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How a domain registrar can kill your business

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31–40 of 283 posts

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#31

thought this would be another idiotic story but it’s actually valuable. still, some blame falls in their shoulders, cutting it so close. anyway: use mark monitor. don’t know if they do .io though.

While they did cut it close for looking at renewal status, based on the following quote from the article, I can infer that the domain was set to auto-renew:

> I knew our domain should be renewed about these dates, and we were already billed for this renewal.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#32
post #24

Back in the late 90's before it was Verisign (I can't recall the name), my domain registration could only be changed with an email from my domain. Of course I didn't have my domain up since I switched ISP and had to move my DNS and mail server. Catch 22; what a cluster fuck. Weeks of phone calls with no resolutions. I was going to Virginia anyway, so I physically showed up at Verisign (I wanted to bring a baseball ba…

I'm so happy for OLED phones so I can use GPS in either orientation without severe distortion/dimming.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#34
post #11

My registrar suspended my domain because an abusive user was using a subdomain for phishing. They told me they can't inform me first of abuse so I can deal with it; they'll suspend the domain immediately. Who's a good registrar that will contact me first if they get an abuse report?

I'm printing and framing this for the next time our PO brings this amazing sub-domain per user idea back on our backlog.

The problem was the phishing, not the subdomain. If your app allows users to run phishing operations, moving the content from user.foo.com to www.foo.com/user probably won't help much in parent's scenario.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#35
post #5

That's a horrible situation, and one I'd encourage everyone to try to avoid - register production critical domains with a company that provides live phone support and stick with tried and true TLDs. Yeah, it may cost more, but this story just illustrates that you're staking your entire company on a $15/yr service, and you get what you pay for. Even if you want to run your marketing/landing page/etc off a .io or other…

Indeed, there's a reason large multi-nationals use companies like MarkMonitor as their Domain Register, even if they could get the same for $30/year, the potential loss in revenue and brand damage could be worth tens of thousands. It is a much harder balancing act for a startup, finding a domain register who is reputable and responsive but not "overly" expensive. Even if your entire business relies on it, $1K+/year j…

You don't have to go all the way to $1k+/yr to get much more piece of mind. For well under $100/yr, EasyDNS offers fantastic support.

My go-to example of their customer service philosophy: A number of years ago, there was some problem in the electric grid that resulted in power outages over most of the Eastern US and Canada. In response to just their customer service being unavailable for 1 hr during the much longer outage (their production services were unaffected), they offered me a partial refund without me even knowing what had happened. I didn't take it.

Usual disclaimer: Not affiliated with them in any way other than as a satisfied customer for more than a decade.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#36

Who on earth uses .io for production critical domains?

.io domains are popular, especially among the HN crowd; despite the high price and poor practices of the registrar. You should know that being on HN.

We use one. It had nothing to do with .io per se; it was just that .io hadn't been as throughly squatted yet.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#37
post #5

That's a horrible situation, and one I'd encourage everyone to try to avoid - register production critical domains with a company that provides live phone support and stick with tried and true TLDs. Yeah, it may cost more, but this story just illustrates that you're staking your entire company on a $15/yr service, and you get what you pay for. Even if you want to run your marketing/landing page/etc off a .io or other…

Even the most reputable tried and true do not guarantee anything. They can and will kick you out on a whim.

You can still mitigate the risk though. Use multiple domains in all marketing materials from different tlds and different registrars. Use regional domains. Have alternative ways to communicate with your customers. It's all very basic stuff. Merely thinking about it gets you far. Most people don't even think about it and blindly rely on centralized services: domain registrars, dns providers, cdn providers, single hosting/cloud provider, etc.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#38

My registrar suspended my domain because an abusive user was using a subdomain for phishing. They told me they can't inform me first of abuse so I can deal with it; they'll suspend the domain immediately. Who's a good registrar that will contact me first if they get an abuse report?

I've been happy with EasyDNS for more than a decade. They charge a bit more but treat customers well and in the few instances where I've contacted support, they've been great. I know there's a lot of cheaper registrars, but $1/wk doesn't seem like a lot to me to never worry about this stuff.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, there's a reason large multi-nationals use companies like MarkMonitor as their Domain Register, even if they could get the same for $30/year, the potential loss in revenue and brand damage could be worth tens of thousands. It is a much harder balancing act for a startup, finding a domain register who is reputable and responsive but not "overly" expensive. Even if your entire business relies on it, $1K+/year j…

You don't have to go all the way to $1k+/yr to get much more piece of mind. For well under $100/yr, EasyDNS offers fantastic support. My go-to example of their customer service philosophy: A number of years ago, there was some problem in the electric grid that resulted in power outages over most of the Eastern US and Canada. In response to just their customer service being unavailable for 1 hr during the much longer…

Ditto. Very happy with EasyDNS these last 6 years. Had some wierd renewal issue 3 years ago similar to what the OP described but had someone on the phone immediately and the problem was resolved within the hour.

Re: How a domain registrar can kill your business

#40
post #5

That's a horrible situation, and one I'd encourage everyone to try to avoid - register production critical domains with a company that provides live phone support and stick with tried and true TLDs. Yeah, it may cost more, but this story just illustrates that you're staking your entire company on a $15/yr service, and you get what you pay for. Even if you want to run your marketing/landing page/etc off a .io or other…

This is no guarantee. GoDaddy and Google Domains, in particular, have demonstrated willingness to throw you into clientHold hell for political reasons, even for "tried and true TLDs".
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