Don’t Pay to Much for Domain Registration and Don’t Get Cheated

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If you haven’t already noticed by reading my other blog posts I am a bit of penny pincher. I try to find things free or as cheap as possible when it comes to anything web related. I do search after search to find what I am looking for at little or no cost. This may be a gift or possibly a curse, not really sure :).

Not only do I search for the cheapest but I try and find the best of the cheapest. If I am going to be cheap I might as well find the best of the cheap right. Cheap doesn’t have to mean poor quality or less valuable. That being said you do have to watch for the cheap with poor quality or service. The same is true when looking for cheap domain registration.
I am currently building a web site for someone and not knowing anything about registering domains they registered a domain through an unknown company (General Hosting). I say unknown because I have never heard of them. I had suggested they register the domain from one of the companies I was familiar with but they didn’t take my advice.

To make a long story short, the domain hosting company would not allow me to change the name servers which would allow me to point the domain to her web site. I emailed them twice with no response. So, I decided to call them. Well, that was one of the most confusing conversations I have ever had. Either the man did not know what I was asking or the he didn’t care to help me. By the end of the conversation he was just plain rude and I think was about to hang up on me. Now, you may be thinking that I must have been rude as well but I am telling I wasn’t. Not sure what is going to happen in this situation. The purchaser (register) of the domain name is going to try and call back.

So what lesson does this teach? Be very careful who you register your domain with and purchase web hosting from. Over the last few years I have registered domains with Yahoo and iPower. At the time I used Yahoo’s domain registry they were having a sale but they are still at a competitive rate of $9.95 per domain name, per year. iPower has been my favorite because they offer a low $6.50 for domain names, per year and unlimited purchases ( this includes with .com, .net, .org). I believe this price is on going and not just a sale price.

iPower.com is the company I registered all my domain names from now. They have an easy check out process and the domain admin panel is also easy to work with. I have heard of other companies offering better deals but now that I have had this experience with the unknown company I am very leary. I would much rather pay a dollar or two more for a domain host that I know I can trust than one I don’t have any experience with. I rarely see a domain registration for less the $6.50 anyway.
This doesn’t mean that I am suggesting you don’t try out buying from another company. Just be warned that they are not all the same. I would suggest doing a search on the domain registration company. Try searching for “company name problems”, or ” trouble with companyname.com”.

As I was writing this I decided to do a search on General Hosting and found a few complaints on different forums. The description of the experience these people had with this company was almost identical to mine. So, it is a really good idea to do a search on any unknown as well as known company before you buy.

In a later post I am going to give some thoughts about choosing domain names? Should you really pay more money for that “perfect” web address?

Buy the way, GoDaddy is another good place to register a domain though I don’t have personal experience with them other than searching domains on their site. I have heard good things about them plus they have a deal where if you purchase something other than domain registration you can purchase domain registration for only $1.99( GoDaddy.com $1.99 Domain Names ). Yahoo is also having a special for new customers > Domain names from Yahoo! only $1.99/first year. Yahoo is also easy to work with and I do recommend them if you can get this deal (regular price is $9.95 per year). Just giving you more options even though I think iPower is the best.

I also posted about my favorite web host if you want to check it out.

 

March 15, 2007 | Filed Under Blogging Tips, Cheap Domain Registration | 2 Comments