Domain Name Registrar

SkyHog

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
18,431
Location
Castle Rock, CO
Display Name
Display name:
Everything Offends Me
Any advice for good, cheap domain name registration? I've been using Moniker for a while, but due to their little "oopsie" with the hack, releasing a lot of PII, I don't really want to stay with them if I can avoid it. Its too bad, because I've been using them for 5+ years, and I absolutely love their service offering and the easy process by which I register.

What I'm looking for is:

1. Cheap. Domain names should be cheap.
2. Easy transfer out if needed
3. Easy transfer in process
4. As little "additional sales opportunities" as possible. I don't like having to reject about 30 offers just to get a domain name.
5. Reputation enough to not worry too badly about losing PII again in a hack attempt.
6. Not GoDaddy

What say y'all?
 
I have used bulkregister.com for a long time, but I have also used godaddy with no issues.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
My only experiences are with Godaddy and eNom. I prefer Godaddy.
 
I use 1and1.com - they are oriented towards hosting so you're fairly warned.
 
Thanks guys. I have heard some good things about namesilo.com - anyone have any experience with them?
 
We have clients using lots of different folks... but we prefer GoDaddy... clear thinking, English speaking, tech support 24 hrs/day. Probably have 100+ clients there, 200+ domain names. Named best place to work in Phoenix for years.
 
CT4ME said:
We have clients using lots of different folks... but we prefer GoDaddy... clear thinking, English speaking, tech support 24 hrs/day. Probably have 100+ clients there, 200+ domain names. Named best place to work in Phoenix for years.
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There app works great with an iPhone and iPad too. :D
 
I moved a bunch of domains from GoDaddy to the far superior Hover.com .

I like Danica Patrick as much as the next guy, but I just got tired of the Godaddy's ridiculous 1995 web page with its constant up selling and general air of sleeze.

Hover has a very clean modern design, North American talented phone support, they don't try to nickle and dime you to death, and in general are a pleasure to deal with.
 
SkyHog said:
Any advice for good, cheap domain name registration? I've been using Moniker for a while, but due to their little "oopsie" with the hack, releasing a lot of PII, I don't really want to stay with them if I can avoid it. Its too bad, because I've been using them for 5+ years, and I absolutely love their service offering and the easy process by which I register.

What I'm looking for is:

1. Cheap. Domain names should be cheap.
2. Easy transfer out if needed
3. Easy transfer in process
4. As little "additional sales opportunities" as possible. I don't like having to reject about 30 offers just to get a domain name.
5. Reputation enough to not worry too badly about losing PII again in a hack attempt.
6. Not GoDaddy

What say y'all?
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My son who is a website developer likes Blue Host for a multitude of reasons....don;t ask me, I'm only the messenger. He insisted I move from Go Daddy BTW.
 
asgcpa said:
My son who is a website developer likes Blue Host for a multitude of reasons....don;t ask me, I'm only the messenger. He insisted I move from Go Daddy BTW.
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That is absolutely correct. I have been a website developer/designer for nearly two decades now. BlueHost is a fantastic domain registrar. 1and1 is also very good for domain reg. Both make it very easy to point it to your website location, and have wonderful UI's. (User interface)

Do NOT go to GoDaddy for anything.
 
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OK.. I gotta ask - why the GoDaddy hate? When I first ventured into non-school-hosted development, I went with BlueHost and whatever registrar they were pushing at the time (Rocketsomething?). Then BlueHost started giving me crazy "Exceeded CPU quota" when I would try to load a simple HTML page with 5-10 resized family photos. So I moved to HostGator, along with whatever registrar they were using at the time. Sometime a year or two ago, I moved to GoDaddy as the registrar because I got tired of having to wade through HostGator's multiple layers of "support" to get what I needed.

Over the weekend, I started moving my hosting to Linode so I could have something (else) to tinker with. I like being able to sign in to GoDaddy and change the DNS settings easily.

So what's the poo-poo on GoDaddy?
 
asgcpa said:
My son who is a website developer likes Blue Host for a multitude of reasons....don;t ask me, I'm only the messenger. He insisted I move from Go Daddy BTW.
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Archammer said:
That is absolutely correct. I have been a website developer/designer for nearly two decades now. BlueHost is a fantastic domain registrar. 1and1 is also very good for domain reg. Both make it very easy to point it to your website location, and have wonderful UI's. (User interface)

Do NOT go to GoDaddy for anything.
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http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/32126-massive-bluehost-outage-affects-thousands-of-sites
 
Hmm. I used to deal with Hover back when they were IYD, before they got sold to... I forget... was it Tucows? And then apparently spun themselves off as Hover.

