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Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

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Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#21

Post by Shooter »

onwardly wrote: post #17
Shooter wrote: post #8

Going beyond shady sales practices and bad customer service, I've actually had several registrars (and/or individual registrar employees) try to steal domains from me in the past, In some cases, I had to resort to lawsuits to get my domains back. I own a few thousand domains (no, I'm not a domain squatter), and all of the domains I've had trouble with were very valuable. The worst instance was over a two-letter .com…

How do you own several thousand domain names without being a squatter? Also interested to hear any details about how they tried to steal domain names from you.

1. I define a domain squatter as someone that buys domains and sits on them in the hopes of achieving a (usually inflated) payday, without actively using them except for maybe a scammy AdSense page. In contrast, I think about 90% of my domains are in active use, and the rest have been reserved for projects that are in the pipeline. [And by 'in the pipeline', I mean funding has been set aside and other work is being done on the project.] I own quite a few companies, and once you get into lead generation for those companies (and clients in turn), localization efforts, landing pages, educational materials, etc. - it is very easy to start racking up the domains. I've also been buying domains for many years.

I HAVE sold several domains, but usually only ones that I find a better domain for, or ones where I have abandoned a project. A tiny number of the 'empty' domains were reserved for my existing companies that are not accepting new clients...just to hold onto IP. I would develop them if we started accepting new clients. I have also bought a few domains with the sole intention of reselling them quickly, but only when I had a buyer in mind for a brandable name that had not been registered yet or for a very unique/rare domain that I had gotten indirectly via corporate acquisition.

2. In the simplest case, a registrar employee turned off my transfer block and then moved my domain directly into his account. He also disabled my email alerts.

Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#22

Post by Shooter »

miles wrote: post #10
Shooter wrote: post #8

Going beyond shady sales practices and bad customer service, I've actually had several registrars (and/or individual registrar employees) try to steal domains from me in the past, In some cases, I had to resort to lawsuits to get my domains back. I own a few thousand domains (no, I'm not a domain squatter), and all of the domains I've had trouble with were very valuable. The worst instance was over a two-letter .com…

I use several registrars that have been mentioned, but I still haven't found one that I consider both really good and cheap. Do you mind sharing which registrar you've found really good without necessarily being cheap?

It's the "really good" part of the equation that is missing, unfortunately...I have only found cheap ones, mediocre ones, and bad ones. There isn't a single one that I have been thrilled with as far as price, customer service, and business practices. Shadiness tends to be contagious in certain industries, and I think some of the ones that pride themselves on their business practices just haven't realized how they can improve yet.

Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#24

Post by sabj »

charliepark wrote: post #9

I've used a number of different registrars, and the one I keep coming back to again and again is DreamHost. I don't know whether you need to host with them to use them to register domains, but ... here's what I love about them: DreamHost makes it really really easy to move your domains away from DreamHost. That sounds counter-intuitive (if they're so good, why would I want to move them away?), but it isn't. When you…

Purely from a domain perspective, I too have never had any problems with Dreamhost - fine support, reasonable price, no problem transferring, etc.

One good bonus is free proxy registration; valuable if you don't want spam, but will still allow you to forward emails or whatnot received.

Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#25

Post by alexkiwi »

photon_off wrote: post #19
alexkiwi wrote: post #16

Moniker.com is where it's at for me, privacy-wise they have been awesome.

What specifically are they awesome at with regards to your privacy?

Back maybe 2 years ago, I got a C&D for copyright infringement on a website for a college student organization. Basically what happened was that we used the school name in the domain and the school was trying to bully us into giving them the domain.

The school called moniker and when they refused to give them my contact information or take the site down because their request was illegitimate. Moniker + DMCA loopholes are awesome.

Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#27

Post by miles »

Just stumbled onto this comment by PG from a few years back:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150565

"I use EasyDNS. They're expensive, but reliable and never do anything evil."

Figured I'd post it here, since EasyDNS has not been mentioned yet. Also, it looks like Y Combinator is still registered there.

Re: Ask HN: Which domain registration site would you recommend?

#29

Post by wrs »

gexla wrote: post #13

I use Dynadot, I consider them both really good and cheap. ;) Dynadot is also an actual registrar rather than a reseller. I don't know if they allow this anymore, but last time I ordered an incorrect domain name I was able to delete it for a refund through the control panel of the site. I don't know of any other registrars that allow that. Otherwise they have the same features of most other sites. Their interface is…

+1 for Dynadot, I've been using them for a few years and been happy. Simple but full-featured site, no in-your-face marketing, great pricing. And yes, they do give you direct access to the domain grace period feature (though now restricted like everyone else by the domain-tasting prevention quotas).

Only downside I've experienced is that they have business hours -- if you have an issue on Sunday night they won't see it until Monday morning. They've been increasing the hours as they go, though.

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