on July 12, 2010 2:11 PM | 8 Comments | No TrackBacks

Domain transfers shouldn't be a "big deal".

It should be quite easy.

A registrant (ie. you) should be able to switch the billing of their domain name(s) from one registrar (or reseller) to another quite painlessly.

As long as you aren't a criminal it should be a simple and accessible process.

Unfortunately the reality remains that domain transfers are still a cause of pain for a minority of registrants due to some registrars and resellers employing highly suspect business practices.

We have yet again received reports of registrants being charged "release" fees, which are sometimes disguised as "administrative" fees.

Let's set a few facts straight

If the domain(s) are registered to you properly ie. your correct contact details are in WHOIS then you are entitled to move the domain(s) to a new registrar unless certain circumstances are true. (ie. newly registered domains, fraudulent orders that sort of thing)

So what is reality?
For .ie domain names - unless the domain has a status of "locked" in WHOIS the registrant / domain holder can simply go to a new registrar and request a transfer.
For .eu domain names - it's pretty much the same process

For .com domain names - you need to get the domain unlocked as well as getting an EPP key. Most ICANN accredited registrars will provide this almost immediately at no cost.
However you may run into issues with some of their resellers.

If you do you can report them to ICANN here.

Just so it's clear - we respect these concepts as well. If you want to move a domain away from us you can.

Save On Business (.biz) Domain Names

By Michele Neylon on July 5, 2010 1:33 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From now until the end of August we have reduced the price of .biz domain names to €5.99 / year.

Do you need a coupon code?

No. The price reduction will appear automatically in the checkout

What does this apply to?

The €5.99 / year price applies to new registrations and transfers of .biz domain names

Are there any restrictions on who can register a .biz domain?

No. Anyone can register a .biz domain name

How long can I register a .biz domain name for?

You can register a .biz domain name for up to 10 years.

You can check all our hosting and domain offers here

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar.

Save On .be and .eu

By Michele Neylon on June 30, 2010 11:43 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Following on from the ICANN meeting in Brussels last week we are offering special discounts on both .be (Belgium) and .eu (European Union) domain name registrations (and transfers) until July 10th

Simply use the coupon code: icann when placing your order and avail of the following pricing:

.eu registration / transfer €4.50
.be registration / transfer €4.50

For all our latest offers on domain name registration and hosting be sure to check out our offers site

Get Some Father's Day Inspiration

By Michele Neylon on June 14, 2010 10:42 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

Here at Blacknight we like trying to come up with new ways to market and sell domain names and hosting. Since Father's Day (in Ireland and a few other countries) is just around the corner we came up with two little campaign ideas.

One is for promoting .me domain names, while the other is for promoting .eu domain name registration.

Here's the one for .me:

And here's the one for .eu:

What do you think?

Have You Got Your .EU?

By Michele Neylon on June 3, 2010 10:38 AM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks

We're often asked by people about which domain names they should register for their business. This time round we're going to have a look at .eu

What is .eu?

The .eu domain is the domain name for the European Union

Why should I get a .eu domain name?

If you're doing business across Europe and don't want to get ALL the various European domain extensions then a .eu domain is the logical choice.

Some big companies, like Sony, use their .eu domain to act as their EU portal.

Who can get a .eu domain?

Anyone with an address in the European Union qualifies.
You don't need any paperwork and registration is practically instant.

What about my contact details?

If you are a private individual your details are protected and are NOT published in public WHOIS

Even if you are a business user your details will be a lot safer under .eu, as their WHOIS server does NOT include contact details that are easily abused.

Already using a .eu for your business or personal site? Why not tell us about it?

Turn On Your TV - Only 9.99 Year!

By Michele Neylon on June 1, 2010 10:03 AM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

It's that time of the month again - time to unveil our first promo for the month of June.

This time round it's all about online video!

Fancy yourself as the next Spielberg or Kurosawa?
Or maybe you just want to setup a fun video clip site?

No matter what your reasons for it, if you're doing anything with online video / film then .tv is the domain for you!

Need some inspiration? Why not checkout the .tv showcase?

We're delighted to be able to offer a significant discount on .tv domain name registration.

We have slashed the price of .tv domain names to a mere €9.99 / year (ex-VAT) - no coupon code required!

Simply place your domain registration order via our secure order system and benefit from our great domain pricing!

For all other domain pricing offers check our domain offer site

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar.

Doing Business In Spain? Get A .es Domain And Save!

By Michele Neylon on May 14, 2010 10:34 AM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

If you're doing business in Spain then you should register a .es domain name.

You could also get playful and try to find a "domain hack" using "es" - think of all the words that end in "es" ...

So what's the deal?

From now until the end of June 2010 we've slashed the price of .es domain name registration!

You'll only pay €9.99 (ex-VAT) for a one year .es registration.

Do I need a special coupon code?

No. The discount will appear in the shopping cart automatically.

Are there any limitations on what you can register under .es?

Certain words / terms are restricted by the Spanish domain registry. (see full details here)

You can find details of our other super deals on domain registration and hosting easily on our domain name offers site.

Want To Win Some Goodies? Win Cool Gear The Easy Way!

By Michele Neylon on May 13, 2010 3:42 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We give away tshirts, mugs and other things from time to time, but it's always been a little haphazard.

Not that there's anything wrong with being haphazard or spontaneous ..

So we've decided that we'd put together a few things to bring you a veritable bonanza of goodies.

Remember our "May Madness" hosting and domain offer? Well this expands on it ..

So here's what we're going to do ..

Any domain orders placed during the month of May 2010 will be entered in the draw with winners being announced at the beginning of June 2010.

The prizes on offer DO NOT include the dog. He's not ours, so we can't give him away - sorry!

They do, however, include the following:

1 x Flip Mino HD
1 x Visual Studio 2010 (courtesy of Microsoft Ireland)
1 x Expression Studio 3 (courtesy of Microsoft Ireland)
Blacknight Tshirts
$random goodies from registries that we have lying around the office

We're going to be offering other cool goodies and prizes over the next couple of months, so keep your eye out for the details...

Want a domain name, but not sure what to get? Why not try our domain name suggestions' site?

Want our latest domain name and hosting offers? Check them all out here!

Got a question? Why not leave a comment?

NB: Employees of Blacknight (including their cats and dogs) are not eligible to enter.

Want Our Offers? Stop Searching - Find Them All In One Place!

By Michele Neylon on May 9, 2010 4:47 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We post special offers and discounts on hosting and domain names here, as well as on Facebook and on Twitter.

Of course if you're not keeping your eyes peeled you might miss out on a new offer .. ..

So with that in mind we decided it would be easier for us and for you if we put all our special offers in one place.

We'll still announce them via Twitter, Facebook and our newsletter, but you will only have one place to check if you want the latest domain and hosting discounts.

So without further ado let us introduce you to our domain and hosting offers site

We put the site live on Friday, so if there any issues with it please let us know.

What Have We Cooked Up Now?

By Michele Neylon on May 6, 2010 1:53 PM | 4 Comments | 1 TrackBack

It's that time of the month again! The time when we announce what we've cooked up for you in the way of discounts and offers!

Every month we try to come up with new and interesting offers for you. Sometimes we reach out to the public and ask YOU what YOU want us to offer on discount.

So yesterday we did just that.

The answer we got was pretty clear - we hadn't offered discounts on hosting for a while, so it was overdue.

So what's the offer?

From now until the end of May 2010 use coupon code: maymadness (all together - no spaces, cASe sensitive) and you'll save on our Minimus hosting plan.

So how much will you save?

The offer is applicable to monthly AND annual Minimus hosting plans (both Linux and Windows Server 2008).

On a monthly hosting plan you'll save 1 euro on the monthly fee, while on the annual you'll save quite a bit more:

Annual fee before tax: €49.95 with tax: €60.44
BUT
with our super-duper May discount you get:
Annual fee before tax: €37.95 with tax €45.92

So, in simple terms, the price drops from €49.95 to €37.95 ex-VAT, from €60.44 to €45.92 including VAT.

What other offers do you have?

Current offers include (all prices ex-VAT) :

.ie transfer €14.99
.ie 1 year registration €14.99
.com registration / transfer €4.99 / year
.net registration / transfer €4.99 / year
.org registration / transfer €4.99 / year
.me 1 year registration (or transfer) €4.99

NB: You don't need any coupon code for any of these offers - you only need the coupon code for the hosting offer.

Don't know what to register? Why not take our domain suggestion tool for a whirl?

Any questions or comments - please let us know. We want your feedback!

UPDATE: We have extended the offer to include our Medius and Maximus plans.

Blacknight is Ireland's only ICANN accredited registrar!

The Web Is Now Truly International!

By Michele Neylon on May 6, 2010 1:34 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We've mentioned IDN domains a few times in the past.

To jog your memory, an IDN domain uses non-ASCII characters ie. an IDN domain name could use pretty much any character set - not just the "standard" Latin one. So if you were Russian you would probably want to type in domain names in your own character set, which you currently cannot do (though you will be able to soon.. )

ICANN's Kim Davies tweeted yesterday that three IDN country code domains were now live in the root:

If you're using an iPhone or Safari you can visit that web address in your browser and see it in the address bar in its full UTF-8 glory (click to enlarge) :

You can read more about yesterday's milestone on the ICANN blog or on Kieren's blog.

We're Off To TRAFFIC Milan (As Long As We Can Get There!)

By Michele Neylon on April 21, 2010 1:10 PM | 4 Comments

Next week I'm hoping to be in Milan, Italy, for TRAFFIC ccTLDs. (I'm still not 100% confident that flights will be running .. )

The event, which runs over 3 days, is aimed at domain investors and people interested in finding out more about the ccTLD domain world.

While there are only about 20 gTLDs such as .com, .net, .org, .mobi there are over 200 country code domains such as .fr, .nl, .ie, .me etc., And since variety is the spice of life, each and every country can set its own rules and regulations. So while it's incredibly easy to register a co.uk domain or a .me domain, it's a lot more complicated to register a .ie domain name.

I've been looking forward to this event for quite some time and was absolutely delighted when I was invited onto one of the panesl. I'll be on a panel Wednesday morning to talk about the UK's ccTLD. On the same panel will be Julien Naillet (AFNIC) and Sergi Moreu (Ubilibet) talking about the French and Spanish markets.

If you're heading to the event be sure to say "hi"!

Volcano Getting You Down? Don't Blow Your Top!

By Michele Neylon on April 18, 2010 10:48 PM | 3 TrackBacks

With European airspace being considered too dangerous for commercial flights a lot of people have been having a pretty horrible few days. And it doesn't look like it's going to get better tomorrow either (which could wreak havoc on my plans for the next week .. )

So rather than wallowing in depression we decided to do something - something we know people like. We thought we'd do another silly domain offer!

So here's the details...

From now until Friday 23rd April 2010 we're running the following discount.

When you use the coupon code: VOLCANO10 (cASe SeNSitive) you will get the following prices on domain name registrations:

.mobi 1 year domain registration only 4.99
.be 1 year domain registration 3.99
.info 1 year domain registration 2.99
.biz 1 / 2 year registration 3.99 / year
.org domain registration 4.99 / year (up to 10 year registration)
.net domain registration 4.99 / year (up to 10 year registration)

And don't forget - we're still offering .me domains for only 4.99 / year , our .com promo of only 4.99 year is still ongoing - and you can even get a .ie domain for 1 year at an incredible 14.99

All prices ex-VAT

As usual - no coupon code, no discount.

Blacknight is Ireland's only ICANN accredited registrar!

Save Save Save - The Monthly Domain and Hosting Newsletter Is Out Today

By Michele Neylon on April 14, 2010 11:27 AM

If you want to get the best offers and discounts on hosting and domains you need to subscribe to our super-duper newsletter.

(not that we'd ever exaggerate or anything!)

Every month we send out our latest discounts, offers and news to thousands of clients worldwide. We also include offers from YOU.

Yes - if YOU have an offer that is relevant to our clients we will share it with them. (Obviously we're reserving the right not to share it if we feel it wouldn't be a good fit)

So head on over and subscribe today!

And .. if you like it, why not tell your friends (or even your enemies?)

Eggs.. Bunnies and Domains

By Michele Neylon on April 2, 2010 10:37 AM

This weekend it's Easter, so there'll be lots of Easter Eggs and fluffy chicks and all that kind of stuff for children of all ages..

So on behalf of everyone here at Blacknight I'd like to wish you all a very happy and peaceful Easter. Enjoy the break if you're taking it ..

Now we don't have eggs for everyone (we did give our staff one each, but there's only a few of them), but what we do have are some really good deals on domain names for the next few days.

Use the coupon code: bunny when ordering domains and get the following special Easter pricing:

.me 1 / 2 year 4.99
.net 1-10 year 4.99
.info 1 year 2.99
.org 1 year 4.99
.biz 1-10 4.99
.mobi 1 year 4.99
.tv 1 year 19.99
.tel 1 year 9.99
.be 4.99 1 year
.eu 4.25 1 year

NB: We're still offering .com @ €4.99 for 1 - 10 year registrations (and transfers) and 1 year .ie registration / transfer is still only €14.99

The offer is valid until April 9th 2010.
As usual, no coupon code, no discount.

Domain Renewal Group - Warning - Read The Fine Print!

By Michele Neylon on March 30, 2010 11:39 AM | 2 Comments

If you get a letter like the one below from Domain Renewal Group please bin it (click to enlarge):

From what we've been able to work out Domain Renewal Group (DRG) and Domain Registry of America (DROA) appear to be the same organisation. We've mentioned their antics in the past

Domain Renewal Group send out thousands of these letters to domain holders in the hope that some people will be duped into signing up.

You'll notice up the top right corner:

Domain Name Expiration Notice

The domain they sent us this letter in relation to:

isn't due to expire / be renewed for several months
isn't registered with them (and never was!)

won't cost us €28 (obviously!)

It's worth reading the letter in its entirety and checking the back of it as well.

Key thing to note:

they are NOT an ICANN accredited registrar

Blacknight IS an ICANN accredited registrar

This kind of scam is highly misleading to our clients and domain registrants everywhere.

If you get one of these letters DO NOT act on it.

Domain registrars, such as ourselves, normally DO NOT send out paper renewal notices.

Even if we did send anything out it would be clearly branded as coming from us - Blacknight.

Get Personal With dotMe

By Michele Neylon on March 23, 2010 1:33 PM | 2 Comments

These days it's all about the "personal brand", so why not get started on yours now?

If you want to get a personal "slice" of the internet "pie", then .me domains are perfect!

