The Spiral Hosting team wish all our clients a very happy St Patrick’s Day.

To celebrate we have lowered the price of .ie (Irish) domain registration to only €12.50 during St Patrick’s Week! This is the lowest price for .ie domain registration anywhere!

There’s no limit on the number of domains you can register at this price. You can place your domain order here. You don’t have to host your website with us, but we’d be delighted if you do!

If you host your site with us, you can have your .ie domain name for free. Simply sign up for a web hosting package and one free domain will be included. Hosting packages start from €30/year.

.ie domains names for businesses:

• .ie domain names provide your business or organisation with a unique Irish identity. People will identify your organisation as being Irish, or having a presence in Ireland.
• Greater security and more confidence – .ie domain registrations are manually checked, which is encouraging for consumers looking to do business with you.
• Achieve a higher search engine rating. Websites using .ie domain names are ranked higher by Google.ie for Irish searches.
• For businesses, you’ll need to provide your Irish/NI Company or Business number, and possibly a signed letter if you are registering a discretionary domain name or something completely random!.

.ie domain names for individuals:

• Registration of personal domains were introduced in 2007 and they are very popular. This has contributed to record registration levels for .ie domains.
• You cannot register just your first name, or just your surname, but you can choose from lots of different formats: JohnSmith.ie, John-Smith.ie, John-Paul-Smith.ie, JSmith.ie, PaulSmith.ie etc. (more info. [PDF])
• For individuals, you will simply need to provide a scan of your Irish/NI passport, driver’s license, birth certificate or a utility bill.

If you’ve any questions, please contact us!

To take advantage of this offer, simply check for your domain’s availability. Subject to our usual T&C’s. Offer ends at midnight GMT on 19th March 2010.

The Spiral Hosting team wish all our clients a very happy St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on Wednesday 17th March 2010. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, so the 17th March is a national holiday.

On St Patrick’s Day we will be closing our phone support and operating our online support with reduced staff. Our phone support will re-open on Thursday 18th at 10am, with hangovers. Thank you for your understanding.

Spiral Hosting are offering 10% off new hosting packages and domain names in our Spring Sale!

It’s spring! There’s some sunshine and it’s sale time!

Domain names on promotion include the following TLD’s: .com .net.at .be .ch .dk .es .eu .fr .ie .me .tv .us and .ws! Hosting packages on promotion include all new Shared Hosting and Reseller Hosting packages.

To take advantage of this promotion, simply place your order normally through our hosting or domains pages and enter promo code “spring” at checkout!

If you’ve any questions, please contact us!

Subject to our usual T&C’s. Offer ends 31st March 2010.

Spiral Hosting have lowered the price of .ie (Irish) domain registration to only €16.99. This is the lowest price for .ie domain registration in Ireland. It’s the lowest price anywhere!

There’s no limit on the number of domains you can register at this price. You can place your domain order here. You don’t have to host your website with us, but we’d be delighted if you do!

If you host your site with us, you can have your .ie domain name for free. Simply sign up for a web hosting package and eligible domain names will automatically be discounted. Hosting packages start from €30/year.

Application process

The IE Domain Registry is a managed registry and therefore every .ie domain registration requires an application to be submitted. However, they have greatly relaxed the rules recently and the process is a lot less strict. We do most of the work for you!

If we need anything from you for your application, we’ll contact you once we receive your domain order. If there are any faxes or letters required, we will provide a draft letter for you to check, sign and send to us. We make it easy!

.ie domains names for businesses:

• .ie domain names provide your business or organisation with a unique Irish identity. People will identify your organisation as being Irish, or having a presence in Ireland.
• Greater security and more confidence – .ie domain registrations are manually checked, which is encouraging for consumers looking to do business with you.
• Achieve a higher search engine rating. Websites using .ie domain names are ranked higher by Google.ie for Irish searches.
• For businesses, you’ll need to provide your Irish/NI Company or Business number, and possibly a signed letter if you are registering a discretionary domain name or something completely random!.

.ie domain names for individuals:

• Registration of personal domains were introduced in 2007 and they are very popular. This has contributed to record registration levels for .ie domains.
• You cannot register just your first name, or just your surname, but you can choose from lots of different formats: JohnSmith.ie, John-Smith.ie, John-Paul-Smith.ie, JSmith.ie, PaulSmith.ie etc. (more info. [PDF])
• For individuals, you will simply need to provide a scan of your Irish/NI passport, driver’s license, birth certificate or a utility bill.

If you’ve any questions, please contact us!

To take advantage of this offer, simply check for your domain’s availability. Subject to our usual T&C’s. Offer ends 31st March 2010.

Why choose .in?

• International brand protection for businesses is more important than ever, and India represents the second largest nation on Earth.
• Protect your brand and open your business to a market of 1.2 billion people by registering a dot-IN domain.
• Don’t forget, there are more English-speaking people in India than the USA!

To take advantage of this price reduction, simply check for your domain’s availability. Subject to our usual T&C’s. Offer ends 31st March 2010.

