Ask Slashdot: Advice For Domain Name Registration?

codepigeon writes: I would like to ask for your advice on selecting a domain name registration service to use (possibly registration with website hosting?). The last time I registered a domain name was around 1999, so I am out of touch with the current offerings.

I have visited a few of the major players' websites. They seem (mostly) similar in prices and services. I have also seen both positive and negative reviews for those companies. I am concerned about being locked in, or surprised with hidden fees. (I paid $75US for a year of service in 1999, now it is only $10.99US?)

I have been trolling Slashdot for about 15 years and respect the views of the users here more than anywhere else. I would love to hear your advice and/or warnings in this matter. I am looking to register a domain name for a development studio that is at the ground level (read: I'm the sole member). I have published a single app to one of the big app stores already and want to have a 'web presence' to publish information about my software and give users a place to submit complaints/requests. I currently don't see the need for any kind of major backend support for the website; simple HTML or JavaScript.

Which is the most trustworthy company to use for registration? Which ones have hidden fees or privacy problems?

Comments

Not GoDaddy.

[dgatwood]

Besides that, you're probably fine with any of them. My GoDaddy experience can best be summed up as:

• On their hosting service, they limited all processes run by your user account (not just CGI) to a certain number of seconds. This made it almost impossible to upload large files, because they invariably timed out before the upload could finish.
• Despite that limit, the service was still unusably slow because of all the WordPress and PHPBB instances whose full-text searches stink on ice. Requests to move my (purely static) content to a server that wasn't so bogged down were denied.
• Then, I tried to buy a cert from them. After I made the purchase, but before it actually became available for me to retrieve, they cancelled the purchase and told me that they no longer offered the number of years that I'd bought, despite the fact that I bought it using publicly available links on their website.

Let's just say I ditched them within the first month, and we'll leave it at that. I switched to DreamHost, and haven't looked back. Their service isn't perfect performance-wise, but it is so much better than GD that it isn't even funny. (Yes, I know you're just asking about domain registration, but lots of folks do one, then the other, so....)

And whatever you do, don't get your hosting from the same company that provides your domain names. There are far too many horror stories of hosting-related disputes leading to frozen domain names.

Re:Not GoDaddy.

[Terje Mathisen]

I've had a single .org domain registered with and hosted by DreamHost for 7-8 years now, absolutely no problems.

I also have 6-8 other domains here in Norway (.no) which are all registered locally but still hosted on the same DreamHost account.

Dirt cheap, very stable and OK performance wise.

I have a tiny search program written in perl (http://tmsw.no/pi-search/) which allows you to search for any given string within the first billion digits of pi:

Even though the database + index needs about 5 GB, so obviously not cached in memory, I tend to get replies within 0.1 seconds or so:

Find 19570725

Found at 45,109,789: 061632112341128 19570725 293694235201198

Total time = 0.099406 seconds (8 suffix lookups)

I.e. my birth date is located about 45 million digits into pi. :-)

Terje

GD and Netsol highly (NOT) recommended

[WaffleMonster]

Find a smaller outfit ... once they grow to a certain size and let their marketing goons settle in and run the show you don't want to be anywhere near the resulting cesspool.

I like dreamhost

[SpzToid]

Gotta agree with Dreamhost first and foremost as a domain registrar. If you search back past Slashdots, you'll see folks have chimed in to say how simply searching and pricing your desirable domain name at a lot of registrars, effectively and immediately places your desirable domain name on other people's (or the registrar's) radar. In other words, it is not kept private for you, and if you delay much at all, you'll probably see someone else (like the registrar themselves) might very well snatch it up, so you'll at least have to pay more. I can vouch this doesn't happen with Dreamhost (I've tested it myself, along with the other registrars folks had mentioned, and saw those results too). Domain name searches at Dreamhost remain private. GoDaddy was one of the abusing registrars I am referring to, if I recall correctly. I've had assets on Dreamhost now for 10 years, this coming summer.

Also, if your website needs are as simple as you have written of, then dreamhost is an absolutely fine host. Their customer service is very good, prompt, and helpful too. A very good deal for the price, if your website needs are so simple.

That being said, I can tell you the cheapest level at Dreamhost is not suitable for a heavy CMS like Drupal. If you are running something like Drupal, then you should really buy the whole VPS. Dreamhost has invested heavily in their VPS options in the years since I was seriously trying to get Drupal to work over there, but I find Linode.com and digitalocean.com VPS options to be very good for the task. Also, just so you know, my recommendation for Linode and Digital ocean is based on my own rather heavy server installations and configurations.

Finally, domain names are like wo/men. All the desirable ones are already taken.

Re:NameCheap

[seoras]

From the forum poster: "The NameCheap terms and conditions state they will pass the domain on to a third party at their discretion from 12 days prior to expiry."

12 days prior, doesn't sound like any of the registrars I've used.
Sure go ahead and use NameCheap but read their T&C's very carefully first.

Email notifications aren't reliable, I keep a reminder alert in my calendar for my domain renewals.
Having said that I get bombarded by renewal reminders from freeparking, networksolutions and godaddy when I have a domain a few months from expiry.
You know, the "renew now and save 10% off" types?

Glad this wasn't one of my domains that got the chop 12 days prior to expiry and then held to ransom to get it back...

Seperate Domain Registrar from Hoster!

[Qbertino]

The only general advice I can give you - since I'm not in the US and I presume you are - is to seperate your Domain Registration service from your hosting service. That way you can, in a jam, close down your hosting without having to give up your domain. Or simply redirect the domain if you have to scale or something.

However, it might be worth looking out for a Doman Registrar that offers to handle all the email stuff - setting up an E-Mail server is a real drag.

Most of my domains are tied in with an ancient hosting package, and it's a bit of a drag, quite simply because today I probably wouldn't use webhosting offers altogether but rather run my on webspace on some cheap Linux vhost.