Why worry yourself with paperwork and headaches - you can get a .me domain name within minutes!

No bureaucracy - no messing about - Just choose an available domain name and "go for it"!

So to make it all the more interesting we're doing a "wee" offer on dotMe domains.

From now until the end of the month (March 2010 in case you're not sure!) use the coupon code:

memarch

and avail of the following prices:

.me 1 year registration €8 ex-VAT
.me 2 year registration €16 ex-VAT (ie. €8 / year)

As with all our promotions - no code = no discount.

Accredited Registrar for .me

For more about possible uses of .me domains have a look at our previous article on the subject.

St Patrick's Day Domain Special Blowout

By Michele Neylon on March 15, 2010 1:58 PM

Blacknight is a 100% Irish owned and run company. It's something we're very proud of.

We're also the only Irish ICANN accredited registrar, we're the biggest Eurid registrar, the biggest Nominet registrar etc.,, (You get the point?)

For 51 weeks of the year we don't "push" our Irishness, or at least not overtly ..

However, 1 week a year you'll have to forgive us as we roll out the green carpet for St Patrick's Day - which is Ireland's national holiday.

So what are we doing for St Patrick's Day?

We're doing a special offer on domain names - that's what!

Use the coupon code:

feilepadraig (all lower case - no spaces)

And SAVE BIG

Here's what that magic code will get you (you'll see the discount once you apply the coupon code in the checkout) :

.tel domain registration slashed to 9.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.ie domain registration slashed to 9.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.me domain registration slashed to 8.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.net / .org / biz / mobi reduced to 4.99 / year (we're still discounting .com to 4.99!)
.eu registration 3.99
.info registrations slashed to only 2.99 / year
.be registration slashed to 1.99

NB: Prices are valid for both registrations AND transfers. Transferring a domain will extend its registration by one year (except in the case of .be and .eu)
NO coupon = NO discount

NOTE: Offer valid until midnight March 18th 2010.

Need inspiration for domains? Try our domain suggestion tool and find previously owned domains easily.

This year, by the way, our offices will be working from 1200 until 1600 - just in case you need technical assistance or want to lighten your wallet!

Want A Personal Domain Name? Why .me Makes Sense

By Michele Neylon on February 27, 2010 12:47 PM

If you want to get your own "slice" of the internet to setup a blog or to publish your CV then why not look at .me?

Unlike some country code domain names .me is completely free from restrictions - so you can register a .me domain name as easily as you can register a .com.

The .me domain is one of the few ccTLD extensions that Google allows you to target to ANY country - so you don't have to worry about Google "thinking" you want to use it for the wrong country!

"Me" says it all. It's about YOU. And what's wrong with that?

Nothing!

You could use a .me domain for a whole range of different things.

Don't limit yourself to just personal domains - you can also use a .me domain as a "call to action" (love.me, kiss.me, buy.me etc., etc.)

A personal blog is pretty obvious, but how about using it for your CV? Impress a prospective employer with an online version of your CV, or simply point it at your LinkedIn profile.

Or how about an online photo gallery?

The possibilities are endless.

You could setup email.....

Or grab your family name and give each member of the family their own subdomain.

What would you do with a .me?

Have you seen anybody doing really cool things with a .me domain name?

Accredited Registrar for .me

Get Your Own TV!

By Michele Neylon on February 25, 2010 3:50 PM

We've got yet another nice little promotion to share with you. This time round it's on .tv domain names!

Use the coupon code: tvpromo (no space - cASe SeNSitive) and you'll be able to get a .tv domain for a mere €19.99 ex-VAT

You will be able to register a .tv domain name at this special IF you use the coupon code. No code - no discount!

The .tv domain has become synonymous with "TV" or online video.

We have been using Blacknight.tv to promote our Youtube channel, for example and there are literally thousands of online video services that rely on the .tv extension to promote themselves online.

You can also check out or other promotions on domain registration.

Do you like this promo?

Would you like us to do a promotion on a particular domain extension?

Why not let us know what you think?

Feel free to post a comment below!

Get Serious With .Biz

By Michele Neylon on February 19, 2010 10:00 AM | 1 TrackBack

One of the things we like to do here at Blacknight is to bring you special offers on domains (and hosting). But we also like to focus on domain extensions that you might overlook.

So what about .biz?

The .biz domain extension was launched to help business find a space online.
Sure, you could register a .com domain name, but over time the number of easily recognisable .com names available shrank.

While .biz is not a "tiny" domain extension (there are over 2 million names registered), there are still more names available compared to its "big brother" .com (there are over 85 million .com domains!)

So why would someone register a .biz domain name?

Biz - means business.

It's that simple.
If you want to see some examples of .biz in use then head over to my.biz where you'll find some nice examples of .biz domains in use.

If you're already using a .biz for your website then why not let us know in the comments?

So what's the promo?

From now until the end of February you can register (or transfer) .biz domain names for €4.99 (ex-VAT)

No promotion codes needed - the discount will appear in the cart once you've added a domain to your order.

Biz accredited registrar

The best damn domain search you will find online

By Michele Neylon on February 15, 2010 2:56 AM | 4 Comments

We've all wasted hours of our time trying to grab Internet domains that are already registered. That's why we launched Dropped.ie - to display on one page all the domains around a single word that are available to register or buy right now.

But not content with that, we've added a semantic element to the service - so if you type in a certain word, we will also seek out available domains that are related to it.

The example we have been using to show it off is "espresso" - which will also display results with the word "coffee" in. It's mostly dot-ie domains at the moment, but we also have dot-coms and are looking to expand it across all the top-level domains that Blacknight sells.

We also pull in third-party domains for sale, and let you choose regional terms to help you get to a suitable domain as quickly as possible.

One click next to each domain will display the domain's history and its popularity.

And a single click will pull you through to a registration page for that domain - making it easier than ever to get your domain and get it fast.

But that's not all - we are constantly looking at ways to improve.

So we've had a brainstorm and current thoughts include:

Letting people choose their country, and automatically pulling in regional search information such as counties or states

Picking the best available domains - of any extension - and sticking them up the top in a Best Picks box

Improving the search so it second-guesses where you are going and gets there before you

Doing a mash-up with Google Maps data or Maxmind's GeoIP tools

Here's where we want to hear from you.

What do you think of the service?

What do you think of the ideas above?

Do you have any ideas of your own that you think would make Dropped.ie better?

If so, now's the time to speak up.

Just add a comment below or email us at marketing@blacknight.com and we'll check it out and, where possible, incorporate it.

So please check out Dropped.ie and get back to us with ways to improve it.

Beat The Valentine's Day Blues With A Domain

By Michele Neylon on February 13, 2010 9:06 PM

Valentine's Day might be a wonderful concept if you've got a "better half".

If you don't, however, it can be a really annoying day.

For the last few weeks the shops have been trying to tempt people with cards, gifts and flowers...

So what better way to deal with the Valentine's Day blues than by showing yourself a bit of self-love?

Treat yourself to a domain name this Valentine's Day - You know you want to!

Jilted by a former lover? Annoyed with your ex?
Registering a domain name might help bring some calm.

So here's the deal.

It's pretty simple.

Use the following coupon code: valentine (cAseSEnsitive) when registering a domain name via our site and you will get the following discounts:

Register .ie domain name for 1 year for €9.99 ex-VAT
Register .com /.net / .info / .eu domain name for 1 year for €2.99 ex-VAT

Need inspiration? Try out our domain suggestions over on Dropped.ie
Not only can you find nice previously owned IE domain names, but you can also get some really cool suggestions for .com names!

NB: Offer expires at 2359 UTC February 14th 2010. No coupon code = no discount. Only one coupon code per order and only for registration periods described.

NB: Yes we are stretching it a bit by suggesting that a domain name can mend broken hearts, or anything like that, but a discount is still a discount ...

Good News For Mobi

By Michele Neylon on February 13, 2010 6:35 PM | 1 TrackBack

Earlier this week DotMobi announced that they had been acquired by Afilias.

We've been working closely with both .mobi and Afilias so we're absolutely delighted to hear their news.

I'd personally like to congratulate Trey Harvin and his team - they're a great bunch to work with and we're always delighted to hear of their successes.

Of course any acquisition does open questions.

Will anything change for .mobi registrants?

The short answer is - NO. Nothing changes.

Afilias is a leading and well established registry company which has been providing registry services for .mobi since its launch. Afilias is also the Registry Operator for .INFO and .aero, and provides technical services in support of 15 TLDs, including .ORG (under contract to Public Interest Registry), .asia, and several country code TLDs (ccTLDs). In all, Afilias supports about 15 million registrations across these TLDs, making it one of the largest registry services providers in the world.

dotMobi, the .mobi Registry Operator, will continue to operate as it does now, but as a wholly owned subsidiary of Afilias. As a registrant, you should not expect to see any difference in your .mobi registration, since neither your registrar nor the technology that powers your domain will change as a result of this transaction.

In fact, what's more likely to happen is that dotMobi will be in a better position than ever before, as it will be backed by the experience of Afilias.

We're still offering highly competitive rates on .mobi registrations and we're also working on revamping our own mobile site (more on that when I have something to actually report! At the moment it's a "work in progress")

Dropped.ie - Now With Extra Funky Semantic Search

By Michele Neylon on February 7, 2010 5:58 PM | 2 Comments

When we launched dropped.ie a couple of months ago it was aimed at helping people find good domain names to register.

We limited it, however, to .ie domain names only.

Of course we know that people don't always want a .ie domain name and, in many cases, the extra paperwork for getting a .ie domain name may not be everyone's cup of tea.

The other "problem" was that sometimes there simply were no domains that matched a given keyword. Sure, if you did a search for some words you got back plenty of domains to choose from, but you hit a virtual "brick wall" with others.

With that in mind we have extended the site's functionality to include semantic suggestions.

What does that mean?

When you do a search for say "espresso" you'd expect to see results including domain names that contain the term "espresso". However with semantic search you also get back names which are related in meaning.

Try it out to see what I mean.

You'll also notice that at the bottom of the page we're showing domains available via Sedo, which is one of the largest domain aftermarket sites in the world.

We're going to be adding in some other features in the coming weeks, but I thought I'd share this one with you all now.

Let us know how you find it.

Is it useful?

IE Domain Price Slash - Com Promo Extended

By Michele Neylon on February 2, 2010 9:32 AM | 4 Comments | 2 TrackBacks

We know you love our silly domain offers, so we're doing it again.

We've cut the price on one year .ie domain name registrations to €14.99

You don't need any coupon codes - just place the order online via our website and you'll get the special price of €14.99 ex-VAT.

Not sure what to get? Why not check out some of the previously owned names listed on our deleted IE domain site?

NB: Price is ONLY valid for new .ie registrations for one year

Remember our .com promotion? Well we've extended it yet again!

Register or transfer a .com domain name for only €4.99 / year ex-VAT.

No coupon code required - the discount appears in the shopping cart.

UPDATE: We've extended the offer to include transfers of .ie domains

Save Money With Our Friday Deals

By Michele Neylon on January 22, 2010 11:13 AM

Special offers and discounts can be fun! If you subscribe to our newsletter you can get subscriber only discounts that we don't offer anywhere else!

In order to celebrate Friday, which seemed like a stupid enough reason to have a discount, we've put together a couple of special discounts for you.

Use the coupon code: fridayfeeling
(coupon expires at midnight tonight Irish time (UTC) )

When ordering via our site you will get the following prices:

.net 1 year registration €4.99
.biz 1 year registration €2.99
.info 1 year registration €2.99
.mobi 1 year registration €4.99
.eu 1 year registration €1.99
.me 1 year registration €9.99
.be 1 year registration €0.99
.co.za 1 year registration €9.99

We're also trying to raise some money for a good cause. Check out our blog post here

Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook accounts for other silly offers

Let's Help A Charity And Discount Domains

By Michele Neylon on January 19, 2010 5:24 PM

The tragedy that struck Haiti a few days ago has shocked the world.

So we've decided to try and raise some cash for what we consider to be a worthy charity - Médecins Sans Frontières.

We've setup a donation site which uses the mycharity.ie system, so the funds go to the charity we've chosen - NOT us.

The target we've set is currently €10000 (ten thousand euro) and we've added a little twist. We've thrown €1000 into the pot to start things going.

For every €5000 raised we'll release a €5 discount on IE domain registrations - so if you can help us reach our target we'll be slicing €10 of the cost of registration. And, if you're all really generous, we'll end up giving away IE domains for a purely nominal fee..

So what are you waiting for? Get donating!

About the Charity:

Médecins Sans Frontières is an international organisation that helps provide emergency medical assistance to people in over 70 countries worldwide.

You can find out more about the organisation from either their international site or the Irish one.

Bulk Transfer of Hosting365 Inc Domains To Blacknight

By Michele Neylon on January 18, 2010 4:55 PM

ICANN announced on Friday evening that we, Blacknight, had been chosen to receive the bulk transfer of all domains on the Hosting 365 Inc ICANN accreditation (IANA ID: 956).

This bulk transfer is a result of Hosting365 Inc losing their ICANN accreditation on January 4th 2010 due to a compliance action taken by ICANN (PDF)

We have setup a dedicated page on our site which addresses most of the common questions, but to summarise:

- all domains on the Hosting365 Inc accreditation have been transferred to us
- if your domain was one of those affected you should receive login details from us
- we have already attempted to contact all affected registrants to inform them of the change in registrar
- you can check if we are the registrar of record for any domain using WHOIS (our whois server will only show domains that are on our accreditation)
- nameserver records will not have been affected by the change in registrar
- domain renewal dates remain unchanged

If you have any queries related to this announcement please let us know.

While we realise that this sort of change may be traumatic for some registrants we intend to make the transition as painless as possible and look forward to doing business with the affected registrants.

Same Scams - Different Year

By Michele Neylon on January 6, 2010 11:11 AM | 4 Comments

While everyone else is settling back into a New Year it's "nice" to see that the scammers have been hard at work.

So what's on the menu this year?

Well there's Internet Register Ireland. Remember them?

There's also those "lovely" people from Domain Registry of America. They got a nice slap on the wrists in the UK recently, so maybe someone could report them to the Irish advertising standards authority?

If you get letters from either of these organisations please bin them. If you wish to lodge a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority it may help raise awareness.

Just so it's clear.

We do not send out hard copy renewal notifications or letters to our clients. If we ever send anything out in the mail it will be very clear that it is from us, as our paper is very heavily branded!