I liked them as IYD. I hated them as Hover, mainly because there was no way to to do really simple things like, for example, register name servers, without contacting support, who NEVER answered the phone, and would take 3 - 5 days to respond to emails. Apparently they've made some big-time improvements since then.

Anyway, before said presumed improvements were implemented, I moved everything to GoDaddy, which is fine except for the constant up-selling attempts. The only thing I really care about is that I have access to do anything I need to a domain without having to talk to anyone, but they do have 24/7 North American-based phone support just in case I get lonely.

-Rich
 
GoDaddy Hate... my experience is that the everyday person will be more than happy with GoDaddy. You get some developer types that want to install some bizarre package or do some whacky setting that GoDaddy won't allow... and then the hate. I find that some of GoDaddy haters are super-geek types that also hate MicroSoft and anything/anybody who doesn't let them tweak every setting. If you look around, you'll find posts of love/hate for every Registrar or Host. It's a complicated thing.
Also many developers get a spiff for using certain hosts so, of course, they are going to recommend them. I've had many developers tell my clients they HAD to change hosts (to theirs of course)... which was total BS.

ps... Like Rich, I've used many "alternative" web companies... got tired of it after each one was bought/sold over and over. AWC became Interland became something else, became Web.com. Each time they are bought/sold everything got screwy. That isn't likely to happen with GoDaddy.
 
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CT4ME said:
GoDaddy Hate... my experience is that the everyday person will be more than happy with GoDaddy. You get some developer types that want to install some bizarre package or do some whacky setting that GoDaddy won't allow... and then the hate. I find that some of GoDaddy haters are super-geek types that also hate MicroSoft and anything/anybody who doesn't let them tweak every setting. If you look around, you'll find posts of love/hate for every Registrar or Host. It's a complicated thing.
Also many developers get a spiff for using certain hosts so, of course, they are going to recommend them. I've had many developers tell my clients they HAD to change hosts (to theirs of course)... which was total BS.
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I think we're mixing up hosting with domain registration. GoDaddy could give a flying flip what you do with a domain if it's hosted elsewhere.

-Rich
 
GoDaddy had some bad policies a while back and wouldn't easily let go of domain registrations when trying to leave them. Can't find the articles now.
 
I've used namecheap. Have been pleased. It's been a while, but they had good pricing and I can't recall any upsell attempts.
 
I use gkg.net . Have been using them for over 10 years and they have been great. I also use zoneedit.com for my DNS hosting and rackspace.com for my email.
 
I don't hate Godaddy, I still have a couple of domains there that I haven't got around to moving yet. It's just that Hover is better in so many ways.

It's just a fact that GoDaddy's complex and ugly website is designed to upsell you at multiple points in the domain registration process. It's a fact that Hover has a very clean, straightforward and easy to use website, with simple straightforward pricing.

It's a fact that Godaddy charges extra for private registration, Hover includes that in the price.

Both have North American tech support, both have control panels that do the same things, both are well established.

Spend more money and time at Godaddy if you want, I prefer to save both time and money. Even given that Hover has much less soft core porn on their web site.
 
I've been using Namecheap for almost a decade now with no complaints.
 
Namecheap here too. Way too much cruft before I can do what I need to do at GoDaddy. If you want an adequate all in solution, GoDaddy is fine. If you want a registrar and DNS only, for a better price, without all the other crud in your way, Namecheap.

I did host with godaddy and anything outside of basic HTML was dog slow. At some point I will move my web to AWS, just haven't mustered the patience for all that will entail.
 
I use sitelutions.com for domain registration and DNS. Been with them prob'ly over ten years. They offer hosting, but I've never used it.
 
Late to the party:

Another vote for Hover.com.

For the love of god, don't use GoDaddy. They will steal your domain name if they think it's a good idea. Read their TOS, they have the right to "take any registered domain from the registrar and use it for their own good." (paraphrased). It happened to us, and it's a really poor way to do business.

