After having written about what to consider when registering domain names, I’m now going to recommend a few domain registrars to you that I think are not only safe places for your domains but that also offer affordable prices, value-added services and a reliable customer support.

Structure of the article:

- What domain registrars should offer
- Moniker
- NameCheap
- GoDaddy
- Other registrars

What domain registrars should offer

When I was shopping around for a domain registrar where I could store the bulk of my domain portfolios, I was mainly looking at a few criteria only.

First and foremost, I needed a registrar where I knew my domain portfolio would be safe and protected against theft or loss. Like many domain investors, I have spent many thousands of dollars on acquiring domain names over the years. Losing a domain would be equal to losing all the money invested in it, as well as losing the future earnings potential. Therefore, security has always been the most important criterion for me.

Secondly, a domain registrar’s customer support must be reliable. It must be permanently available at least during business hours and on work days. Better yet, a registrar should have a support team on duty 24/7 in case there is an emergency with one of your domain names. Few things are worse than being on the verge of losing a domain or not being able to log into your account but then not being able to get in touch with the company your domain is registered with. Good domain registrars not only have an extensive FAQ section in place but also have a toll-free support number you can call at any time as well as an online support ticket system. Urgent matters should be answered very quickly.

Only now do I compare prices. For some registration fees may be the most important criterion when choosing a registrar, but for me security and customer support really come first. The extra cost of paying a little more for your domain registrations is nothing compared to the financial damage of losing your domains or having your account hacked. Still, prices do matter. But don’t be too cheap. There may be some registrars offering ridiculously low prices, sometimes even below the registry fee. It is unlikely that the registrars will be able to hold these prices for a long time, and if they try they will save money by providing a bad service. Registration fees of $7-10 per .com domain are fair to both you as the registrant and the registrar. Prices in this range cover the registry fee, ICANN fee as well as other expenses of the registrar company. You don’t want a registrar to rip you off, but you don’t want your registrar to go bankrupt and close down, either.

Now consider the extra services the domain registrars offer. Such value-added services include, for example, email forwarding, URL forwarding, whois privacy, web hosting plans, or web design packages just to name a few. Usually these services come at an extra fee, but it’s not unusual that the basic services like email and URL forwarding are included in the registration fees. When pointing domains to a specific location on the web, it’s mostly important that you’re able to change the domains’ name servers, but URL and email forwarding can be quite useful in some cases, so it’s nice if you can get this extra. Talking about security, a handful of registrars offers special security services for clients with valuable portfolios. Moniker, for example, has a new so-called “MaxLock” product on offer that provides extra protection for your domain names. Such services may be costly but they’re worth it in the end if your portfolio is worth a lot.

Finally, you should also be able to quickly manage your domain names. This is especially the case if you have hundreds or thousands of domains in your account. Making changes to such a large number of domain names piece by piece would be unacceptable, so make sure your registrar offers bulk tools or similar portfolio management tools. This allows you to make changes to many domains at the same time or to sort your domains into different portfolios. The changes you make should also be processed by the registrar in a timely manner. It’s just annoying when a registrar doesn’t process an urgent whois update or name server changes after hours. Today such changes should be automatically processed within minutes.

I think that’s about it. There may be other things to consider, but if you pay attention to the aforementioned you can’t do much wrong. On a last note, only use registrars that are officially ICANN-accredited. I also don’t recommend using a reseller company, because resellers are usually owned by individuals or very small companies that may not be around in the near future anymore.

Now, here are a few selected domain name registrars meeting the criteria listed above and which I therefore recommend using:

Moniker.com

Moniker Online Services, LLC is one of the most popular registrars used by professional domain investors and large corporate domain owners alike. It is also my main registrar of choice. The company is based in Pompano Beach, Florida. In early 2008, Moniker was acquired by Oversee.net, the parent company of DomainSponsor, Low.com, Revenue.net and SnapNames, inter alia.

Moniker has a good customer support with a toll-free support phone number, support ticket system and a personal account manager for clients with larger portfolios. Personally, I’ve only had good experiences with Moniker’s support team. The prices for domain registrations can vary slightly depending on the size of your portfolio. The registration fee is around $8 for .com, .org and .info. For .net the pricing is currently below $7.

Today, Moniker is not only a registrar company but it also offers secondary market services like domain appraisals, domain auctions and domain escrow.

NameCheap.com

NameCheap is a smaller registrar company, but I used to have a lot of domains there before I moved them to Moniker. NameCheap has an attractive pricing structure and fast customer support. It’s also easy to make changes to domains or obtain EPP codes for transfer-outs.

As of this writing, the registration fee for all the major domain extensions is $9.69, .info domains can even be registered at a low $2.98 per year. Included in the annual registration fee are email forwarding, URL forwarding, DNS changes and, for a limited time, whois privacy.