Another one to watch out for is domain name resellers charging a "release" or "unlock" fee for domain names. If this has happened to you we'd love to hear about it!

Whois Compliance Emails

By Michele Neylon on January 6, 2010 10:16 AM | 1 Comment

Several of our clients have received emails from eNom in the last 24 hours about supposed WHOIS compliance issues:

From: whoiscompliance@enom.com [mailto:whoiscompliance@enom.com]
Sent: 06 January 2010 00:03
To: info@xxxxxxxx.com
Subject: Whois Day 60 / Freeze Notification Letter - Immediate action required for domain xxxxxxx.com

Dear xxxx xxxx,

As your registrar of record, eNom, Inc requests your immediate attention regarding your domain, xxxxxxxx.com.

eNom, Inc, as a US-based company, must comply with US laws.
These laws prohibit us from providing services to Cuba, Iran, and Sudan ("Sanctioned Countries").

Based on the information available to us, some or all of the "whois" contact information for
your Domain is within a Sanctioned Country. As you may know, the "whois" contact information
for a domain includes the billing contact information, the registrant contact information,
the administrative contact information, the technical contact information, and, if applicable,
the auxiliary billing contact information for the domain.

Therefore, we have concluded that your Domain may be controlled by a person located in a Sanctioned Country.

Effective immediately you are no longer permitted to perform financial transactions for your Domain.
Features such as registration renewal and auto-renew have been disabled until you update your contact information.

Kind regards,

eNom Compliance

Email address: whoiscompliance@enom.com

Unfortunately the email is not a scam.

If you have got one of these emails please contact support@blacknight.com as soon as you can and we will assist you.

Although we are an ICANN accredited registrar, a lot of domains that we manage for clients are managed through another registrar, eNom.

We intend to move those domains to our own accreditation as soon as possible in order to avoid future issues.

We are currently checking ALL domains on our account with eNom to ensure that the country code is set correctly.

We believe, however, that this issue is due in part to a technical error.

Ireland when converted to the ISO code is normally presented as "IE" or "ie".
We suspect that at some point in the past some domains' whois was converted from "Ireland" to "IR", which is the country code for Iran.

Waiting On An IE Domain Name?

By Michele Neylon on January 3, 2010 1:55 PM

Tomorrow morning most people will go back to work if they haven't done so already.

Our offices will resume their normal operating hours and the IE Domain Registry will re-open.

Prior to the Christmas break we ran a rather attractive offer on IE domain names.

Unfortunately due to the sheer volume of domains and the short timeframe before the Christmas break there are still several hundred registration and transfer requests pending.

If you ordered a .ie domain name registration OR transfer prior to Christmas please bear with us.

All orders will be processed, however it may take a couple of days for our sales team to deal with all queries.

If you are transferring a .ie domain name to us please ensure that you have submitted the signed transfer authorisation.

You can submit the transfer authorisation in one of three ways:

Upload a scan using the link in the email we sent you
Via fax to +353 (0) 1 4811 763
As an attachment via email to sales@blacknight.com (Preferably JPEG)

If you are registering a .ie domain name and need to submit supporting documentation you can use the same methods.

If you have any queries please let us know.

Don't Miss Out - EU and IM Offers Ending December 31

By Michele Neylon on December 28, 2009 12:22 PM

Want a .eu or a .im domain name at a rockbottom price?

The special offer pricing on both .eu and .im domain names ends on December 31st 2009.

We are currently offering .eu domain registration for a mere €2.95 and .im domain registration for €4.95.

Both of these offers will end on December 31st.

Don't feel like grabbing domains before the New Year? No need to worry.
Our offer on .com registration and transfer has been extended through January.

Check out all our current domain offers on domainoffers.me

Merry Christmas - Celebrate With A Discount

By Michele Neylon on December 21, 2009 1:33 PM | 1 Comment

We don't do traditional cards very well here.

(Well that's not entirely true.. we do send out a few, but not that many.)

Let's face it, while the "thought" may "count" you can end up finishing Christmas week with a load of Christmas cards from people you barely know and while it's a nice idea it's probably not all that memorable. (At least that's my rather cynical take on it all .. )

So what about doing something at Christmas that would really have some kind of impact on our clients?

So here's what we've done.

If you order a one year .ie domain registration or transfer and use the promotion code "chrimbo" (lowercase, no caps or spacing) you will be able to walk away with a .ie domain for a mere €2.99 ex-VAT (or transfer an existing .ie domain from somewhere else)

There are a couple of limits to the offer:

The offer is only applicable to the first 99 orders with the coupon code
The offer will expire on December 23rd 2009 when the IEDR close for Christmas whether we've received 99 orders or not
The offer only applies to 1 year domain registrations OR transfers ie. you cannot use it to register a domain for 2 years
No we won't apply the discount if you haven't used the code, so please don't ask.

UPDATE: This offer is now over - it was completely sold out

Beat The Increase Today - Register or Transfer Your .com Domains Now!

By Michele Neylon on December 18, 2009 4:05 PM

The price of .com (and .net) domain names will be going up on July 1st 2010.

This is not a price increase being set by ourselves or any other registrar - it's an increase that is being set by Verisign, who run both .com and .net.

As a result of this price increase we've decided to extend our offer on .com domain names until January 31st 2010.

So if you want to register a new .com domain name or switch your domain name to us from another registrar, then the time is right.

You can register a .com domain name for 1 year or up to 10 years.

.com domains are only €4.99 (ex-VAT) per year with Blacknight until January 31st 2010.

Check out our other domain name offers here

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar.

Get Into The Groove With .FM

By Michele Neylon on December 14, 2009 8:00 PM

Apologies for the slightly cheesy post title, but it was really hard to resist!

Some domains are just plain cool and useful.

When you see a .fm (dotFM) domain you think "radio" or "music" or just plain "audio".

If you were going to be launching a podcast or music service, then .fm would be the obvious choice.

Notable users of .fm include the likes of last.fm, webmasterradio.fm and services like Blip.fm

So we're delighted to be able to do something special with the .fm domain pricing.

We've done a couple of things.

First off we've cut the price - and not by couple of euro - we've halved it!

We were charging 99 euro for a one year registration, but we're now offering a .fm domain registration for 49 euro (ex-VAT) - that's roughly US$72

Secondly, we're now offering .fm registrations for up to 5 years.

If you're a Wordpress user Podpress seems to be a popular choice for handling podcasts, while MovableType users can use the application's builtin support.

Of course if you're planning on starting a podcast then you'll need some hosting to do with your nice shiny new domain, so why not check out our Minimus hosting plan?

It's the perfect plan for anyone starting a podcast site, as it gives you both the space and the bandwidth you'll need. (remember, all those audio files will need plenty of space over time)

So what are you waiting for?

You can simply search for an available .fm domain name from any page on our site or using the search box up the top right of this site.

Find a domain you like, add it to your cart and you'll be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Check out our other insane prices on domain names here

dotFm registrar

Grab An IE Domain And Save

By Michele Neylon on December 12, 2009 2:02 PM

Christmas is coming that little bit earlier this year.

From now until December 31st 2009 we have dropped the price on IE domain registrations and transfers to €16.95 / year. (The discount will appear in the cart, so no coupon codes required)

You can register a .ie domain name for 1 to 10 years - your choice.

You don't need to host with us to get the pricing

You can order as many domains as you like

ALL domains get free DNS services, so if you want to point the domain at an existing site, IP address, Google Apps or whatever you like, you can do that too at no extra cost. (Check out our video tutorials on managing DNS etc.)

Not sure what to nab?

Why not take a look at some of the "previously owned" IE domains on our new dropped IE domain site?

You can search for domains by first letter, length or keyword, or if you want you can simply get a completely random selection.

With less than 150 thousand IE domains currently registered there are still plenty of "category killer" generic domains available.

Why settle for a stupidly long domain name when you can get something short and memorable?

NB:
All IE domain registrations are subject to the IE Domain Registry's rules.
As the IE Domain Registry will be closing over Christmas domains ordered after December 22nd will probably not "go live" until early 2010.

Not interested in registering a .ie domain name?

Then why not check out some of our other domain name registration offers?

Pre-Budget Domain Discount

By Michele Neylon on December 9, 2009 12:48 PM

Today is budget day here in Ireland, so we know everyone over here is going to spend the day fretting about their cash.

So what better time to offer people a way to save some money?

At least that's what we thought ...

So we've slashed the price on .ie domain name transfers!

Transfer any .ie domain name (or any number of them!) and save.

How much is it?

€17.50 for a .ie domain name transfer (which includes 1 year renewal)

Do I need a coupon code?

No

But your website says ..

It's a special offer - you will see the discount in your shopping cart.

Do I need to host with Blacknight to get this offer?

No. You can host with whoever you choose. Of course if you'd like to move your hosting to us then use the coupon code: "movehost" (no quotes) and you'll get a discount when you signup for any of our hosting plans.

Do you have any other discounts?

Yes. Check out our current domain name discounts here

Don't forget, we're also offering a number of other very enticing domain name offers.

All prices exclude VAT

Pre-Christmas Domain Madness Powered By YOU

By Michele Neylon on December 7, 2009 3:09 PM

Everyone was asking for discounts on .com domains.

We heard. We listened. Now we are acting.

From now until the end of the month (December 31st 2009) all .com registrations and transfers are discounted to €4.99 (ex-VAT).

You don't need any special coupon codes.

We've even done away with the secret handshakes!

Just find a domain name you want to register. Add it to your order in the shopping cart and you'll see the discount appear

Simple really.

Want other super duper domain name discounts and special offers? Check out our current set of promotions.

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar.

The People Have Spoken

By Michele Neylon on December 7, 2009 12:09 PM | 2 Comments | 1 TrackBack

So our latest little experiment more or less proved what we'd already guessed - people like .com domain names and want discounts on them.

What was interesting, however, was what came in second and third place.

I'm glad to see that so many people are interested in .me and it's also nice to see that some people like .eu.

Here's the results graph (with explanation) at time of writing. The poll is still open, but since we now have more than 100 votes it's pretty clear which domain extensions people wanted to see discounted.

The poll was run using Twtpoll which is a nice little service for running polls. While it's obviously aimed at Twitter users, there's no reason why you can't use it without Twitter (or outside it)

Watch this space (and Facebook / Twitter) for announcements of special discounts on .com (and maybe .me too .. )

Let Us Know Which Crazy Discount You Want

By Michele Neylon on December 5, 2009 5:49 PM | 2 Comments | 1 TrackBack

Every time we run an offer people ask us if we're going to do an offer on something else.

Now getting feedback is always helpful, but it makes me wonder if we're running the kind of offers we should be running or not ...

So, just as a totally unscientific experiment, we're asking you to tell us what you would like to see.

Head on over to the poll and tell us which of the domain extensions (from the list) you'd like to see us do a crazy promotion on before Christmas.

(You can find a list of our current promotions here)

How DNS Works - For Non-Technical People

By Michele Neylon on December 3, 2009 7:31 PM | 4 Comments

DNS is a wonderful thing.
Honest!
Unfortunately, while it may be the glue that binds everything together (excuse the puns!) , it is one of those things that really confuses people.

CENTR have released a really nice and simple guide to how it works which is aimed at "normal" people

Have a look for yourself:

Now, does it make more sense to you?

Want A Deal?

By Michele Neylon on December 3, 2009 11:30 AM

Are you looking for a deal? Then maybe you've come to the right place!

In the runup to Christmas 2009 we're going to be doing a number of extra special offers and discounts.

As already announced, we're doing some random offers throughout the day and night via Twitter and Facebook.

We'll be adding to those offers with some extra offers between now and Christmas Eve - so keep an eye out.

So what are we offering today you might ask ...

How about a nice little offer on .com domains?

From now until December 31st we've reduced the price on .com transfers to €6.20 - you'll notice the discount when you add a .com transfer to your cart.

The co.uk registry - Nominet - just announced that they've registered their 8 millionth domain name, so to celebrate we're dropping the price to 3 euro / year until December 31st on co.uk registrations

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar

Silly Promos Are Go

By Michele Neylon on November 27, 2009 12:26 PM | 1 TrackBack

We've been running a series of discounts and promotions on a variety of domain extensions for the last couple of months...

We've now added a $random factor into the equation. Well "equation" might not be the best word.. Let's just call if the "mix".

At completely random times throughout the day (and night) we'll be cutting the price on some domain extensions.

In some cases we'll literally be giving away domains for FREE (gratis, no charge etc)

In other cases we'll charge a Euro or two for a domain.

In all cases you're going to get a fantastic bargain.

So how will you find out about these promotions? (Or maybe we should call them "extra promotions"?)

Simplest way is via Facebook or Twitter.

Depending on the promotion it might be time based ie. a particular cctld extension being set to a specific price for 30 minutes OR they might be based on units ie. the next 50 .com domains or whatever.

To Be Or Not To Be - Register .be Domains In Our Super Discount Promo

By Michele Neylon on November 19, 2009 10:47 AM

We've organised another domain name promotion in our massive end of year domain madness.

Register OR transfer a .be (Belgium) domain name for a paltry €3 (€2.99 to be precise, but we'll overlook the 1 cent!)

Belgium is famous for its beer, food, comic characters (think TinTin) and for being at the heart of the EU.

How do I get this discount?

Simply order a .be (or several) domain via our website. The discount will appear when you add the domains to your shopping cart ie. during the checkout process

Do I need a coupon code for this offer?

No. The discount will appear in the checkout

Who can register a .be domain?

Anyone.

Are there any restrictions on registering .be domains?

No

How long can I register a .be domain for?

One year

Need some inspiration? Try this site

Looking for other great offers on domain names? Check out our full list of current domain discounts

UPDATE: New version of the image courtesy of Forbairt

Internationalised Country Code Domains Spark Interest

By Michele Neylon on November 16, 2009 1:10 PM | 3 Comments

IDN domains (internationalised domain names) . It's a really horrible acronym, but once you get past that, the actual concept is a lot more interesting.

If you follow the technology press you'll have seen quite a lot of coverage of IDN domains in the last few weeks, as ICANN announced during the recent Seoul meeting that they'd launch them on 16th November 2009 (today).

The ICANN blog reports that they've already received 6 requests, representing 3 different languages. Reports coming in suggest that Egypt has expressed interest in launching an IDN in Arabic, Bulgaria is applying for a Cyrillic script one, Russia will have lodged an application for at least one as well (or are in the process of doing so..)

What does this mean?

For the moment it's hard to say, but the launch of IDN domain names is a step along the path towards a more multicultural and multilingual internet.

