Your favorite registrar?
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009I’m just curious where you guys/gals register your domains. I usually use namecheap because I like their interface better than any others I’ve tried. If you have more than 50 (hehe I wish that’s all I had) with them they will give you a special code to get a discount on renewals. That’s always nice – but since they raised their prices there are other places that are cheaper.
If they had a better interface I’d deal with them – so time to try a few places out. Let me know your favorites.
(if you say godaddy I’ll have to drive to your house and beat you).
Popularity: 6% [?]
Marc says:
June 16th, 2009
4:58 am
Well… I’ll have to say GoDaddy on terms of price… (better hop in your car buddy..lol)
But I also have some over at Namecheap and I like their interface a lot better in terms of searching for domains.
I also register Canadian domains at 10dollar.ca – one of the cheapest I have found, and their customer service has been great.
admin says:
June 16th, 2009
5:35 am
Couldn’t resist could you? I hope you live somewhere sunny.
Clip DL says:
June 16th, 2009
1:57 pm
Come on man! When it comes to price – there is no better than GoDaddy. I have used Namecheap. In fact – it was the first registrar I used in my life and I liked it very much, but it was until I got a verified PayPal account to use at GoDaddy. Nothing can beat the 99cent .info domains at GD.
PS: Disagree? Don’t come beat me. Just keep spending unneeded amounts of money for domain registrations. Seems like you have a lot of them…
admin says:
June 16th, 2009
3:14 pm
Price is great – and I can see the draw to it. But if you send any e-mail out from a godaddy domain your asking for trouble.
Their anti spam policies turn into blackmail
BTW – I do have several dozen domains at godaddy. Not a single one sends out any sort of e-mail though.
The biggest problem is whois protection – free at namecheap for example, almost 9 bucks at godaddy.
So a .com at godaddy costs 9.99 + 8.99 (or if the privacy protection counts as a non-domain product it’s 8.99 +1.99)
The most a domain (even at renewal) with whois guard and a couple other goodies for bulk folks is 8.81.
I don’t own many .info domains anymore so it’s not an issue. Takes a little more effort to get an info to rank as fast as a .com in a competitive market. A few bucks isn’t worth the extra effort.
(remember – all your sites should be paying their own rent)
Wanna Be Geekster says:
June 18th, 2009
8:29 pm
You should sign up for a GoDaddy reseller account. This way you can get your domains almost at cost and turn around and make some money of poor fools like us. I am sure there are others out there. I have looked at the list of registrars out there and there are a ton of them available that very well could be cheaper than GoDaddy.
My biggest deal is I want something that has an API I can use to manage my domains. I think your Command Center is great, but if I could take a list of domains and copy paste them into a box and have it automatically register the domains, setup the DNS server information at my registrar, configure all of my DNS settings through Nettica (my DNS provider), and configure apache on my webserver for me automatically I would be in hog heaven. But that is just a pipe dream! Right?
admin says:
June 18th, 2009
9:19 pm
Well, I’m not sure it’s a pipe dream. It’s certainly something that is possible.
Since you CAN log into cpanel unsecured it’s very easy to set things up to do everything automatically – from domain registration, to site creation. Curl can interact with a browser just like you would.
I personally use whmcomplete to manage billing and my own hosting accounts through multiple servers – and I think it’s time to look into setting things up so everything happens automatically from wordpress install to domain registration.
Can’t see it being done before the summer is over though. If any programmers have some time – I’ve got a paying job for you. I just don’t have the time until school starts back up.
Wanna Be Geekster says:
June 19th, 2009
7:25 pm
See, I am not a big fan of control panels being loaded on my dedicated boxes either. So I want a control panel that can remotely run commands on my servers. IE with SSH or other services that can be automated. I have a good developer who can do the job but I don’t have the money to pay him. If you want his info hit me up and I will hook you up.
Ian says:
July 1st, 2009
1:21 pm
This post nudged me to have a look at other registrars.
Just looked at GoDaddy for comparison, and they’re offering free privacy when you register 5 or more domains at once. Wonder if it applies to transfers…
Namecheap seems to only have prices in $USD (I’d rather not be beholden to exchange rate fluctuations
– can anyone suggest best prices in the UK?
Steve1943 says:
July 2nd, 2009
3:29 am
This is a no-brainer for you Ed – you can be your own registrar using the white label package from ResellerClub.com. Which is exactly what I did as 4mostdomains.com
Apart from the manual control panel (which is all I need for my few score COM domains) there is a choice of SOAP based APIs including PHP, Perl, Javascript, etc and a demo sandbox to test with. You could easily automate the whole shebang with your PHP skills.
The domain registration service is very competitive pricewise, with free privacy and free DNS management. The registration system is wholly automated, reliable, easy to use, also very fast and hassle free to transfer domains in and out.
The contrast with those bastards at GoDaddy is like day and night. I’ve tried other budget alternatives including Namecheap and Netfirms and they are OK but I prefer the independence and speed of acting as your own registrar.
RC covers all the major TLD and regional domains, but I only use COM now, since some purchased statistical research confirmed my subjective impression that COM ranks better, faster.
RC do not kite the domain names you research – I’ve tested this thouroughly and never been stung yet.
RC offer optional hosting services but I don’t use them except for some email.
You can sign up directly with RC, or if you sign up via 4mostdomains.com, I’ll give you my cost prices and we can pool the economies of scale.
I’ll do the same for any other NSS2 member that is experienced enough not to be a hand-holding burden. However, please understand that I’m NOT looking to act as a public registrar on wafer thin margins, although I am cool to aid competent colleagues along the path to self-sufficiency.
Go to 4mostdomains.com, open an client account (free) and then sign up as a reseller (also free).
Warning – if you ask me questions before reading the manual/FAQ, I’ll set my Rotweiler on you. Or my wife if you REALLY piss me off……..
admin says:
July 2nd, 2009
4:10 am
So Steve…. how much are .nets
I’ve actually looked into them and a few other reseller plans. I have no excuse except that I’m lazy – and hate getting out of my domain comfort zone. It took me forever just to set up WHMCOMPLETE to manage the site creation service we offer.
To make it worthwhile I’ll be dropping 5k (or more depending on registrar) and then I have to program the interface to work with the api so I’m happy with it.
To top it off I’ve got namecheap all organized the way I like it
Need to clone myself and get it going.
Steve1943 says:
July 2nd, 2009
5:16 am
My cost price for new NET registrations is presently $5,99 for the first year – but this is a promo valid only until 16 July 2009 – after which my cost reverts to the regular $8.89 pa
The cost of transfers and renewals is the regular price of $8.89 – the promo only applies for new registrations.
My cost for COM is also $8,89 pa for new registrations, transfers and renewals.
There is some further discount available for larger volumes but it’s not a great saving, as far as I recall. I’d need to check. Bear in mind, however, that these prices already include free privacy and free DNS management.
I take your point about set up – even without the API, you still have to parameterize your eCommerce store and set your pricing. Not a big deal but it’s all time and effort.
I’ve never believed it worth chasing price for the sake of a few final cents. The top criteria should be convenience and reliability. However, it’s always prudent to have a second string to the bow ready – you never know when you may need it………..which is why I also use Namecheap and Netfirms now and again!
michael says:
July 2nd, 2009
10:02 pm
I think Http://www.registershark.com will tear you a new one. Check it out if you dare. Don’t cry to me if you don’t.