October 17, 2005

Domain Registration services

Written by Brian Turner

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There are a number of domain registration services available, and I’ve used a few already. This section simply offers my own experiences with different domain registrars:

123-Reg
Enom
Registerfly
Gandi
GoDaddy

123-reg

Website: http://www.123-reg.co.uk

123-reg used to advertise loudly that you could buy their domains for just 3p - which everyone knew was simply an artificial flat-rate cost before adding an appropriate admin fee on top.

Thankfully, since they were taken over by Pipex, 123-reg have made their advertising clearer.

Which is good because 123-reg are actually one of the best UK domain name registrars around, and provide a wonderfully economical way to purchase UK domains - such as .co.uk, .org.uk, and .me.uk.

Although they advertise .co.uk domains at £2.59/year, this doesn’t include VAT, and neglects to mention that you have to buy then in 2-year blocks. Even still, the overall price adds up to just £6 for 2 years registration of a UK domain name. Which is cheaper than buying a .com for 1 year from most registrars.

As someone in the UK building sites for the UK market, I do a lot of shopping at 123-reg. With the volume I work with, that inevitably leads to one or two issues I need to clear up with support, which is usually pretty good and responsive by e-mail. Their phone support is premium rate, so best if you don’t touch that.

There’s nothing really negative that can be said about 123-reg, other than the site is built in frames, which makes it sometimes less friendly to use - again, if you are working with volume.

Also, the Top Level Domains (TLDs) tend to be on the pricy side, which is a shame as otherwise I’d do more registrations through them.

It’s also a shame that .gb.com and .uk.com remain somewhat costly, too, being priced towards £50 for 2 year registration of those specialist domains.

Otherwise a very recommended service, and the only place I use for registration of UK domains.

Enom

Website: http://www.enom.com

Enom reseller accounts are pretty coveted, because you can buy .com, .net, and .org domain names for less than $8 a year each.

The downside is that you cannot simply pay for each purchase individually, but instead have to forward a minimum of $100 into an Enom account, and then make your purchases from that.

This makes Enom very unfriendly to use if you are only looking to buy domains in small quanities, because you’ll likely find yourself with money languishing in your account with nothing to do except to renewal existing domain name puchases.

This system may also cause problems if you find yourself disputing any individual charges, because you would be forced to use the Enom internal dispute resolution process - to issue a chargeback, you would have to chargeback for the entire amount you entered into your Enom account, and this may seriously complicate your domain purchases.

I’ve never had to use Enom support, even though I have a number of domains registered with them, as everything otherwise runs smoothly.

Overall, though, I find myself moving away from Enom, as their policy of forcing customers to pay into an account to make any kind of purchase forces you into a continued dependency with no real consumer protections.

Registerfly

Website: http://www.registerfly.com

Registerfly are actually resellers of Enom - but unlike Enom, you don’t have to deposit monies into a registrar account first before buying - you can purchase in whatever volume you want, at the frequency you want.

The trade-off is that you pay slightly more for a Registerfly domain than you do for an Enom one - generally in the region or $2, so you pay around $10 for a Top Level Domain (.com, .net, org, etc).

However, Registerfly do have a trick up their sleeve - very cheap privacy protection on your registration information, to remove it from the public WHOIS database. From Enom it’s almost the price of a domain - from Registerfly, it’s just a dollar extra (it’s worth noting that opt-in privacy on .co.uk’s is free for individuals).

As you’d expect from someone using Enom services, Registerfly does generally run smoothly. However, if you need have a problem their tech support can be very poor - within a month of joining up I was sent a dummy invoice, but was unable to get a response via e-mail support. The issue was eventually cleared up, but it didn’t instil confidence.

Nevertheless, if I’m looking to buy a TLD but want to keep my privacy, then I have no problem with going to Registerfly, though it isn’t my preferred domain registrar otherwise.

Gandi

Website: http://www.gandi.net

Gandi are the first registrar I ever used, and still have a handful of TLDs registered with them. Once you’ve finished marvelling at the interesting logo, it’s not always easy to find how to register and administrate domains - intuitive the set-up is not.

However, once you get inside things become a little smoother - though because it’s a French company the English translations can seem a little clumsy on the reference side.

I’ve only ever had a single support issue - when I was double-charged for a renewal. Unfortunately, in having no response from their support department, Gandi remain the only company online I’ve ever had to issue a chargeback to.

Even still, I’d normally be happy using them - I’m generally a believer in keeping eggs in different baskets, and if that’s your approach to domain registration then I can safely recommend Gandi otherwise.

The only real downside to make in that regard is that if you are buying as part of a VAT-registered company, you may find the VAT rules in buying from a European company overly-complicates tax issues for you, and so best to look at US domain registrars.

Otherwise, I have no problem renewing my domains with Gandi.

GoDaddy

Website: http://www.godaddy.com

Godaddy have a variable reputation, which has left me using them sparingly.

So far, domain registration hasn’t been a problem for Top Level Domains (TLDs). They can be obtained pretty cheaply - comparably with Enom prices - but without having to set up an account to deposit funds into first.

The trade-off? Well, GoDaddy throw themselves into upsell in a pretty vigorous way - everytime you click a page, you have “special” offers shouted at you. Even buying a domain name isn’t free of this process, which after a while is little better than a nuisance.

However, so far no problems with the few domains I’ve purchased.

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