The Avondhu has been nominated for the final of the 2014 Realex Fire Web Awards in the Newspaper Online Publication category.

A team of over 80 judges have, over the past month, judged and rejudged over 550 Irish websites to come up with a lists of finalists across 33 categories.

The Avondhu is included alongside media organisations that include The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, The Star, Irish Mirror, Irish Examiner etc. The full list is on www.WebAwards.ie.

Managing director Liam Howard said: “We are thrilled to have been nominated, and in such prestigious company. We have invested quite a lot in the web end of our business in the past year and a half or more, so it’s nice to be recognised in this way.”

The biggest surge in entries have been in the 4 SME categories and 5 eCommerce categories with over 200 businesses being nominated alone and 100 reaching the final.

Speaking on the surge of nominations, organiser Damien Mulley said: “We turned two businesses categories into nine this year and we are still swamped in nominations from businesses. We’ve never seen such a leap in the 7 years we’re doing this. The green shoots in offline business seem to be full forests for Irish business online.”

Paul Dunne from Realex Fire, headline sponsor of the event stated: “As one the largest payments companies in Europe, we have access to a significant amount of market data and we can see that Irish businesses have really started to grow their online businesses in the past 12 months. There’s certainly evidence to suggest that online businesses are growing at a faster rate than their offline counterparts.

The Realex Fire Web Awards celebrates their 7th birthday this year with a fun filled night in the Ballsbridge Hotel on October 22nd where 650 people that own or run Irish websites are expected to attend with winners being called from 33 categories.