Searching for the best Domain Registrar
by Rick Smith (August 21, 2004)
Many domain registrants believe that the more expensive registrars and resellers provide better support, while others look for only the lowest cost. While I have found that sometimes less expensive registrars can provide more features and even good support, the lowest cost registrar may not always be the best choice.. To find the best registrar for your domain, you must look for the combination of factors that meet your requirements at reasonable cost..
Navigating through hundreds of ICANN registrars and their resellers to find all the unique combinations of features and prices was an impossible task. Therefore, I decided to start with those registrars that I was already using. I had purchased several "dropped" domains, so I had access to many different and unique registrars.
I decided to look at the following key features of each registrar or reseller:
Unique features, both good and badSupportAccount informationEmail change processName servers supportPricingRenewal notificationTransfers
And then provide a "pros and cons" summary.
To add more realism to this exercise, I decided to attempt to both clear the organization name and change the email address on each of my domains.
This article is written for the intermediate to advanced domain user, as I have assumed a working knowledge of the vocabulary used during in the domain registration process. If some of the terms are unfamiliar to you, please let me know and I will try my best to explain them to your personally, or in an upcoming article.
Recently many name drop buyers have had problems with specific registrars and other people wonder which one registrar to use. At the time I started this article series, I controlled over seventy domains, currently registered at over a dozen registrars/resellers. I had used several other registrars previously and have dropped several. This series of articles highlights many of them.
Registrars and resellers are listed in alphabetical order in this article and will be added on an ongoing basis.
Update: Since the process of documenting the good and bad points of each registrar, is taking far longer than I anticipated, I decided to add some short comments about other registrars I have dealt with. While these comments are not as "in-depth" as this article, the comment can help shed some light on the key features or problems with these other registrars. Please look at my comments about some domain registrars.
Copyright
© 2004 Rick Smith All rights reserved.
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