The more people who have access to the Internet then the better it will be for everyone ..

Talking Mobile

By Michele Neylon on November 6, 2009 2:43 PM | 5 Comments

While I was at the ICANN meeting in Seoul, South Korea, Pinkard Brand from DotMobi did a short video interview with me about .mobi and the mobile web:

You'll have to excuse the audio quality towards the end - there's a motorbike or something which is a bit distracting!

If you haven't already got your mobile web address then you should grab one now! (We're having a sale on them!)

Save Money On Domains - Current Discounts

By Michele Neylon on November 2, 2009 3:03 PM | 7 Comments

Over the last couple of months we've announced several special offers on domain names.

You can also use the shorter and more memorable http://domainoffers.me to get here

ALL domain registrations include FREE DNS and FREE domain forwarding (both standard and frame forwarding)

There are no silly hidden charges - what you pay for is what you get.

Current offers:

.me reduced to 4.99 / year until end of April 2010
.com reduced to 4.99 / year
.ie one year registration cut to 14.99

We also have time-sensitive offers - such as this one

Another great option is to consider a .tel domain name.

Why?

Because it's a wonderful way to get your business info and contacts online quickly and easily. You don't need to worry about creating a "slick" website, as the Tel system allows you to set it all up quickly and easily. And if you're an iPhone user you can update your details when you're on the move ...

ICANN Seoul Hangover

By Michele Neylon on November 1, 2009 1:55 PM

I'm just back from the ICANN meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

I had planned on posting with updates during the week, but, as you can see, that didn't happen.

Why?

Simply put - it was an incredibly busy meeting, both in general and for me personally.

I'm now back in Ireland struggling to get over jetlag and also trying to process all that happened over the course of the week.

If you've been following the mainstream media then you'll probably have heard about the big announcement regarding internationalised domain names ie. domains using non-Latin character sets.

But what else happened?

New TLDs, which ICANN made a big announcement about in Paris, are still delayed. Early in the week it became apparent that the delays were going to become longer and longer. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom would not provide any concrete answers when asked about deadlines. However some light did appear at the end of the tunnel when the board met on Friday.

Other topics that were getting a lot of attention included DNSSEC and compliance.

On the DNSSEC side two things are obvious:

It's going to be introduced
Most registrars won't support it immediately or anytime soon

Compliance and more amendments to the registrar agreements with ICANN are "on the cards".

ICANN's compliance team are working hard on removing "bad actors", but there is still a lot of work to be done and there is a lot of pressure to make even more changes to the contracts. Whether all the changes people are asking for are really warranted or not is another matter entirely.

I'll cover the various topics separately in the coming days ....

Check Your DNS Easily

By Michele Neylon on October 19, 2009 4:01 PM | 1 Comment

People get confused by DNS and apart from email related issues it probably accounts for more technical support issues than anything else.

The problems and the issues may not go away anytime soon, but we thought we could help people resolve them quickly with a simple online tool

Enter "My DNS Check"..

Based on the DNS Doctor provided by Centralnic, My DNS Check lets you check your domain name's DNS configuration quickly and easily.

We'll be adding more features to the tool based on YOUR feedback, so let us know what you'd like to see and we'll try to add it.

Info Price Shocker

By Michele Neylon on October 8, 2009 2:20 PM | 2 Comments

We've been running so many "silly" domain deals in the last few weeks that I almost overlooked one - our price slash on .info domains!

What you get?

.info registration for €4.95

Which registration periods are covered?

One year registration only.

How long is the offer available?

Until December 31st 2009

Is it applicable to ... ?

No. It's only applicable to one year .info registrations.

How much will renewal be?

Renewal prices will be based on our prices at the time of renewal

What is .info?

Info is a generic top level domain extension - currently the 4th largest in terms of volume after .com

Which sites use .info to promote themselves?

There's a directory of .info sites here which is a good starting point

How are you able to do this?

Blacknight is an ICANN accredited registrar and so we're able to negotiate pricing directly with the registry operators

Don't forget - we're also running specials on .eu, .mobi and a few other domain extensions at the moment, so if you want to "dabble" a bit online then why not do it without spending too much money?

Cheap EU Domains - What Would You Do To Get One?

By Michele Neylon on September 30, 2009 1:27 PM | 1 Comment

Here at Blacknight we take domains very seriously.

It's a very serious business.

We were shocked and horrified when we heard stories circulating in the "underground" about cash strapped kitties having to go to great lengths to get low cost domains.

So in order to save the kitties we introduced yet another domain promotion!

This time round the discount is on .eu domain registration.***

It does NOT apply to .eu domain transfers.

Why do this?

It's for the kitties, didn't we already tell you?

Seriously though, as you may have noticed we've been running quite a few special offers recently.

We know that people are worried about costs and want to get as much value as possible. We've always tried to pass on savings to our clients where possible, so this is not something new.

You can find a full list of promotions here (bear in mind some may have expired)

To help promote the growth of .eu domains we're running a very attractive promotion for new registrations starting tomorrow, October 1st 2009.

How much will a new .eu domain cost?

New registrations will be a mere €2.95

How long is the promotion running for?

From October 1st 2009 until December 31st 2009 we are slashing the price on .eu domain registration.

Is there a discount on .eu domain transfers?

No

Can I register a .eu for more than one year?

No. The .eu registry only allows 1 year domain registration

Does the discount promotion apply to renewals?

No. The discount promotion is for new registrations only

So the cost for a one year .eu registration will be only €2.95 ex-VAT.

Blacknight is Ireland's largest Eurid registrar and offers more domain extensions than any other Irish company.

***Ok - this may not all be true, but the bit about the promotion is

Europäischer Hosting-Gigant startet Massenvertrieb der .mobi- und .im- Domains

By Michele Neylon on September 28, 2009 11:32 AM

Machen Sie bei der mobilen Revolution mit und erwerben Sie einen .mobi-Domain-Namen oder bündeln Sie Ihre soziale Kommunikation im Netz auf einer .im-Domain.

Carlow, Irland, 23. September 2009 - Blacknight Solutions, Irlands bestbewerteter und am schnellsten wachsender Domain-Registrar und Hosting Provider, hat den weltweiten Verkauf der .mobi- und .im-Domains gestartet. Bei noch nie da gewesenen Niedrig-Preisen können Geschäftsleute und Privatpersonen gleichermaßen im mobilen Web präsent sein.

Zeitlich begrenzt können die Kunden eine .mobi-Domain für nur € 6,75 registrieren. Das ist der derzeit niedrigste Preis im Web. Sie können auch die redhot.im-Domain für nur € 4,95 registrieren, auch das ist ein toller Preis, wenn man dies mit den normalerweise üblichen Preisen von bis zu € 45 vergleicht.

Die .mobi-Domains sind bestens für Unternehmen geeignet, die auch in der mobilen Welt, dem Sektor im Web, der bei Weitem am schnellsten wächst, präsent sein wollen. Die .mobi-Domain bringt mobiles Internet auf iPhones, Blackberry's, Google Android phones und viele weitere. Mit einer .mobi-Endung können Sie ganz leicht Ihre mobile Website von Ihren sonstigen Webaktivitäten trennen.

„Wir sehen bei unseren Kunden eine ganze Menge von innovativen Einsatzmöglichkeiten für die .mobi-Domain", sagte Michele Neylon, Gründer und Managing Director von Blacknight. „Von Websites mit mobilen Themen bis hin zu kompletten Web 2.0 Unternehmen, wir waren beeindruckt von dem, was die Leute mit den .mobi-Domains gemacht haben."

Neben dem hervorragenden Absatz, den Blacknight mit .mobi hat, bietet das Unternehmen auch spezielle Konditionen bei den .im-Domains an. Diese sind besonders für das Erstellen von Online-Business-Cards oder für die Einrichtung einer zentralen Anlaufstelle, von der aus Sie leichten Zugang zu all Ihren sozialen Online-Aktivitäten haben, geeignet.

„Viele Leute benutzen .im-Domains, um ihre verschiednen sozialen Profile im Netz zu bündeln. Anstatt allen Leuten zu sagen, dass sie Sie in Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messenger usw. treffen können", so Herr Neylon, „brauchen Sie ihnen nur Ihre .im-Adresse zu geben und alle Ihre Online-Aktivitäten sind verlinkt.

Blacknight avanciert sehr schnell zu einem der weltweit führenden Webhoster und Domainregistrar und weist eine steigende Geschäftsaktivität im europäischen Markt auf. Dem Unternehmen wurde vor kurzem die ICANN-Zulassung zugesprochen, wodurch es in andere Domain-Namen-Bereiche expandieren konnte.

„Wir haben uns immer darauf konzentriert, besten Kundenservice zu einem erschwinglichen Preis anzubieten", sagte Herr Neylon. „Wenn Sie ein Problem haben, können Sie uns leicht erreichen und wir freuen uns darauf, Ihnen zu helfen. Wir haben in einen tollen Kundenservice investiert, denn am Ende ist es das, was zählt.

.mobi-Preise in anderen Währungen (Wechselkurse vom 20. September 2009):

€ 6,75 / $ 9,91 USD / £ 6,11

.im-Preise in anderen Währungen (Wechselkurse vom 20. September 2009):

€ 4,95 / $ 7,27 USD /£ 4,48

Über Blacknight

Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd (Blacknight) wurde 2003 gegründet und ist zu100 % in irischem Besitz. Das Unternehmen hat sich darauf spezialisiert, Hosting und Colocation-Bedürfnisse im internationalen großen und kleinen Business zu bedienen.

Blacknight positioniert sich als führender Domainregistrar am europäischen Markt und hat im vergangenen Jahr die ICANN-Zulassung erhalten, was es dem Unternehmen erlaubt, bedeutende Preisersparnisse an seine Kunden weiterzugeben.

Die Server von Blacknight befinden sich in zwei der führenden Rechenzentren in Dublin, Irland. Das Unternehmen wächst mit zehntausenden auf den Servern gehosteten Domains sehr schnell. Es liefert einen zuverlässigen Service und bietet zudem Supportleistungen, die von keinem anderen Provider in der Industrie angeboten werden.

Gigante europeo dell' Hosting lancia una strepitosa offerta sui domini .mobi e .im

By Michele Neylon on September 28, 2009 10:18 AM

Unisciti alla rivoluzione mobile e acquista un dominio .mobi o centralizza le tue attività social media con un dominio .im.

Carlow, Irlanda - 23 Settembre 2009 - Blacknight Solutions, il registrar e hosting provider più quotato e in maggior espansione in Irlanda, ha lanciato un'offerta a livello mondiale sui domini .mobi e .im.

Aziende e privati possono ora farsi un nome anche sul mobile web a prezzi senza precedenti.
Per un tempo limitato infatti i clienti possono registrare un dominio .mobi per soli €6,75, attualmente il miglior prezzo sul web.

Inoltre é possibile registrare anche il gettonatissimo dominio .im per soli €4,95, un risparmio enorme se comparato con i prezzi correnti che si aggirano sui €45.

I domini .mobi sono particolarmente indicati per aziende che vogliono espandere la loro presenza al mondo mobile - di gran lunga il settore a maggior crescita della rete. Il dominio .mobi vi permette di rivolgervi all'universo degli iPhone, dei Blackberry, dei telefoni Google Android e di molti altri. Con un'estensione .mobi potete facilmente mantenere il vostro sito web mobile separato dalle vostre principali operazioni in rete.

"Stiamo assistendo a un gran numero di innovativi utilizzi del dominio .mobi da parte dei nostri clienti," dice Michele Neylon, fondatore e Amministratore Delegato di Blacknight. "Da siti web di tematica mobile a intere società Web 2.0, siamo rimasti impressionati da ciò che la gente è stata in grado di fare con dei domini .mobi."

Oltre all'offerta lanciata sui .mobi, Blacknight sta anche proponendo un'offerta speciale sui domini .im, particolarmente indicati per creare un biglietto da visita online o per creare uno spazio di facile accesso a tutti i vostri profili social media online.

"Molte persone stanno utilizzando i domini .im per aggregare tutti i loro profili social media. Cosí invece di dire a tutti quelli che incontri di trovarti su Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messenger, ecc.."
spiegava Mr Neylon. "L'unica cosa da fare è dar loro il tuo indirizzo .im che sarà collegato con tutte le tue attività online."

Blacknight sta rapidamente diventando uno dei leader tra i webhosts e tra i domain registrars a livello mondiale, con una crescente attività sul mercato europeo. Recentemente è l´acquisizione dell´accreditamento con ICANN ha permesso loro di espandersi anche ad altri nomi dominio.

"Il nostro obiettivo è sempre stato quello di offrire il miglior servizio ad un prezzo accessibile," spiega il Sig. Neylon. "In caso di problemi é facile contattarci, e per noi sarà un piacere aiutarvi. Abbiamo fatto un grande investimento in un´assistenza al cliente di alto livello, perché in fondo è quello che realmente fa la differenza."

Prezzi di vendita .mobi in altre valute (basate sul tasso di cambio del 20 Settembre 2009):

€6,75/$9.91 USD/£6,11

Prezzi di vendita .im in altre valute (basate sul tasso di cambio del 20 Settembre 2009):

€4,95/$7,27 USD/£4,48

Alcuni dati su Blacknight

Fondata nel 2003, Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd (Blacknight) è una società a capitale 100% irlandese specializzata nel dare una risposta alle più svariate necessità di hosting e di co- location di aziende in ogni parte del mondo.

Blacknight sta rapidamente posizionandosi come leader sul Mercato Europeo tra i registrars di domini e l'anno scorso ha completato l´accreditamento ICANN, grazie al quale é stato possibile passare risparmi notevoli ai clienti sulle estensioni a dominio piú popolari.

I server Blacknight sono localizzati a Dublino presso due dei principali data centers dell'Irlanda. Blacknight sta crescendo con passi da gigante con decine di migliaia di domini ospitati sui propri server.
Blacknight Offre un servizio affidabile affiancato da un'assistenza unica tra i provider del settore.

Supporting New TLDs

By Michele Neylon on September 25, 2009 10:46 AM

It's probably pretty obvious from previous posts here that we have an interest in the new TLD process. (ICANN's plan to open up the domain market more by allowing organisations to run new domain extensions)

Earlier this week ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, was sent a letter signed by a wide variety of companies, including us, urging ICANN to move forward with the new TLD process NOW.

Why?

Put simply, there's no valid reason to delay, however there are plenty of valid reasons why further delays are a bad thing.

You can read the letter in its entirety here (PDF). There's more coverage here.