GoDaddy.com

GoDaddy is a special case for me. I don’t really like the way it promotes its services, I don’t like the cluttered website, the sometimes misleading checkout process, and I really cannot stand some of the terms of its service, such as the 60-day domain lock after whois changes. (This domain lock prohibits the transfer of a domain out to another registrar even if you only make minor changes to the domain name’s whois information.)

But still, I have used GoDaddy on a few occasions in the past, mostly when obtaining ownership of domains I have purchased from other domainers. GoDaddy is an extremely popular service and due to its marketing efforts the company is well-known outside the domain industry. Aside from the forced 60-day domain lock, I didn’t have any real problems with GoDaddy, though, so I will recommend them, in part based on my own experience and in part based on the experience of fellow domainers. I would still like to remark that I would strongly prefer the other companies mentioned above to GoDaddy, especially Moniker is by far the superior service compared to GD.

According to GoDaddy’s website, prices are $9.99 for .com, $8.99 for .net, $19.99 for .org and, which looks like a limited-time offer, $0.99 for .info. But beware: The ICANN fee is not yet included in those prices, so you will have to add another $0.20.

Other registrars

There are also a bunch of other domain registrar companies worth noting. I haven’t extensively used a lot of other registrars myself, so I can’t comment on most of them but I decided to list at least one of them here because I trust the ability to judge of my fellow domain industry peers:

One of the best and most secure domain registrars in the industry, besides Moniker, is Fabulous.com. Fabulous is owned by Dark Blue Sea (DBS) and it also operates a popular domain parking service. I don’t know why I haven’t used Fab yet (as it is sometimes referred to on domain forums). I guess it is because I’ve been a happy Moniker customer for a long time and there hasn’t been any reason for me to go to another registrar. Just like Moniker, Fabulous is mostly used by owners of large portfolios. It is a secure registrar and also offers competitive prices (users of its parking program may be eligible to lower prices than its other customers).

This is another basic article in my domain guide. It shall explain what is important to consider when choosing a domain name and when ultimately registering domain names. Then I also briefly note what you should be paying attention to when managing your domain registrations. Although the tutorial is targeted mainly at those new to domain names, it may also contain the one or other information interesting to experienced domainers.

Structure of the article:

- Where to register a domain name?
- Cost of registering a domain name
- Choosing a domain name
- Checking availability
- How to register a domain name
- Manage your domain registrations

Where to register a domain name?

Firstly, as already posted in my Introduction to the Domain Name System, the domain registry is at the top of the domain system. It manages the different domain extensions. VeriSign, for example, is responsible for the .com top-level domain. However, you usually won’t register a domain directly at the registry, but you will go to a specialized company functioning as middle-man. This company is the domain registrar. The registrar will register the domain with the registry on your behalf, and it provides you with a user interface for the management of your registrations.

Today, there are quite a lot of registrars you can choose for your domain registrations. Some registrars are better, some are worse. (Go to: Recommended Domain Registrars.) But you usually can’t do much wrong when registering a domain at one of the bigger domain registrar companies. These are, for instance, Moniker, Fabulous and GoDaddy among others.

Cost of registering a domain name

Domain registrations are not free. The end-user price you pay for your domain registrations varies among the different registrars. In today’s market an annual registration fee between 7 and 10 US dollars per .com domain is a fair price.

This annual registration fee includes the registry cost (which is $6.86 for .com domains as of this writing), the $0.20 ICANN fee as well as a markup for the registrar to cover its costs and make a profit.

Most registrars also offer value-added services you can buy together with your domain registrations. These will come at an additional costs specified by the registrar. This way it’s possible to purchase email forwarding, URL forwarding, domain whois privacy or other services and privileges you wouldn’t otherwise get with your registration.

Choosing a domain name

Maybe you already have a unique name in mind that you want to register for your website or for investment. Unfortunately, all the best .com domains have already been registered long ago and are no longer available for registration. This is especially true for generic keyword domains.

That leaves you with different options. You can try to acquire the domain from its owner, you can come up with other domains, imagine made-up terms that may be brandable and so on… In short, be creative.

For businesses, I always suggest to first of all register the company name in as many variations and under as many extensions as possible so that it won’t fall into the hands of cybersquatters. Then it also makes sense for companies to buy keyword domains describing their products and services. To give an example, General Electric owns GeneralElectric.com, GE.com, General-Electric.com, GeneralElectric.net and lots of other variations of its trademark. But it also owns a portfolio of quite valuable generic or semi-generic domains including TransportationServices.com, Coincidence.com, Ecomagination.com and others. Such domains are perfect to complete a company’s domain portfolio and hence make it easier for customers and business partners to find your products and services on the web. (Fun fact: GE’s domain portfolio consists of almost 15,000 domain names.)

All in all, it’s most important to have your target audience in mind when choosing a domain name. If you’re going to register a domain for your personal website, maybe choose your name as I have done. Or come up with something original, with a slogan or anything else that will be easy to type in and remember.