We've been using site5.com for the last 6 years for our actual web hosting and have been very satisfied.
 
numl0ck said:
Late to the party:

Another vote for Hover.com.

For the love of god, don't use GoDaddy. They will steal your domain name if they think it's a good idea. Read their TOS, they have the right to "take any registered domain from the registrar and use it for their own good." (paraphrased). It happened to us, and it's a really poor way to do business.

We've been using site5.com for the last 6 years for our actual web hosting and have been very satisfied.
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That's my biggest fear of GoDaddy. That, and their refusal to adhere to ICANN standards for the reclaim period.
 
Um...why not just stay?

They've already been hacked, so the hackers have your PII already. Moving to a new registrar simply exposes you to hackers taking that registrar out at a later date.
 
JeffDG said:
Um...why not just stay?

They've already been hacked, so the hackers have your PII already. Moving to a new registrar simply exposes you to hackers taking that registrar out at a later date.
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It wasn't the hack so much as it was the way they handled it. I may not have lost any PII yet, but if they didn't improve (and I have no way of knowing if they did), its possible that next time I will.
 
SkyHog said:
That's my biggest fear of GoDaddy. That, and their refusal to adhere to ICANN standards for the reclaim period.
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I couldn't believe the email we got from them. Basically "we took blahblahbhal.com and gave you your money back. If you would like to own blahblahblah.com you can buy it for $$$." WTF??? I just paid for it, and thought I owned it but apparently not. :mad2: The whole thing happend in less than 48 hours.

I wonder how many others have been ripped off by them. We transfered all of our domains away from GoDaddy to Hover after that.
 
SkyHog said:
That's my biggest fear of GoDaddy. That, and their refusal to adhere to ICANN standards for the reclaim period.
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numl0ck said:
I couldn't believe the email we got from them. Basically "we took blahblahbhal.com and gave you your money back. If you would like to own blahblahblah.com you can buy it for $$$." WTF??? I just paid for it, and thought I owned it but apparently not. :mad2: The whole thing happend in less than 48 hours.

I wonder how many others have been ripped off by them. We transfered all of our domains away from GoDaddy to Hover after that.
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.... off to start transferring domains away from GoDaddy...
 
I've been using GODADDY for a long long time. May not be the cheapest but very convenient and responsive.
 
flyingron said:
I've been using GODADDY for a long long time. May not be the cheapest but very convenient and responsive.
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I guess...if you define "convenient" as having to click past their own spam...err...."services" everytime you want to administer anything. I think it took me less than 8 clicks to move my domains over to Hover. That's convenient.
 
How about this year guys? Any reviews on GD yet if they have improved in terms of tech support?
vbulletin-smile.gif
 
Most of my domains are at GoDaddy, but the main ones are still with a local provider who I started with years ago.
 
SkyHog said:
That's my biggest fear of GoDaddy. That, and their refusal to adhere to ICANN standards for the reclaim period.
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Heh, I was afraid you were boycotting them for their support of SOPA.
 
jesse said:
I switched to hover awhile back and have been quite happy:
http://www.hover.com
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That's not enough. I would want to know what it takes to transfer away from Hover, not stay with them. That operation really separates sleazy registrars from friendly ones.
 
BTW, my domains are with Gandi. I was thinking about diversifying a little bit, but despite the overwhelming love, what I hear about Hover is unpersuasive and apparently there's no other registrar that provides Gandi's commitment, service, and honesty.
 
zaitcev said:
That's not enough. I would want to know what it takes to transfer away from Hover, not stay with them. That operation really separates sleazy registrars from friendly ones.
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Hover is easy to transfer out of. I used to have all my domains with them back from the IYD.com days. I didn't like Hover because for a while, they had no interface to do simple things such as register nameservers, and were very slow with support requests to do those things. Transferring out, however, was very easy. (I'm told they have since corrected the problems.)

I'm now with GoDaddy, who get more annoying by the day even if for no other reason than the incessant changes to their site. Practically every time I log on I have to find my way around again. But I have an awful lot of domains registered with them, so transferring out would be a real chore.

What I'm really looking for is a registrar that doesn't require me to keep a payment method on file. I'm trying to remove my financial information from... well, basically everywhere. GoDaddy at least accepts PayPal, which is better than saving a credit card.

Rich
 
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