[druber]

9 months ago, or so, I registered a domain with register.com. Through some wacky deal, I got a one-year registration for $1. This made me happy. Trying not to run things down to the wire, I'd like to renew the domain. There are lots of registars out there, many with better prices than register.com (for instance, registrar.godaddy.com with $9/yr domain names).

So the question is, is there any drawback to using a low-cost registrar? Is domain registration kind of like hosting as far as "you get what you pay for," or is everything standardized? Help me save money and not get hosed.

[Raman]

Originally posted by druber:
<STRONG>9 months ago, or so, I registered a domain with register.com. Through some wacky deal, I got a one-year registration for $1. This made me happy. Trying not to run things down to the wire, I'd like to renew the domain. There are lots of registars out there, many with better prices than register.com (for instance, registrar.godaddy.com with $9/yr domain names).

So the question is, is there any drawback to using a low-cost registrar? Is domain registration kind of like hosting as far as "you get what you pay for," or is everything standardized? Help me save money and not get hosed. </STRONG>

In theory there's no difference. Where you might run into a problem is if the registrar (or your web hosting company)'s name servers are slow or go down often. The name server is what everyone's computer queries when they type www.yourname.com . so if it takes a long time for the name server to respond then you're outta luck. so it matters more who's name server you're listed on than who you registered with.

you shoudl check with the icann to see who is on their list of registrars. alot of times mom and pop shops and development companies (like me) have domain name registry services which ultimately must route to one of the accredited ones by icann.

[Demonhood]

domain name registration is pretty transparent, as long as you don't have to change anything.

i switched over from networksolutions to register.com a few months ago. register makes it easy to change information. networksolutions makes it a royal pain in the donkey butt. they're also apt to hang onto a domain indefinitely when it expires. which means that no one can grab the name if someone lets it slip.

[druber]

I found an excellent thread over at WebhostingTalk, which is a great source in general for info on all things hosting. Think I'll probably go with dotster. Seem well-respected, and icann.com lists them as a qualified registrar.

[madra [again!]]

always read the small print. especially with the bargain bucket registrars. some of these will register your domain for a nominal fee but if you check the small print there will be an 'admin fee' if you want to move your domain elsewhere. this fee is [naturally!] higher than the cost of registering the domain at the full nominet price in the first place.

also check who the domain is being registered to. there are 3 contact names registered with each domain; the admin contact, the billing contact and the technical contact.

the technical contact will be the one the authorities contact if there are tech probs with your domain. technical contact should therefore, usually be your domain name host.

billing contact is the person who gets billed for renewal fees. this will be you.

admin contact is the 'main man' and the one who must authorise changes to the domain [such as moving it to different domain servers etc]. admin contact should also usually be you. if it isn't then effectively you don't control your domain.

this is another thing to check with these bargain bucket registrars. if they register themselves as the admin contact and you as the billing contact, you're shelling out the money but they effectively control the domain [hence where admin fees etc come in if you want to move it]

in theory the admin contact could then change the details of the billing contact so it was no longer you, effectively hijacking your domain.

be careful. read the small print. there's no such thing as a free lunch!

[kernel_panic]

The company I work for hosts quite a few sites. We've found that the major pain in the a$$ with lesser-known registrars is getting DNS info and contacts switched.

With Network Solutions, the new host requests the DNS transfer, and the contacts have to approve it. It's pretty simple and straight-forward.

In my dealings with a smaller registrar this week, I found out that they will only make DNS or contact change if you send an email message like this:

• The subject must be "DNS Changes"
• The message must come from the email address of the domain owner
• The body of the message must contain any DNS or contact change info

This may not sound like a big deal, but if the domain owner has switched email addresses, if they're out of town, etc. you're in a world of hurt. (Switching registrars usually isn't a walk in the park either.)

If you're registering a lot of domains, you might consider a smaller registrar. Otherwise, fork over the $35 and use the most well-known registrar around: Network Solutions.

[druber]

Glad I took a second look at all this stuff. Dotster doesn't appear to offer free domain parking. At this point I'm doing the ol' url redirect, so that'd be bad news for druber. Just part of the territory when you're butt poor. Thanks for the heads-up on this and the contact info, as well.

[Raman]

Yeah, i'm doing the redirect for my coastaldev.com to raman-sinha.com/coastaldev until i find a good web host. i went with iicinternet and they're kinda slow. i was doing some lookups and one of the machines names made me think that it's a backup for a porn server. not good. that's probably why they're so cheap and slow.

i registered my domain name with some company and i had control over changing the dns' when i moved to my host.

[Boodlums]

You can find comparisons of registrars here:
http://www.domainnamebuyersguide.com/

I found a good one through there; you will too. :-)

-Walter