Gegant Europeu d'Hostatge llança una gran campanya de venda dels noms de domini .mobi i .im

By Michele Neylon on September 24, 2009 11:39 PM

Image representing Blacknight as depicted in C...

Image via CrunchBase

Uniu-vos a la revolució mòbil tot adquirint un nom de domini .mobi o centralitzeu les vostres activitats en xarxes socials amb un domini .im.

Carlow, Irlanda - 23 de setembre de 2009 - Blacknight Solutions, el proveïdor d'hostatge i registre de dominis més ben valorat i de més ràpid creixement a Irlanda, ha llançat una campanya de venda a nivell mundial dels noms de domini .mobi i .im. Gràcies als seus preus inigualables, les empreses i els particulars podran deixar la seva empremta a la xarxa mòbil.

Durant un període limitat de temps, els clients podran registrar un domini .mobi per només €6,75 - el preu més baix que es pot trobar avui a la xarxa. També podran registrar el nom de domini .im nou de trinca per només €4,95 - la qual cosa suposa un gran estalvi si ho comparem amb els preus actuals, que estan prop dels €45.

Els dominis .mobi són ideals per a empreses que vulguin ampliar la seva presencia al món mòbil - de llarg el sector de més ràpid creixement a la xarxa. El domini .mobi us permetrà de concentrar els telèfons d'iPhone, Blackberry i Google Android i molt més. Amb una extensió .mobi, fàcilment podreu mantenir la vostra web mòbil separada de les vostres operacions principals a la xarxa.

"Estem veient molts usos innovadors del domini .mobi entre els nostres clients," va dir Michele Neylon, fundador i Director General de Blacknight. "Des de pagines web dedicades a la xarxa mòbil fins companyies totalment web 2.0, ens ha sorprès el que la gent ha estat capaç de fer amb els dominis .mobi."

A més a més de la gran campanya de venda de .mobi, Blacknight també està duent a terme una campanya especial de venda de dominis .im, que són ideals per crear una targeta de visita virtual o per crear un espai per tenir fàcil accés a tots els vostres perfils en xarxes socials virtuals.

"Molta gent està utilitzant dominis .im per centralitzar tots els seus perfils en xarxes socials de manera que, en lloc de dir a tots els coneguts que us visitin a Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messenger, etc." va dir el Sr. Neylon "L'únic que heu de fer és donar-los la vostra adreça .im i allà hi trobaran enllaços a totes les vostres activitats virtuals."

Blacknight s'està convertint ràpidament en una de les empreses líder en allotjament de pagines web i de registre de dominis -en expansió al mercat europeu. Se'ls va concedir recentment l'homologació ICANN, que els ha permès d'expandir-se en altres espais de noms de dominis.

"El nostre objectiu sempre ha estat proporcionar el millor servei d'atenció al client a un preu assequible," va dir el Sr. Neylon. "Si teniu algun problema, sempre us podeu posar en contacte amb nosaltres, que estarem encantats d'ajudar-vos. Hem invertit en un gran servei d'atenció al client - perquè, al cap i a la fi, això és el que importa."

El preu de venda de .mobi en altres divises (segons els tipus de canvi del dia 20 de setembre de 2009):

€6,75/$9,91 USD/£6,11

El preu de venda en altres divises (segons els tipus de canvi del dia 20 de setembre de 2009):

€4,95/$7,27 USD/£4,48

Sobre Blacknight

Fundada l'any 2003, Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd (Blacknight) és una empresa 100% irlandesa especialitzada en atendre les necessitats d'allotjament i d'establiment conjunt de les empreses, grans i petites, a nivell mundial.

Blacknight s'està convertint en l'empresa líder en registre de dominis al mercat europeu, i va obtenir l'homologació ICANN l'any passat, la qual cosa els permet d'oferir al seus clients un significatiu estalvi de preu.

Els servidors de Blacknight es troben a Dublín, a dos dels principals centres de dades d'Irlanda. Està creixent a pas de gegant amb desenes de milers de dominis allotjats als seus servidors. Proporcionen un servei de confiança recolzat per un servei d'atenció incomparable en qualsevol altre proveïdor del sector.

Informació de contacte per a la premsa:
marketing@blacknight.com
Michele Neylon
Director General
Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd
Unit 12A
Barrowside Business Park
Sleaty Road
Graiguecullen
Carlow
Irlanda

Int.: +353 (0)59 9183072
Regne Unit: +44 (0)844 484 9361
EUA: +1 213-233-1612

An Overview of IE Domain Registration

By Michele Neylon on September 21, 2009 2:30 PM

Since we get asked about this so much I thought it would be worth our while doing a short overview

So here it is:

If you have any questions about IE registrations that aren't covered let us know so I cover them in a future screencast.

A Busy Few Weeks

By Michele Neylon on September 19, 2009 8:48 PM | 2 Comments

Over the last few weeks we've been working hard on launching a bunch of domain extensions on our own accreditation.

While the main focus of our attention has been on getting the more popular domain extensions up and running (ie. com / net / org / info / biz / mobi etc.,) we've also ended up getting accredited for quite a few other cctlds in the process.

So far this year we've launched:

mobi
info
org
tel
cm (Cameroon)
me (Montenegro)
fm
im (Isle of Man)
be (Belgium)
gg (Guernsey)
je (Jersey)
co.nl (alternate to .nl, which is for Netherlands)

We've also got accredited in quite a few other cctlds, but we haven't gone "live" with them as yet and we also have a few others in the "pipeline".

Why are we doing this?

Simply put by running our own accreditation we can control the situation more and also pass on greater savings to our clients.

If there's an issue with a domain where we are directly accredited it's a lot easier for us to resolve it in a timely manner, whereas when we rely on someone else it can take time and cost more.

When I registered my first domain name about 10 years ago the average cost of a .com domain was about $35. Registering a .ie domain name wasn't really an option unless you were a company.

Nowadays the market has matured considerably. The retail market, which we cater for primarily, treats domains as commodities, so price is an important deciding factor. Registering a .com domain is no longer the cost of dinner, but maybe the cost of a cup of coffee and a croissant. I'd love to think that people choose registrars based on factors other than price, but that would be to deny reality. People are always going to be attracted by lower prices - service and other factors don't come into play for most of them.

With that in mind we've been doing our best to keep our prices as low as possible, while also retaining a reasonable margin.

In the coming weeks we hope to "go live" with .com and .net on our own accreditation, while we're also working on integrating several cctlds that we aren't currently offering.

So if there's a domain extension that you think we should be offering please let us know. We won't guarantee that we'll offer it, as many of the domain extensions either lack in automation or have quite restrictive rules. However we will look at each and every suggestion.

Keep an eye out for more special offers on domain name registrations - we're working hard to get as many deals as we can!

DotCM Now Live

By Michele Neylon on September 18, 2009 12:46 PM

As the only Irish company accredited for .cm (Cameroon) I'm delighted to announce that we are now offering .cm registrations.

If you may recall there were a few delays in the launch of dotcm (.cm - Cameroon), with the actual launch date only being announced a mere 48 hours ago.

DotCM (.cm) opened for general domain name registration this morning and we are happy to offer registrations via our site now.

Our current price is €80 ex-VAT for a one year registration.

So you can register your .cm domain name now!

As for pre-ordered domains - sunrise applications and other pre-launch registrations are now live.

Dotmobi Price Slash

By Michele Neylon on September 15, 2009 2:14 PM | 4 TrackBacks

I could wax lyrically about how .mobi was a really cool concept.

I could talk to you about their fantastic resource site, where you can get all sorts of really interesting and useful information on developing useful content and applications for the mobile web.

Or I could talk to you about nice and useful mobile websites that use the .mobi suffix.

Would you like me to do that?

Or would you prefer if I "cut to the chase"?

You probably want the "meat".

So, let's cut to the chase then ...

Starting today and for a limited time only we are slashing the price on .mobi domain names.

Registrations and transfers will be a mere €6.75 / year (ex-VAT).

I'm not sure if that's the cheapest price you'll find for a mobi domain name on the planet or not, but I know it must be one of the lowest prices you'll find anywhere.

If you find a lower price let me know - I won't offer to match it, but I'd love to see it!

If you've already got a .mobi with a competing registrar, then why not switch to us?

So get searching for available .mobi domains now!

Blacknight are the ONLY Irish company accredited for .mobi.

Got a question? Let us know either in the comments here, on Facebook or even on Twitter

DotOrg Now Live

By Michele Neylon on September 15, 2009 10:18 AM

Late yesterday afternoon we "put live" our .org accreditation.

DotOrg, which is run by Public Interest Registry, is quite a different concept to the more popular .com.

While .org can be registered by anyone and used for just about anything, the extension has always had a strong focus on non-commercial users eg. NGOs, foundations, research projects, open source advocacy etc., etc.

Sites using .org include:

Google.org
Apache Software Foundation
Greenpeace
Grassroots.org

You can get more information over on the PIR site.

On a personal note, I am delighted that we are now working with them directly, as their staff are always so incredibly helpful and open. You can follow them on Twitter too.

Putting The Accent Back Into Domains - IDNs In EU

By Michele Neylon on September 11, 2009 9:32 AM | 2 Comments

I've mentioned IDNs (Internationalised Domain Names) a few times in the past and they were one of the topics on the agenda in Slovenia earlier this week as well.

Eurid, the registry operator for .eu, has now announced that it will be launching support for IDNs on 10 December 2009.

What does that mean?

Simply put if you want to register a domain name with special characters or accents it will now be possible.

Which characters are going to be supported?

Extensions to Latin script, Cyrillic and Greek. You can find a full list here.

Can you give an example?

At the moment you cannot register a domain using any accented characters. After the introduction of IDN you would be able to register domains with characters like:

é
í
ñ
á
So you could register mícheál.eu or coruña.eu

Will Blacknight be offering IDN registrations?

We're hoping to, but we need to be 100% sure that our various systems are able to support them properly. We'll clarify our position on this as soon as we can.

Apart from anything else we'd be very interested in knowing if people want these kind of domains, so do let us know.

Learning About CIS, Central and Eastern European Domains

By Michele Neylon on September 8, 2009 4:09 PM | 1 TrackBack

For the last couple of days I've been in the lovely town of Bled, Slovenia, for the 2nd International Conference for ccTLD Registries and Registrars of CIS, Central and Eastern Europe which was organised by the .ru (Russia) registry.

The conference agenda covered a wide variety of topics and was very interesting. While some of the topics were about policy matters, others covered governance, security, marketing and the aftermarket.

Cctld registry operators ie. the organisations that manage country code domains, have very different ways of working. NASK, which runs .pl, for example, have embraced alternate business models and aren't afraid of domainers or the aftermarket, which makes a change.

While some domain extensions are completely "open", others have a variety of restrictions, so the presentations yesterday on how some countries are running their domain spaces was very revealing. Being able to actually speak directly to the people who run registry in person is a lot easier and productive than playing "email ping pong"!

It was also interesting to see how some of them, such as Latvia (.lv) view their role. The Latvian ccTLD operator, for example, has completely revamped their modus operandi in the last couple of years and is now looking at using social media etc., to reach out to its users.

From our perspective it was an excellent opportunity to meetup with some of the registry operators we already work with, such as .me (Montenegro), .eu (Eurid) and .mobi (Mtld) while being able to meet new potential partners is always a good thing.

As an English speaker it is all too easy to forget that for many people the Latin character set is completely foreign to them. Countries such as Bulgaria (.bg) are introducing internationalised domain names (IDNs), but they still have the awkward issue of switching from using Cyrillic characters to the Latin set to type in web addresses. So one of the hotter topics for delegates was the introduction of full IDN ccTLDs.

Thanks must go out to the .ru team who not only organised the entire event, but also treated us all like royalty since we got here.

Francesco from dotMobi has also posted an overview of the conference here.

DotTel (.tel) Now Live

By Michele Neylon on September 3, 2009 2:02 PM | 2 Comments

If I hadn't warned people in advance I might feel mildly guilty about all these domain related announcements ..

If you're a regular reader you may have noticed that I have a small passion for the .tel namespace. I think the concept behind .tel is very cool and if there is enough "buy in" it could prove to be very revolutionary indeed. Of course it's not without its funny side!

As of yesterday evening we are now processing all new .tel domain registrations via our own ICANN accreditation. This means that you are dealing with us from start to finish.

Any new .tel domains will be managed via telhosting.blacknight.com and you'll get login details within a few minutes of registering the domain. We've also setup the system to automatically populate the domain with some basic NAPTR records so that it goes "llive" as quickly as possible.

Once your domain is registered and you have your telhosting login you can create your content and decide which contact details you want to share with whom.

If you're an iPhone user there are two apps you can get for .tel:

my.tel - which allows you to manage your .tel easily from your mobile
Superbook - which polls your iphone's address book for any .tel entries and then brings up the full contents (very cool!)

For Blackberry there's an app that integrates tightly with the address book, while Microsoft Outlook users can try this plugin.

Already have a .tel domain? You can easily integrate it with your existing website if you follow the instructions over here.

And if you think your .tel is really cool, useful or interesting, why not tell Telnic? They feature the best of .tel on their site.

So get registering .tel domains! You know you want to!

Want a Domain? Why Not Get A .IM?

By Michele Neylon on September 1, 2009 10:30 AM

Image via Wikipedia

We said we'd organised a few special offers, so here's our next one...

From today, September 1st 2009 until the end of October 2009, we'll be offering a very deep discount on .im domain registration.

Want to register a .im domain?

The cost will be a mere €4.95 ex-vat for a one year registration (reduced from €45!) - discount applies during checkout.

The fine print:

Offer price applies to new registrations only.
Offer DOES NOT apply to:

transfers
renewals
one or two character .im domains (premium)

The Isle of Man's cctld (.im) has been made quite popular by a variety of online services including the (in)famous URL shortener tr.im and popular software like Pidgin and Adium, that all use .im domain names

For many people the two letters "I" and "M" have come to signify "instant message"

You can also think of them as being "I'm" without the apostrophe ..

Let your imagination go !

Register a .im today!

DotInfo Now Live On Blacknight

By Michele Neylon on August 27, 2009 2:34 PM

I did warn people that we'd have several announcements like this this week, so I'm not going to apologise!

Blacknight are now fully accredited with Afilias for .info.

In common with the other domain extensions we launched this week, all new registrations will be processed under Blacknight's ICANN accreditation. We will be enabling transfers in over the next few days (expect an update on that).

So what is .info?

The info tld is currently the 4th largest, with over 5 million domains registered worldwide!