If you’re going to register or acquire a domain for your business website, make sure to buy your company name and also try to use domains that will support your company’s professional online presence. Choosing suitable and valuable domains is a very important task that should be part of any company’s marketing strategy. (Also see: Benefits of Generic Domains.)

Checking availability

Once you have chosen which domain you want to register, the next thing to do is to check whether it is still available for registration. Checking a domain’s availability is pretty easy.

For this, you can go directly to the domain registry and look up the domain in the registry’s whois database. Let’s say you want to register a .com domain and want to see if you can still register it. VeriSign is the official .com registry, so you’ll go to VeriSign.com. The direct link to VeriSign’s whois lookup tool is http://registrar.verisign-grs.com/whois/. Then type in the domain you want and viola, VeriSign will give you an answer. If it doesn’t find a match, the domain is still available.

But you can also go to a third-party whois tool such as the popular DomainTools.com or iWhois.com.

Even easier, you can go to the domain registrar company where you would like to register your domain. The registrar will automatically check all domains you’re about to order during the checkout process.

Sometimes you might want to check the availability of more than one domain. Say you want to register 100 domains. Then it would be tedious to type in one domain after another. For such tasks, there are a couple of bulk whois tools which you can use to fasten this process up a little. DomainTools.com offers a bulk checker at http://www.domaintools.com/bulk-check/, into which you can copy and paste large lists of domains. Most registrars should be offering a bulk whois tool, too.

How to register a domain name

Since you’ve read the domain guide up to this section, the process of registering a domain name should be self-explanatory by now.

Choose the domain you want, and then choose a domain registrar you trust and where registration fees seem reasonable. Then go to the registrar’s website where you will find an empty box for you to type your domain into. If you want to register more than one domain, use the registrar’s bulk registration tool. After hitting enter, the registrar will check if the domains are available and if yes, you can add them to your cart and go through the check-out process.

Maybe I should elaborate on the whois information at this point. The whois information are stored at the domain registries. These information include a domain’s creation date, the date when it was last updated and its expiration date. The whois also includes information and contact details for the owner of the domain name.

There is usually an administrative contact, a technical contact and a billing contact listed in a domain’s whois. These contacts can be the same person or they can be different contacts, depending on who is responsible for the management of the domain and who should keep the whois info up to date (administrative contact), who may make technical changes to the domain such as DNS changes (technical contact) and whom all bills or other messages shall be sent to (billing contact).

Some people are tempted to provide false information in the whois, because they want to stay anonymous for some reason. But be advised that it is prohibited to provide false whois information. Registrants using fake or outdated contact details risk losing their domain names.

There is a legal and easy way to be anonymous, though. It is possible to purchase whois privacy as an additional service with your domain registrations. If you have your whois protected, your domain registrar will list its own contact details in the domain name and you will therefore remain anonymous. Your contact details given to the registrar must still be correct and up to date, because they will be stored by the registrar in case a third party has claims against the actual owner of the protected domain name. It is then possible that the registrar will reveal your contact details to the third party, but you will still stay anonymous for everyone making a whois lookup for the protected domain.

Manage your domain registrations

After you have successfully registered your domain name, you have become the owner of that domain name. That means you must now manage your domains. Domain management tasks include forwarding the domain to an URL of your choice, pointing it to name servers, setting up email addresses under the domain, keeping the whois records up to date, and renewing the domain.

This last task is very important. If you fail to renew your domain at the end of the one-year registration period, it will expire and eventually be deleted from the registry database. Big companies have already forgotten to renew their valuable domains, which then dropped and were snapped up by competing companies or cybersquatters. Getting their expired domains back has often been a grinding and expensive task for those companies, but those costs can be saved by making sure you always know when your domain names will expire.

The good domain registrar services allow you to set your domains on auto-renew. The registrar’s system will then automatically renew the domains for you when the expiration date comes near. You will still have to make sure your billing details are correct or that you have an account balance sufficient to cover the renewal fee, though.

It is also possible to advance-renew domains for up to 10 years so that you won’t have to think about the renewal of your domains in the near future. This is also useful if you want to save money, because domain registries and registrars may decide to increase domain registration fees. For example, VeriSign has increased its registry cost by almost one dollar within the past three years. Most price hikes are expected soon.

As much as renewing domains is a must-do for every domain owner, it is equally important that your domains are secured against loss or theft. Always have your domains locked at the registrar, unless you’re going to transfer it out to another owner or registrar. Also keep your registrar login details secret and use unique passwords that are difficult to hack.

Choosing a domain registrar with a proven track record is already half the battle. Moniker and Fabulous, for example, are known to go to great lengths when it comes to protecting their customers’ valuable domain portfolios. More details on recommended and secure domain registrars can be found in the next article in this series.