Registering A Domain

[Greenside]

Just about to register a new domain that might (or might not, on past experience) turn into a good business that I could operated from here or other Asian countries. I usually use 1&1 because I have an account there and of course it's easy just to keep on that way but they don't support CNames so my personal website has to link to an IP address which in theory could change at some point.

Any suggestions other than GoDaddy who I hear good things about?

Also: This idea hinges on a database that visitors will both populate and access. It will have multiple choice and some free form text fields and will probably be linked to one or more public forums. Any thoughts on software would be welcome too.

[sjaak327]

You don't state what domain you are looking for, if it's a standard .com domain, Namecheap is cheap and hassle free.

[sniffdog]

At US$9.29 for .com domains, Namecheap isn't that cheap ....

I have all my domains at Godaddy.com .... because it's easy and well priced (there is a special offer for .com domains at US$6.99 until August 31). Another reason is that if you register 5 or more domains

you'll get private registration for free for all of them. The control panel is easy to use.

[Rice_King]

For the registration part, you know that I like Go Daddy. I have never tried their web hosting.

As for the database part, most hosting sites offer (at least one) MySQL database that would probably suffice for what you want to do.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Rice_King

[sjaak327]

At US$9.29 for .com domains, Namecheap isn't that cheap ....

I have all my domains at Godaddy.com .... because it's easy and well priced (there is a special offer for .com domains at US$6.99 until August 31). Another reason is that if you register 5 or more domains

you'll get private registration for free for all of them. The control panel is easy to use.

Well, the standard price at godaddy.com is 9.95 for a .com domain per year, that doesn't beat namecheap's 9.29. Both are cheap in any case.

Maybe godaddy has better prices in bulk, wouldn't know.

[onethailand]

At GoDaddy, simply enter "HASH3" as a coupon code and your .com registration will magically go down to $6.99 + ICANN registration fee of 25 cents.

This coupon has been working for a couple of years now. I have 100 domain names at GoDaddy and have never had any real problem with them except occasionally when something gets auto-renewed (I always choose manual renewal).

[dave111223]

Godaddy is consistently cheap, but i hate their website with passion; it's slow, the customer ID is some random number that is easy to forget, they try and sell you just about everything under the sun as you trying to checkout a simple domain, they require you setup some "we can charge you whatever and whenever" account option in Paypal.

But for Cheap SSLs godaddy seems to be the best choice i've found.

Personally i like to keep my domains with Yahoo, as i find their checkout system very simple and also their domain management system is easy to use. When talking about domains i hear nothing but bad things about Yahoo domains, but in my experience i like them.

One note about Yahoo, if you buy a domain from them make sure you don't purchase the "Private Domain" option, all they do is put some bullsh*t mailing address instead of your real address, but even keep your real full name displayed on the whois. Just fill in bullsh*t information in the whois for free by yourself.

I was pretty pissed when (like an idiot) i paid like $10 extra per year to get a "Private" domain, and then saw my full name on the Whois.

Edited August 8, 2008 by dave111223

[Khun Jack]

GoDaddy is the cheapest, renewed recently for a little above 7 dollars, but their style sucks.

Their website style is hideous and yes very slow loading and their checkout is a trap but choose express checkout.

Control panel is ok, but loads slow as well.

Never never buy any hosting with GoDaddy if you need a little more than a very basic website to run.

[sniffdog]

I agree that the Godaddy site is awfully slow. Regarding the member number, it's difficult to remember. But my friend logs in with his email address ... For the time being I am OK ... I know it's starts with a '2' windows give me the whole number automatically.

About the price, I didn't compare the prices of Godaddy with Namecheap. There are lots of sites offering .com domains for $8.95, as a reseller I get them for $7.95.

[moris]

Neamcheap does include WhoisGuard in the price. As far as I know at Godaddy you need to spend some extra for this service. So finally Godaddy is not really cheaper, unless you want your data (name, e-mail) public. Now at Namecheap they include SSL certificate for free.

Aslo there are always some coupons so you pay USD 1-2 less than the price stated on their website.

Just my 2 cents

[onethailand]

Neamcheap does include WhoisGuard in the price. As far as I know at Godaddy you need to spend some extra for this service. So finally Godaddy is not really cheaper, unless you want your data (name, e-mail) public. Now at Namecheap they include SSL certificate for free.

Aslo there are always some coupons so you pay USD 1-2 less than the price stated on their website.

Just my 2 cents

Interesting - WhoisGuard is free for a limited time, that's not bad value. The free PositiveSSL certificate appears to be a promotion which runs through the end of the year.

Thanks for pointing that out. Though there's maybe only 1 of my 100 domains which could use an SSL certificate, WhoisGuard is kind of nice too. At GoDaddy you need to register or transfer at least 5 domains at a time to get free PrivacyGuard.