What do people use .info for?

Pretty much anything and everything. The idea behind "info" was to use it for sharing "information", while other namespaces focussed on other things. Of course it's a completely open domain extension, so the only real limit is your imagination.

If you're a Twitter user, for example, you might find this .info site of help, as it explains the entire "fail whale" concept.

You can browse hundreds of cool .info based sites over on the dotinfo directory.

So if you want your own .info domain, then why not head over and get one now?

CM Launch Delayed

By Michele Neylon on August 27, 2009 9:55 AM

The .cm launch was meant to be happening today. It's not and instead I'm writing to say that it's been delayed.

When will it launch?

We honestly don't know.

COCCA, who run the backend registry services for .cm, have serious concerns about the technical stability of the .cm (Cameroon) nameservers, which is why they delayed the launch:

"The Go Live of .CM set for 27th August 2009 ( 00:00:01 UTC ) has been postponed by CoCCA.

The servers under the control of Camtel require further testing. Pulling the .cm Zones from the CoCCA Registry and loading them onto the .CM TLD servers is still not reliable enough at this point for CoCCA to approve the use of our system for processing second level .CM applications.

CoCCA provides the Register System but does not provide DNS services. The administrators of the various ccTLDs that we host on our platform generally use Anycast technology and reliable third party DNS providers with whom with we have a close working relationship. This include UltraDNS, DynTLD and PCH - all of which have proven and reliable DNS networks.

The .CM DNS is managed by Camtel, - Cameroon's Telecom company ( not Netcom.cm SARL or CoCCA ). CoCCA has been working with Netcom.cm SARL who has in turn been working with the regulator in Cameroon to improve the reliability of the .CM DNS. These efforts are not sufficiently advanced for COCCA to be comfortable in assisting in bringing this product to the market for "Live" registrations.

We support the approach taken by Netcom.CM to go through a Sunrise and Landrush applications phase; and to discontinue the wildcard - therefore bringing a best-practice approach to the administration of the .CM ccTLD.

As a CoCCA registrar, you have a trusted relationship with us as your registry provider. We need to ensure that offerings made using our systems and technology are reliable enough for you to be confident when you extend those offerings to your valued clients. Unfortunately this is not the case at this time. We hope the situation will change in the next few days"

As soon as we know more we'll let you know.

Further information on the COCCA site

Dotmobi Now Live

By Michele Neylon on August 26, 2009 4:03 PM

Yesterday I talked about .me, so today it's .mobi.

We've talked about dotmobi (.mobi) quite a bit over the last couple of years.

Personally I've always found the concept of the mobile domain space to be pretty cool and as I moved from using "standard" phones to using "smart" ones I've been using the "mobile web" more and more. Over the last year I've gone from just getting information on my mobile through to actually buying goods and services directly from it.

So I am delighted to announce that we are now fully accredited for .mobi.

What's more, we're the first Irish company to have dotMobi ICANN accreditation. DotMobi are based in Dublin, so it's nice to be able to pick up the phone during office hours and speak directly to their ever helpful staff.

At present we are processing all new registration requests via our own accreditation, but we haven't enabled transfers in as yet. (We're hoping to get that up and running in the next few days)

If you're new to the entire concept of the "mobile web" then you might want to check out some of the very cool resources and tools that dotMobi have made available.

Wordpress users, for example, can get up and running very quickly with the dotMobi Wordpress mobile pack, which enables you to easily offer up both a desktop and a mobile version of a Wordpress site on your .mobi domain.

We're also going to be revamping our own mobile site so that it's a bit more useful, though I can't honestly say when that is likely to happen! (If you saw our todo list you'd understand!)

Blacknight Now Accredited For .me

By Michele Neylon on August 25, 2009 5:37 PM

We're delighted to announce that our .me accreditation is now "live". We had been offering .me domains via one of our partners up until earlier this afternoon.

DotMe (.me) is the country code domain for Montenegro. Of course, if your native language is English, "me" also spells the most important word in the English language - "me".

I'd been feeling a bit guilty about .me for quite some time, as I was at their launch reception in Paris over a year ago!

All new .me domain names registered via our website will be handled by our own .me accreditation ie. we won't be relying on any 3rd parties ...

What does that mean for you?

In practical terms - not a huge lot.

However it means that we will be able to pass on any savings we get from the registry.

It also means that we have a greater level of control over aspects of the domain name and don't have to rely on a 3rd party, which is important to us.

Just a word of warning - expect more of these announcements over the next few days, as we roll out several domain extensions onto our own registrar backend!

IE Domain Super Sale - Register or Transfer a .ie Domain For A Fiver!

By Michele Neylon on August 23, 2009 3:03 PM | 27 Comments | 1 TrackBack

UPDATE:

Since people are either misreading this post or misunderstanding the offer details we have decided to simplify it.

Please read this article in its entirety, as it answers most of the questions we have been asked.

Are you paying silly money for IE domains?

Would you like to save a load of cash?

We can guess the answer to both questions ....

So here's what we're doing.

When?

Starting tomorrow, August 24th 2009, and running until August 29th 2009, we are going to slash the price of IE domains.

What?

Instead of paying our normal rate or even 50% of it you'll pay only 5 euro ex-VAT to register OR transfer a .ie domain. (That's close to 80% off our normal price!) - Please read on for the terms and conditions of this offer.

How much will a .ie cost?

5 euro ex-vat for a one year registration - just in case it wasn't clear!

How do I get the special price?

Just order a .ie registration or transfer.

The discount will be applied in the shopping cart just before you checkout ie. when we're about to take the money from you the final total will be displayed

See screenshot below (click to enlarge) :

Are there any special coupons or discount codes?

No. It's all automatic.

Now there are certain limits.

The special price is limited to one order per customer and you can only register one .ie domain for a one year at this special price.

How many domains can I get a this special rate?

One

But I want to order a domain for someone else?

Fine, however only one domain will be discounted

Can I transfer a .ie from another provider?

Yes. You can transfer a .ie domain from any other provider and get this special rate.

I want to transfer a lot of IE domains from another provider to you. Can you help us?

The special rate is only applicable to one domain order. If you want to move a large number of IE domains from one of our competitors please contact our sales team who can give you a discount rate on IE domains.

Do I need to buy hosting from you?

No, you don't. We'd love it if you did, but you're under no obligation to.

Can I host this domain with ... ?

You can host the domain wherever you like, however ALL IE domains need to have dns records setup before they will function.

What's included in the price?

The IE domain registration (or transfer) and DNS services.

Unlike some companies we don't charge anything extra for DNS services for domains you are paying us for.

Can anyone register a .ie domain name?

No. The IE domain space is governed by specific rules. If you do not qualify you won't be able to register the domain. Please read over our guide here.

What kind of documents will I need to provide?

That will depend on what and how you are applying for it. Our system will send you out emails with detailed instructions based on your order.

Generally speaking you will need to provide proof of identity, business documents and possibly a signed covering letter explaining why you want to register the domain name in question. Saying that you "like it" is not enough - sorry!

How long do I have to supply the documents?

Please provide them as quickly as possible. A pending registration request will only be valid for 28 days maximum.

What happens if I don't supply the documents in time?

The registration request may lapse and someone else may order the domain.

Why do I need to provide documents?

The IE Domain Registry have very strict rules. We do not invent the rules, we merely act as a conduit.

I don't want to provide the documents, surely an email is enough?

No it isn't. If you want to register the domain name you will need to provide the documentation as requested. No exceptions.

Can I register my own name?

If you are a resident in Ireland and can prove your residence you can register your name. See the PDN site for details. NB: The rules are explicit and do not allow for any extra variations

I don't live in Ireland, can I still apply for an IE domain?

Please read the registration guide. If you are a business then you may qualify. If you are a private individual it's highly unlikely that you will.

I don't know what name to register, can you help?

Why don't you have a look at the deleted domain list. You may find some inspiration there.

How much will it cost to renew domains registered (or transferred) during this offer?

Our normal rates at the time of renewal will apply.

Can existing customers renew their domain at this price?

No. This special only applies to new registrations OR transfers from other providers.

So what is the catch?

There is no catch.

How can Blacknight offer IE domains at such a low price?

Short answer - economies of scale. We have invested heavily in automating the order process as much as possible.

All dates and times are based on Dublin, Ireland.

This special offer deal will not be extended, so if you leave your order until 5 minutes before it closes you may be disappointed, as we will not extend it even a minute beyond the deadline.

UPDATE: Added a screenshot

Continue reading IE Domain Super Sale - Register or Transfer a .ie Domain For A Fiver!.

IMPORTANT: Share Your Opinion On Domain Expiry

By Michele Neylon on August 21, 2009 10:11 AM | 3 Comments

Domains do not "live" forever.

If you do not renew them they expire, which means that you can no longer use them and someone else may use them.

A working group within ICANN, which is the organisation that "looks after" domains, such as .com, .net and .mobi, is currently looking into whether the current way domain expiry is handled is "ok".

NB: ICANN can only make policy regarding the extensions it controls ie. com/net/org/info/biz/mobi/tel/pro/travel/museum/coop/aero/name. ICANN has nothing to do with .eu, .co.uk or .ie.

Basically the group, of which I am but one of the members, has been tasked with getting answers to a few particular questions:

Whether adequate opportunity exists for registrants to redeem their expired domain names;
Whether expiration-related provisions in typical registration agreements are clear and conspicuous enough;
Whether adequate notice exists to alert registrants of upcoming expirations;
Whether additional measures need to be implemented to indicate that once a domain name enters the Auto-Renew Grace Period, it has expired (e.g., hold status, a notice on the site with a link to information on how to renew, or other options to be determined);
Whether to allow the transfer of a domain name during the Redemption Grace Period (RGP).

If you have an opinion please please please share it with the working group, as without the public's participation we have no way of knowing what people actually think, nor do we have any way of knowing about their experiences.

How can you share your opinion?

Email: pednr-wg-questions@icann.org - you'll get an automated email within a couple of minutes asking you to confirm your submission, so please make sure that you confirm.

Where can I find out more?

There's more information about the comment period on the ICANN site

Maintaining Sanity

By Michele Neylon on July 31, 2009 1:55 PM | 1 Comment

Since we launched the new control panel last year we've been working behind the scenes on several things that needed to be done in order to move domains and other things from one system to the other. It's a work in progress - but we are getting there !

As you may know, we are the largest Eurid accredited registrar in Ireland, but we weren't always accredited.

We used to rely on the services of some of our partner companies in order to offer domain registration services for certain TLDs and ccTLDs (we still do).

In order to bring some level of sanity to our .eu portfolio our sales team will be working with registrants to move their .eu domains to our accreditation.

If this impacts you you will get an email from one of our staff in the next few days.

Once we've moved the domains under our "roof" we'll be able to move them into the new control panel system, which offers a lot more features to registrants (check out some of the screencasts).

We'll probably have to conduct a similar exercise with some of the other TLDs in the coming months, but we'll do our best to keep you all in the loop, so that you don't confuse our emails with phishing attacks!

Don't Miss Out - Pre-order Your .cm Today

By Michele Neylon on July 17, 2009 10:57 AM | 2 Comments

It's always pretty exciting when a new domain space opens up ..

Over the next few weeks a lot of people will be focussing their energies on .cm - Cameroon.

Up until now it was only possible to register com.cm, co.cm and net.cm

The launch of .cm at the top level opens up some really interesting possibilities which people may wish to explore.

If you're interested you can pre-order .cm domains for landrush via NameJet

If nobody else is interested in the domain then you'll just pay the registration fees.

If there is competition for the name then there will be an auction

The small print:

CM orders for Landrush are taken up until July 31st 2009.

Order processing will begin August 1 and are expected to be complete within 30 - 45 days.

Successfully registered domains may then be transferred to any other .CM accredited registrar free of charge (after 60 days from the date of registration)

CM domains successfully awarded to you through the auction will be charged $350 for a minimum 2-year registration (unless they go into auction)

Get Your .be Domain - Prices Slashed

By Michele Neylon on July 10, 2009 9:26 AM | 5 Comments | 1 TrackBack

We know you like offers, so we've been working on putting a few together to keep you all happy.

Our latest offer is for .be (Belgium) domain name registration.

For a limited time only we've slashed the price on new registrations to EUR4.99 (ex-VAT if applicable)!

What can you do with a .be?

It's really up to you, but you could use it for expanding your business presence into another EU country ....

OR

you could play around with the "be" element

One of our clients has put together this rather simple site that plays with the word

You might find this site which list all words in English ending in "be" helpful as well...

If you do something cool with a .be domain do let us know

UPDATE: Since there seems to be a bit of confusion about this. The discount will appear once you add the domain to your shopping cart NOT before

UPDATE 2: We've extended this through August

ICANN New TLD "Roadshow"

By Michele Neylon on July 9, 2009 10:14 AM

Image via Wikipedia

ICANN have organised a number of public consultation meetings over the coming weeks to discuss the new TLD program.

If you're based in Europe the obvious one to attend is that being held on July 15th in the Royal Institute of British Architects. The day's schedule has now been made available (pdf)

Anyone who has an interest in the domain / internet industry's future should try to attend one of these events, as it's the only opportunity many people will get to let their voices be heard about the upcoming changes

Full details on their site

New Contract Signed With ICANN

By Michele Neylon on July 7, 2009 10:13 AM

Although we only became ICANN accredited a few short months ago we found ourselves signing up to the new contract with ICANN during the meeting in Sydney.

The new contract (RAA) is the first major revision of the contract since it first came into being a decade ago.

The new contract gives domain holders greater protection and certainty when they register domain names.

In the picture above Dr Paul Twomey (centre) surrounded by a group of ICANN registrars including ourselves (I'm the one wearing the Blacknight tshirt obviously!).

ICANN 35 Sees More New Domain Extension Announcements

By Michele Neylon on June 25, 2009 7:38 AM | 1 TrackBack

Over the course of this week's ICANN meeting in Sydney, Australia, new TLDs (top level domains ie. the bit after the ".") have been "the" topic.

The other evening I was lucky enough to be invited to the official launch of dotfood, which is being promoted by Wolfgang Puck and backed by Minds and Machines (Disclosure: I'm good friends with several of them).

The dotfood is pretty obvious, while other tld projects may need a little more explanation.

So what are we likely to see happen in the next 12 months?

The city TLD projects are not without their little controversies (there being at least two projects for .nyc for example), but by in large they are not as contentious as some of the more commercially motivated ones. They're pushing a "step by step" solution for the new TLDs - more on that later (hopefully!).