There were big changes to the European Union ‘tax regime’ on 1st January 2010. As such, services we sell for “Business Use” are exempt from Value Added Tax (VAT) in 26 EU countries. We are advising all EU businesses to ensure that they are not unnecessarily paying 17.5% VAT.

Tax exemption exists for business customers in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (incl. Monaco), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

UK businesses: There is no tax exemption for UK businesses because Spiral Hosting is registered for tax in Northern Ireland. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.

How businesses can claim tax exemption

- Firstly, VAT registered businesses:

If you are a business with an EU VAT registration number, please email your VAT number to billing@spiralhosting.com and we will change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt. You can also enter your VAT number through our Client Area by going to the My Details page: https://secure.spiralhosting.com/clientarea.php?action=details .

Please note that under EU VAT Directive 2008/8/EC, we will validate every VAT Registration Number and detail your VAT-exempt business expenditure on our EC Sales List.

- Secondly, other businesses:

If you do not have a VAT Registration Number, we can still change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt. To make such a request, please email billing@spiralhosting.com stating: “On behalf of Business Name, I declare that we are a ‘taxable person’ under EC Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 9. I request that you do not charge us VAT on our invoices. We agree to pay any VAT that is due directly to our local tax authority in Country.”

We may ask for additional information to keep on file so that we can prove you definitely operate a business. This may include a company registration number, a certificate from your local tax authority, or copies of your business letterhead, commerical documents or commercial website.

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If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact billing@spiralhosting.com or your Account Manager directly.

It’s really simple. Spiral Hosting will give one free domain name for every web hosting package you purchase, and we will renew it for free for the life of your web hosting package.

Our checkout system will automatically mark your domain name as free when you purchase it along with your web hosting.

If you already have a domain name elsewhere, you can choose to transfer it to us and it can be your free domain name.

Your free domain name is completely yours. You own it, control the whois information, the nameservers and everything else. We simply register it for you, for free, for life!

Here are the steps to follow:

1) Choose any web hosting package

Sizes XS – XL on Shared Hosting packages

Host 10 – Host 200 on Reseller Hosting packages

2) Choose a domain name from up to 27 extensions (TLD’s)

General extensions: .com .net .org .info .mobi .name or .biz
Country extensions: .asia .at .be .cc .ch .de .dk .es .eu .fr .ie .in .it .me .nl .tv .uk .us or .ws

The full list of domain extensions available with each package can be found on our Promotions page.

3) We’ll register your domain name for free. It can be a brand new domain registration or you can choose to transfer a domain to us if you have one registered elsewhere.

4) Every time you pay for your web hosting renewal, we will renew your domain name!

Small Print: To be eligible for your free domain, please purchase it at the same time as your webhosting. Our order system will automatically mark eligible domains as free. If you have a domain registered elsewhere please contact our support team who can help you transfer the domain to us and it can be your free domain. Other legal stuff applies.

A total of 37,055 domains were registered during the year, which is an 8 percent increase on 2008 figures. There are now a total of 136,000 dot-ie domains registrations.

The fourth quarter of 2009 saw a total of 8,533 new registrations in October and December, representing a 11.5 percent rise on last year.

IEDR Chief Executive David Curtin said: “It is more encouraging still to report that overall, 2009 was our strongest year ever for .ie registrations; an 8 per cent increase on last year’s figure is significant against the backdrop of economic difficulty for businesses and consumers everywhere”.

“It is important that Irish entrepreneurs now recognise and seize opportunities for growth online.”

For more information on how and why you should register an .IE domain name please see: Spiral Hosting > Irish domain registration

Spiral Hosting strongly support open source products and believe they are central to the development of the Internet.

You may have heard that Oracle has acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL, which is the most popular open source database.

MySQL is not an important part of the acquisition. Oracle have bought Sun for other reasons. Their ownership of the MySQL project could have detrimental effects to the open source ideal. The concern is that if the Intellectual Property Rights for MySQL fall into the hands of MySQL’s primary competitor Oracle, then MySQL immediately ceases to be an alternative to Oracle’s own high-priced products.

With this in mind, we have signed the Help Save MySQL petition, and we are asking you to lend your support too by signing the petition. The Save MySQL website has lots of information about why the community feels that MySQL is important, and what you can do to ensure it stays open and freely available to the entire Internet community.

Spiral Hosting are announcing our first Snow Sale!

We are offering 10% off ALL domain names while it’s snowing here in Ireland.

That’s 10% off any domain extension you choose, and for any registration period available!

We know that many countries are used to heavy snowfall and arctic temperatures, but last night in Ireland it was -12 degrees (celcius) and some parts of the country are practically unreachable. Schools are closed and the Army might be drafted in to start shoveling snow. This could last another week or two, but the moment the snow stops, so will our promotion!

Take advantage of this promotion! Here’s how:

• Simply visit our site
• Choose any domain name!
• Choose 1 to 10 years registration (where applicable)
• Enter the promo code: snow

This offer expires: when it stops snowing in Ireland. Valid on new registrations and transfers only. Available to new and existing customers. Our usual Terms & Conditions apply.*