Edited August 9, 2008 by onethailand

[OxfordWill]

enom.com

See if you can find a reseller account going somewhere. Namecheap is just a reseller of enom. Godaddy is shit.

[sniffdog]

Kind of silly .... buy 1 domain, get Whoisguard free ..... get five and you'll have to pay $7.88.

So that means you will only get one free WhoisGuard, you'll have to pay for the next ones. You might want to open separate accounts

to make use of the free offer.

I wonder if Namecheap is a Enom reseller. If I remember well, Namecheap is a subsidiary of Register.com, which is a registrar.

BTW Any one wondered how Register.com stays alive with their $35 registrations?

[moris]

Kind of silly .... buy 1 domain, get Whoisguard free ..... get five and you'll have to pay $7.88.

So that means you will only get one free WhoisGuard, you'll have to pay for the next ones. You might want to open separate accounts to make use of the free offer.

(...)

The information on their website is a bit confusing, but I have several domains with Namecheap and I got Whoisguard free for each one.

[Crushdepth]

Godaddy is consistently cheap, but i hate their website with passion; it's slow, the customer ID is some random number that is easy to forget, they try and sell you just about everything under the sun as you trying to checkout a simple domain

I hate Godaddy as well - I have no comment on the quality of their services, but there is so much advertising rubbish splattered over the admin interface that I just can't stand it. It's *bad*.

I use Yahoo domains, very simple, cheap and low hassle for my personal sites. However, transferring a Yahoo-registered domain to someone else is diabolical - you *can't*, you have to contact the underlying registrar (which is Melbourne IT) and they have no established process for coping with such requests, as incredible as it may seem.

[Greenside]

Thanks for all your suggestions. In the end I opted for Namecheap and things went pretty smoothly with free WhoIsGuard on all but the .co.uk names which don't allow it for some reason.

[jayhech]

HOw about hostmonster.com ?? Anyone has any experience with this one?

[onethailand]

HOw about hostmonster.com ?? Anyone has any experience with this one?

Don't know about their registration services - but I highly recommend staying away from their hosting services. Stupid me paid 2 years up front to get a good deal - and the service is the worst I've had on any host, and the average ping time is well over 1000 milliseconds from another US-based test server (it's no more than 600 to my hosts in Singapore and Thailand). Your domains get shut down for dubious reasons, and half your scripts won't run properly and when you try to find out what went wrong, you get cryptic (or no) error messages.

[Dustoff]

As with everything else, of course, you get what you pay for, or don't pay for.

I use IXwebhosting and am very happy indeed with them!

[OxfordWill]

namecheap is a reseller of enom, for sure. I recently transferred some domains from godaddy to namecheap and the godaddy tech told me that the transfer status shows them as being sent to enom. public whois on the domains during the propagation confirmed this.

Edited August 10, 2008 by OxfordWill

[moris]

Greenside, I'm glad that you already decided and hope you'll be happy with them as I am. It is quite easy and fast to administrate.

Maybe I am not up to date, as I was checking this some time ago, but Namecheap is still cheaper and provides easier reg. process than enom. Directly with enom was ... some kind of complicated.

I just visited their website and can't find even prices. You have register first to know how much are the domains.

BTW, do you know what are the prices at enom?

[Veazer]

As with everything else, of course, you get what you pay for, or don't pay for.

I use IXwebhosting and am very happy indeed with them!

Glad your service is better than mine, i'm in the process of moving away from them because my sites have slowed to a crawl. Are you using PHP/MySQL or are they simple html sites? Mine are practically unusable.

[Guest Reimar]

I do my own hosting in house for web-, file-, FTP- and mail server but I using the service from No-IP for the DNS hosting and some other services.

Didn't looks cheap at the first moment but to take a deeper look, they having some advantages.

For me the biggest advantage is the Mail-Backup. If I use services like from my ISP or Network Solution or others, the cost is quite high and limited. By No-IP if have unlimited mail and unlimited size for 7 days downtime of my mail server for THB ~1,000 a year which is very cheap. 200 MB max cost in Thailand app. THB 15,000 a year and Network Solution is THB ~900 a year for just 100 MB! Ok, the limit is 7 days but is a mail server ever down more than 1 or 2 days?

My complete payment to No-IP is app THB 6,000 a year for all services I need with 3 different Domains and using both static and dynamic IP as well. Uptime is 99.99%

The advantage for in house hosting on the other hand is that I'm able to update in zero time, changes just within seconds and so on. And I've 100% control over my data and no need to place them somewhere in the Cyber Space!

Cheers.

[OxfordWill]

enom scale the pricing based on what volume of sales you can generate, and some other things. You have to get a reseller account from a reseller, usually, and your pricing will change over time.

[trunknuk]

If you don't know any better.. go with the biggest one: http://www.webhosting.info/registrars/