The intellectual property lobbyists have been voicing their concerns for months, but even their employers (and clients) have interests in pushing forward with the launch of the new domains.

As an ICANN accredited registrar we hope to be able to work closely with many of the new domain extension operators when they are approved by the ICANN community. The main concern now, obviously, is seeing how much longer this will take.

New TLDs For Dummies (Sort of)

By Michele Neylon on June 11, 2009 1:16 PM

There's been a lot of media attention on the new TLD process in the last few days, which is a good thing. Unfortunately most of it is badly written, misleading or simply misinformed.

Let's look at the reality.

To start with, there are currently 20 gTLDs ie. "global" top level domains (extensions). (21 if you include arpa) These are:

com
net
org
info
biz
mobi
name
museum
pro
cat
aero
asia
coop
jobs
tel
travel
edu
gov
mil
int

There are a further 248 ccTLDs (country codes, such as "ie", "im" etc) - I won't list them here!

During the ICANN meeting in Paris the new TLD process was officially started (based on community feedback ie. it didn't come out of nowhere).

What that means in plain English is that ICANN said "let's do this", but they didn't say "how", "when" or "how much".

In reality what has happened so far is that there has been a LOT of discussion and debate and disagreement. There will be more to come in the coming weeks and months as the process moves forward.

First off ...

Can anyone get a TLD?

No.
In order to get a TLD you would need to meet criteria on multiple levels, both financial and technical.
A lot of the media coverage seems to suggest that just about anyone who wants to can run their own domain extension - the reality is that they can't.

How much will it cost?

The application fee is currently set at $185k, however you would really need to have a couple of million in the coffers if you wanted to actually launch a TLD. (As was pointed out to me the costs would be lower for a non-commercial TLD)
The application fee does not cover any legal costs, backend costs, marketing, staff, PR etc., Depending on the TLD you are interested in setting up you might also need to have lobbyists working with you..

When will the new TLDs be available?

At the moment there is no exact date.
ICANN are pushing for opening the application process in Q1 of 2010.
Bearing in mind that applications won't be accepted immediately and that any new TLD operator would need a "ramp up" period, I doubt if there would be any launched until 2011 at the earliest.

What about trademark holders? Will people be able to "squat" on brand names easily?

Trademark holders have been engaged in the process and the IRT report was published recently. In essence TM holders' concerns will need to be addressed as part of the process, though other parties rights should not be ignored.

Who is planning on launching new TLDs?

Nobody knows exactly who will be applying, as some people are in "stealth" mode, but there is a partial list of possible TLDs here.

The applicants fall into several categories:

cultural / special interest groups - like the Basques or Breton
city domains - New York, Berlin, Paris are all pitching for their own tlds (.nyc, .berlin, .paris)
commercial - too many to even begin naming
other - single registrant type applications for example if BMW were to get .bmw

How much will registering one of these new domains cost?

The cost for registering a domain name will depend on the registry operator.

What about IDNs?

Some organisations are trying to launch IDN TLDs (ie. domain extensions that not only support non-Latin characters, but are actually made up of non-Latin characters)

Should small businesses owners be concerned?

In short - no.

Without knowing which new TLDs will launch it's impossible to give sage advice to small business owners at the moment, I would, however, encourage them to "keep an eye open". If a New York based business doesn't register the corresponding .nyc domain, for example, they could end up missing out on a fantastic opportunity. However the same business wouldn't gain much from registering a .paris ...

What about privacy?

This is still a matter that is being debated. If new registry operators were to adopt a whois policy similar to that of .tel (Telnic) which protects private individuals it would be ideal.

What about spam? What about phishing?

Nobody is going to be able to setup a TLD for the sole purpose of abuse. Anyone who tells you otherwise is seriously misinformed. Spam and phishing isn't a TLD specific problem anyway.

If anyone has any other questions or queries they feel need addressing please let us know via the comments and I will do my best to respond.

Blacknight Solutions the Largest Irish Seller of .EU Domain Names

By Michele Neylon on June 11, 2009 11:17 AM | 1 Comment

Blacknight Solutions, Ireland's leading internet services company, is proud to announce it is now the largest domain name registrar for .eu domain names in Ireland.

"A .eu domain name is a great way not just for Irish businesses, but all Europeans, to promote themselves throughout Europe and the wider world," said Michele Neylon, CEO of Blacknight Solutions. "Ireland is one of Europe's leading export economies, and Blacknight strongly encourage Europeans to register .eu domains as a great way to express European identity."

"With domain name registrations continuing to defy the global financial crisis, Blacknight is encouraging people thinking of registering a .eu domain name to not delay. Especially as it only costs €5.95 per year."

By registering a .eu domain name, it demonstrates your product or service's European identity. A .eu domain name assists in showcasing products and services to the 500 million Europeans in 27 European countries and out into the wider world.

There are almost three million .eu domain names registered by European businesses and individuals, with any company or organisation based in the European Union and any person living in the EU eligible to register a .eu domain name.

"By offering .eu domain names is part of being able to offer our clients a full range of domain name services, from registration to hosting, making Blacknight a one-stop shop for all a businesses' or individual's requirements."

Blacknight offers advice on domain name and webhosting requirements, with domain name registration services available for all major European countries and further afield throughout the world.

About Blacknight Solutions

Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd is a 100% Irish-owned company specialising in serving the hosting and co-location needs of businesses, both large and small. Its servers are based in Ireland's leading datacenters: The Data Electronics Group in Clondalkin, Dublin and Interxion, also in Dublin. By partnering with innovative companies, like Parallels and Comodo, Blacknight brings best-of-breed technologies to the Irish market, while maintaining an aggressive pricing model. Blacknight are members of the IIA, ISPAI, RIPE, INEX and Nominet. Blacknight are an ICANN accredited registrar. See www.blacknight.com for more information.

Registrant Privacy Should Not Be Ignored

By Michele Neylon on May 31, 2009 7:36 PM | 4 Comments

Image via Wikipedia

I am a strong advocate of the new TLD process that is currently ongoing in the ICANN community and it is something that will be central to the discussions in the upcoming meeting in Sydney.

One of the areas that I feel particularly strong about is privacy for registrants.

If you register a co.uk domain or a .eu domain as a private individual you can choose to hide your contact information in whois. What that means is that your contact details remain private, as long as you are a private individual. If you are a business user, then you should be displaying your contact information, as is mandated by various EU directives (it also makes sense for consumers to know who is behind a website).

Unfortunately in the gTLD world (ie. com/net/org/info/biz) the whois data is not private, so any information you supply during domain registration will be viewable.

Enter .tel.

With the launch of .tel the landscape for gTLDs changed slightly and it is now possible for a private individual to "opt out" of whois when they register .tel domains.

Great news!

So what of the new TLDs? Will they be able to offer private registrants that same level of privacy?

I would have liked to think that they would be able to, especially as several of the new TLD projects are aimed at providing domain name services for cultural and ethnic groups, such as the Basques, Scots and Bretons (to name a few).

Unfortunately the intellectual property advocates would appear to hold their rights to be of greater importance than those of private citizens' right to privacy.

As part of the new TLD process the IRT report, which was published a couple of days ago, looked at the issue of registrant privacy, but basically swept it under the carpet, as it did not fit with their view of how whois should work.

Hopefully the ICANN board and other actors will have the foresight to see past their blinkered recommendations and allow new registry operators to give domain registrants the same rights to privacy as the cctld operators already do.

There is currently a public comment period open on this very subject, so I would urge people to take a few minutes to submit their views.

For a longer rant on why I personally feel that the IRT report is fundamentally flawed see my post here .

Another Milestone - Largest Eurid Registrar in Ireland

By Michele Neylon on May 22, 2009 2:51 PM | 3 Comments

Milestones are great, especially when you least expect them.

Earlier today I logged into our Eurid account to check some figures and saw this:

Eurid Blacknight Stats

We're now the largest Eurid accredited registrar in Ireland and climbing up the overall charts steadily (we've still got a long way to go globally!)

IIA Protecting Your Brand Slides

By Michele Neylon on May 21, 2009 4:26 PM

As some people were asking I'm making available the slides from the session this afternoon on online brand protection.

As you can see my slides aren't particularly long or detailed, but hopefully people will get some idea of what I was talking about

Questions / comments welcome as always.

domains-iia-blacknight-2009.ppt

Protect Your Brand Globally - IIA Congress 2009

By Michele Neylon on May 18, 2009 11:01 PM | 1 TrackBack

As part of the IIA Congress this week I'll be involved in one of the afternoon "breakout" sessions:

Protect Your Brand Globally

The session, which is sponsored by Eurid, will involve registry operators (Eurid), registrars (Blacknight) and the legal profession (Matheson Ormsby Prentice).

What will we be talking about?

In broad terms it's all about domains, registering domains, protecting your brand online and related topics.

The upcoming launch of new top level domains, for example, is a topic that brand owners should be aware of.

I haven't finalised my slides for it yet, so if anyone wants a particular topic covered feel free to leave a comment below and I'll try to facilitate it.

So if you're at the IIA Congress why not drop by, as the session will be run a few times in the afternoon.

Heads Up - Domain Scam Alert

By Michele Neylon on May 7, 2009 11:22 AM | 5 Comments

We have been contacted by several of our clients who have received letters from Domain Renewal Group.

These letters are NOT genuine.

DO NOT act on them.

Please bin them.

Example letter below:

You'll notice that the prices they mention are significantly higher than what we charge

Co.uk Registry Takes Action Against Phishing

By Michele Neylon on May 6, 2009 4:22 PM

The co.uk registry operator, Nominet, has enabled a new feature to help fight phishing and other domain abuse.

The new "Phishing Lock" enables registrars, such as ourselves, to lockdown domains suspected of abusive use eg. phishing etc.,

A domain may now be marked as being used in abusive activities and completely locked down to prevent dns changes etc.,

More details on the Nominet site

Feeling Lucky? Get Money Off Domains

By Michele Neylon on May 2, 2009 1:02 PM

We know how much you all like getting a bit of money off, so this weekend we came up with a nice little offer.

Use the coupon code: imfeelinglucky (no spaces ) and you will get 10 euro off the price of registering a .im domain.

You can read a bit more about the .im domain extension on one of our previous posts.

And like with all our domain registrations you get full dns management for free (no hidden charges!)

We'll be offering more great deals on domains over the coming weeks, so please subscribe to this blog's feed or follow us on Twitter

If there's a domain extension we don't offer at the moment that you'd like to see us offer do let us know

[small print: this offer is limited to 100 domains - once they're taken the offer will terminate]

Wordpress User? Take Your Site Mobile

By Michele Neylon on May 1, 2009 10:59 AM

DotMobi have released a very cool suite of Wordpress tools to help Wordpress users make their .mobi Wordpress sites mobile ready (ie. so that they pass the ready.mobi test)

The plugin looks like it has pretty much everything to make your .mobi site completely mobile ready and friendly:

Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
Base mobile theme for quick-and-easy XHTML-MP compliance
Extended mobile themes so you can unleash your mobile creativity
Transcoding and device adaptation to optimise the mobile experience
DeviceAtlas integration for world-class adaptation
Mobile admin panel for when posts can't wait
Mobile ad widget to make you some money (you can choose between Adsense and Admob)
Barcode widget to help users bookmark your blog

NB: Your Wordpress site will need to be running on php5 in order for this to work

Full details on the dotMobi developer site

If you don't have a .mobi domain, then why not get one now?

On a related note, dotMobi CEO Trey Harvin is shortlisted for an IIA NetVisionary award, so why not vote for him now? Voting closes today

More Weird and Wonderful Domains - Jersey and Guernsey Now Available

By Michele Neylon on April 27, 2009 3:02 PM

Image via Wikipedia

If like me you grew up in the 1980s you probably have fond memories of John Nettles in Bergerac, which was a BBC TV show about a detective set in Jersey.

So how on earth is that relevant to domains or hosting?

Jersey and Guernsey make up the Channel Islands and have a combined population of under 160 thousand people. And both Jersey and Guernsey have their own ccTLDs, namely .je and .gg.

With the Channel Islands being home to a lot of financial services companies plus the cool domain hacks that you can create using .gg or .je, we thought that integrating with them wouldn't be a bad idea. So we did.

We're now offering both extensions via our site at the price of 45 euro / year per domain

Please bear in mind, however, that it can take several days for a .je or .gg domain to fully register.

Co.nl Now Available!

By Michele Neylon on April 24, 2009 5:17 PM | 2 Comments

Several months ago when co.nl was in the planning stages we were asked if we would be interested in offering it to our clientele, and thus became the only accredited registrar for co.nl in Ireland.

We are now offering co.nl domain registrations via our main site.

Co.nl is an interesting alternative to .nl domains, as there are no local presence restrictions or requirements, so just about anyone can get a co.nl!

We obviously grabbed ours!

As an introductory offer we're offering them at EUR9.99.

One thing, however, as the co.nl domains have only gone "live" this week the registry operator is not allowing nameserver or contact updates until mid-June, so if you want to use external nameservers you will need to specify them during the signup.

Blackberry and iPhone Users - dotTel Apps Now Available

By Michele Neylon on April 24, 2009 3:45 PM | 5 Comments

On days like today I wish I had a Blackberry or an iPhone...

Telnic, the guys who run dottel, have made available some new applications for users of Blackberry and iPhone.

If you have either device you can grab the software on the Telnic downloads site (mobile accessible)

I'd love to know how people get on with the software and am almost tempted to get myself an iPhone or Blackberry just to try it out ..

The Funny Side To .Tel

By Michele Neylon on April 5, 2009 5:08 PM

I "hangout" on a lot of domain related fora and blogs, so when I saw this I just had to share it with our readers (click to enlarge)

Comic strip reproduced with permission from Chef Patrick

.im Domains Now Live

By Michele Neylon on April 2, 2009 4:20 PM | 4 Comments | 1 TrackBack

Image via Wikipedia

Over the last few days our development team have been working away on a few cool integrations.

One of them has been "in the pipeline" for a really really long time - .im (Isle of Man)

While .im may have started life as the ccTLD for the Isle of Man it's being increasingly used by companies offering products or services centred around personal use (.im > I'm > I am) or instant messaging (IM is shorthand for instant message / instant messaging).

One of the most popular open source instant message solutions Pidgin can be found at Pidgin.im

We are now offering .im domains directly via our site using EPP.

We'll be adding more domain extensions in the coming weeks and months, so watch this space!

EU Renewal Anniversary Month - Want To Save Money?

By Michele Neylon on March 31, 2009 2:30 PM

April is almost upon us yet again, which if you're a domain holder means time to renew all your .eu domains that you got when .eu registration opened.

I don't like comparing prices with our competitors as it can get a little bit silly, but last night, for "a laugh", I decided to check out how much some of the other EU registrars were charging. I was amazed!

We charge a mere 5 euro (ex-vat) for .eu domains, while it's not uncommon for others to charge 15 euro or more!

So if you've got a few .eu domains why not save a bit of cash and transfer them to us?

If you haven't got a .eu domain already then don't let pricing stop you - at 5 euro they cost about the same as a roll and a bottle of coke! (or a coffee)

NB: Blacknight is an accredited Eurid registrar

So You Got A .Tel Domain - Now What?

By Michele Neylon on March 27, 2009 1:32 PM | 4 Comments

General registrations for .tel have been open for the last couple of days and it's been interesting to see the level of interest being shown.

Of course not everyone is going to take to .tel immediately, but it's interesting to see what people are doing with their .tel domains...

We've got our main brand up and running with a .tel domain. If you explore it you will see how we've setup separate sections for our UK and US clients for example. We will, naturally, be adding more links and contact data over the next while.

But what of our clients? What we do with a .tel isn't that relevant. What is relevant is seeing how our clients take the .tel concept and make it their own.

So here's a couple of examples (bear in mind that we have zero control over how the data is presented or what is presented):

So far most of the .tel domains I've seen are either personal or business ie. I'm yet to see anyone running with the portal type idea, though I'm sure it will come in time

Of course the real power of .tel only really starts to kickin when you start actively using it with your existing devices and software. You can get some software to play around with directly from the TelNic site where they have provided software / plugins for:

Outlook
iPhone
Windows Mobile
Blackberry

Unfortunately there isn't anything available for OSX at the moment, but I'm sure someone will produce something before too long ...

If you want to play around with a .tel then grab one now - we're doing them for a mere EUR15 / year ex-vat

Dottel Domains Go Live Today

By Michele Neylon on March 24, 2009 2:33 PM

I've mentioned the .tel domains a couple of times in the past.

Today at 3pm finally sees the arrival of "general registration" when anyone who wants to grab a .tel domain will be able to do so on a "first come, first served" basis without paying "over the odds".

You will be able to order a .tel domain via our website from 3pm today onwards at a cost of EUR15 / year.

A couple of things to bear in mind:

.tel does not support "normal websites"
You cannot specify your own nameservers - all .tel domains will be hosted by Telnic

Dottel allows you to store and share information safe in the knowledge that only the people you want will get to see it.

For a live demo check out my personal .tel mneylon.tel

Unless I know you personally you won't be able to access things like my mobile phone number or instant message contact details.

It will be interesting to see what kind of stuff people get up to with their .tel domains, but I suspect it will take a few months (if not longer) before we see some of the cooler applications.

If anyone has any questions about .tel please do let us know

Blacknight Now ICANN Accredited

By Michele Neylon on March 13, 2009 12:13 PM | 13 Comments

We are delighted to be able to tell the world that we are now an ICANN accredited registrar!

I've been attending ICANN events and trying to get to grips with the entire setup for the last couple of years and quickly realised that the only way we could really move forward was to become accredited. We're already accredited with a lot of the ccTLD operators, such as Nominet, AFNIC, Eurid and several others, so getting rid of the middleman for our gTLD domains made sense.

With our own accreditation we'd be able to interact directly with the registry operators and with the wider ICANN and internet community.

I also realised that since the entire RegisterFly debacle "buying a registrar" was possible, but it would have been a really really bad idea.

So instead of opting for the easy "off the shelf" solution we went through the entire accreditation process from start to finish, so we got it on our own merits, making us the first Irish company to have ever done so.

The accreditation process can be quite confusing, but luckily several good friends and colleagues were able to help clarify various parts of it along the way:

Jothan Frakes - he's like a walking talking domain encyclopedia (currently working on new gTLDs over here)
Frank Michlick - he's done a lot of this stuff so many times before
Mark Klein - he's a cool guy and really helpful
Steve Gobin and Tim Cole - both incredibly helpful and patient

While we aren't setup to use our accreditation yet with any of the domain registries we will be soon enough (I'm not sure how long that's going to take, but I know that I will have to deal with a LOT of paperwork in the coming weeks!)

We can, however, use the ICANN logo!

As we go through the process of getting the accreditation with the individual domain registry operators (Verisign, Afilias, PIR, dotMobi, Telnic etc.,) I'll try to keep people up to date on our progress.

You can see a full list of the current accredited registrars on the IANA site as well

Further Backlogs With IE Registration / Update Requests

By Michele Neylon on March 10, 2009 5:17 PM

We have been informed by the IEDR (IE Domain Registry) that they are currently experiencing delays in processing new registration requests, updates and transfers.

If you have any queries regarding the status of an IE domain registration , transfer or update, please let us know.

New gTLDs Delayed

By Michele Neylon on March 9, 2009 11:19 PM

The 34th ICANN public meeting drew to a close the other day with a rather heated public forum.

The public forum is essentially a bit like "speakers' corner", where anyone who wants to address the ICANN board can do so.

One of the recurring themes throughout the ICANN meeting was the topic of the new gTLDs and more specifically the timeline for the launch.

When ICANN made the first official announcements about the new gTLDs last summer in Paris a lot of people were convinced that it would all happen very quickly. However the reality is very different.

For anyone who was naive enough to think that we'd see new TLDs in 2009, ICANN's Paul Twomey made it clear last week that it is unlikely that anyone will be able to even apply for a new gTLD until December:

We suspect there's going to have to be at least three, and I suspect four, rounds of the application guidebook before it's ready for finalization. And if you follow all the consultation steps that we need to do to follow those rounds and the meeting schedule, as I said in a release last week, the first step -- we could not expect to have applications before December, and it may well be February (2010)

And that's only the initial application.

How long from initial application to acceptance?
From acceptance to actual launch?
From launch to "go live"?

If previous TLDs are anything to go by it could easily add another 2 to 3 years (though maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic with those timelines?)

While it's obviously in everybody's interest that the introduction of new TLDs is done properly delays like this have a negative impact as well.

Don't forget, some people have been campaigning for new TLDs for years, while others seem to have only shown an interest in recent months.

If you're interested in how applicants view the delays Patrick's post from last December is worth reading (and it was written before Twomey's announcement last week).

Possible Delays With IE Registrations

By Michele Neylon on March 3, 2009 2:03 PM

We have been informed that the IEDR is currently experiencing a very high volume of registration and update requests.

As a result of this there may be some delay in processing new registrations, transfers and updates.

If you are registering a personal domain name, please ensure that you have provided the documentation as outlined on the PDN site. Scans of passports are preferable, as faxes tend to be illegible.

For any business related domain names please ensure that you have sent in the CRO number. We do not need the entire cert - just the number will do.

ICANN 34 Opens In Mexico

By Michele Neylon on March 2, 2009 7:29 PM

ICANN's 34th public meeting officially opened earlier today in Mexico City.

The "hot topic" for this meeting will be "new gTLDs".

At the meeting in Paris last year ICANN paved the way for the introduction of a whole new range of domain extensions.

While many in the media hailed the announcement as being a "free for all" and many talked of there being new extensions available within months, the reality is quite different. As some like to say, the "devil is in the details".

Without getting bogged down in the details that will delay the launch, the new gTLDs definitely offer some very interesting openings to business and social groups.
For example, there is already an active group in Scotland campaigning for .sco, which could be used to promote Scottish identity and culture. There already is .cat for Catalans.

In essence the new gTLDs can probably be seen as broadly fitting into two categories, though some may disagree with this, namely commercial and non-commercial. You could expand that to include a third one ie. "special interest", which would include the likes of DotSport.

All in all the next year or so should prove to be quite an exciting and interesting time in the domain world!

If you want to find out more about what's going on I'd recommend checking out the current ICANN meeting website, as there are plenty of ways that you can participate remotely (I am, as I couldn't attend in person)

Also worth reading is Antony Van Couvering's excellent article debunking some of the reasons people are putting forward against the introduction of new TLDs. He's also put together quite a few resources on the entire new gTLD process and in case you were thinking of setting one up - be warned - it's an expensive process!

Dotmobi Registry To Give Away One and Two Letter Domains

By Michele Neylon on January 26, 2009 10:33 AM

The shorter a domain name is the better.

When that domain name is being used for mobile content ie. for stuff you're accessing from your mobile phone or other handheld device, the shorter URL will always win out.

I mentioned that dotMobi were planning on releasing one and two character domains some time ago, but it's only in the last couple of days that they have published more information on the process.

Unlike some registries that auction of the really high value domains, dotMobi has been using both auctions and tenders to assign domains. So this time round it will be a tender / proposal based system again.

And the cost?

Well apart from a handling fee of a few hundred euro it won't actually cost you anything.

You can read all about it over on their blog

Grab an IE Domain For A Tenner!

By Michele Neylon on January 23, 2009 9:42 AM | 1 Comment

We ran a one day promo on IE domains a couple of weeks ago which proved quite popular, but a lot of people seemed to have missed out for one reason or another...

So we decided we'd do it once more today...

Ground rules are very similar to the last time.

The promotion is valid until midnight tonight.

The coupon code is: iefridayjan09

You can register a new IE domain OR transfer an existing one from somewhere else

You can only order 1 domain at this price for a maximum of 2 years ie. one domain per customer for up to 2 years per domain.

If you want to register a personal IE domain please make sure you check the accepted formats here.

The IEDR WILL NOT allow domains that are "close" to that format. They will accept that format and that format ONLY.

Updating Your Nameservers Via The Blacknight Control Panel

By Michele Neylon on January 11, 2009 2:06 PM | 1 Comment

If you're moving your domain to us from another provider please read our basic guides on moving hosting provider and transferring domains.

Once the domain has actually been transferred to us you will need to update the DNS servers (nameservers) so that the rest of the internet knows to look to our servers and not those of your previous provider.

I've put together this brief screencast to show you how to make the changes:

If you have any queries please do let us know.
If you're having problems viewing the tutorial please go to our Youtube channel where you can select to view a higher resolution version.

Crazy Insane One Day Only IE Domain Sale

By Michele Neylon on January 8, 2009 11:29 PM | 18 Comments | 1 TrackBack

Everyone always complains about the price of IE domains.

So how would you like to get one for less than the price of lunch?

From midnight tonight until midnight on Friday 9th January we are offering IE domains for the ultra-low price of 10 euro!!! (ie. for 24 hours only)

Simply use the coupon code: iefridayjan09

So what are you waiting for? Go here to place your order

Now there are limits... we may be insane, but we're not totally bonkers! (Well that's debatable... )

So you can only order 1 domain at this price for a maximum of 2 years ie. one domain per customer for up to 2 years per domain.

UPDATE:

Just to clarify.

This offer is only valid on new registrations and transfers.

If you wish to register a "personal" IE domain please check out this site for details.

You do not need to send us the documentation today, though the sooner you send it the sooner the domain can be registered

IE Domain Prices Reduced For January

By Michele Neylon on January 2, 2009 10:48 AM | 2 Comments

We've dropped the price on IE domains for the month of January.

We've cut the price to €19.95 / year ex-VAT, so you could register a .ie domain now for a mere €199.95 for ten years!

With our new control panel you can manage your domain's DNS easily. If you want to forward your IE domain elsewhere - you can.

But with our hosting plans starting at an incredible €4.95 / month, why would you want to?

Keep an eye on here, twitter and facebook for other promotions

EDIT: Just to clarify. The promotional pricing applies to registrations and transfers of IE domains

Blacknight Nominated For DomainInformer Readers' Choice Awards

By Michele Neylon on December 22, 2008 5:08 PM | 3 Comments

I like surprises! Who doesn't?

About an hour ago I got an email to let us know that someone had nominated us for the DomainInformer Readers' Choice Award 2008!!

Winners will be announced on January 15th

That's pretty cool!

We're up against some of the biggest names in the industry, so it's really nice to see our name alongside such heavyweights as 1 and 1, Afternic, DomainsBot, Sedo, eNom, Tucows and so many other names that I recognise.

If you can spare a minute we'd love your vote!

Calling Last Orders

By Michele Neylon on December 19, 2008 3:32 PM

The clock is ticking....

With Christmas only a couple of days away we'd just like to give people a gentle reminder - if you want to register any new IE domains or make any changes the IE Domain Registry will be closed from Tuesday, so you should really do it before then!

I've already posted our opening hours for the break.

As for the puppy?

Well my dog owning staff were complaining, so I had to do something to appease them..

Backlog and Delays With IE Registrations

By Michele Neylon on December 17, 2008 1:22 PM | 3 Comments

There is currently a backlog of IE domain registration requests.

We are processing any requests that we receive and making amendments as quickly as possible, however we have to rely on the IE domain registry and their staff to process them.

At present there appears to be a backlog on their end, so we cannot do anything to speed up the process.

If you have applied for an IE domain please ensure that you send us all the relevant documentation as quickly as you can.

If the domain is going to be using someone else's nameservers please make sure that they are properly configured in advance. You can check nameservers using tools like ZoneCheck

If you are in need of a domain in a hurry, why not register a .eu or a .co.uk domain?

We Reserve The Right To Nag The Hell Out Of You

By Michele Neylon on December 16, 2008 12:38 PM | 1 Comment | 1 TrackBack

If you've ordered any IE domains from us recently or are planning on doing so this post is for you!

Since the IE Domain Registry requires specific documentation for each and every IE domain that you want to register we spend a lot of our time playing "email ping pong" with both you, our clients, and the registry staff.

One of the biggest frustrations with this is that unfortunately a lot of people forget to send us the documents and they can end up "losing" their chance to register a domain.

That results in frustration / anger / annoyance / disappointment all round.

It's not nice - but it happens.

We've been tweaking stuff on our end over the last year to try to ensure that it happens a lot less...

As of yesterday afternoon we've made a small, but significant, addition to our domain registration backend system.

We've finally turned on the "nag" system.

Basically what will happen is that every working day at around 9am our backend system (think computers, servers, lots of 1's and 0's) will send you an email to remind you to provide the documentation.

As soon as the domain is fully registered these reminder (nag) emails will stop.

Now I know that some people are going to find these emails really really annoying.

I am sorry, but you'd be even more annoyed with us if your really "cool" name was registered by a competitor, wouldn't you?

And if you're not sure which documents you need to give us, then let our sales staff know - they'll always try their best to assist you.

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