In geeky terms, a web domain is a sequence of letters or words in front of an extension.  For example website.com – the word website is the domain and .com is the extension.

The 3 most popular extensions for web domain names are:

1. .com, short for commercial and used by both large businesses or individual ventures,
2. .net, short for network, also able to be used by anyone, but was once originally designated for technical websites only.
3. .org, which is short for organization and was once only for non-profit organizations or those that didn’t fit into the other categories, but now, anyone can register a website domain name using the extension .org.

Some of the other extensions commonly used in addition to those that are specific to a certain country include:

• .aero
• .biz
• .bz
• .cc
• .coop
• .edu
• .gov
• .info
• .int
• .jobs
• .mil
• .mobi
• .museum
• .name
• .pro
• .tv
• .ws

The Basic Cost of a Web Domain Name

The basic costs of owning a web domain name will vary depending on a number of different factors, including the extension category, as well as what specific features you select, such as email accounts, monthly bandwidth space, whether or not you want to receive visitor statistics and reports about your website.

Generally, .com, .net., and .org domain names are usually within the USD $8.99 to USD $9.99 range per year, while newer extensions like .info are about USD $1.99 for the very first year and then increase to USD $9.99 each year after that.

ICANN Accreditation

ICANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the non-profit corporation that oversees the assignment of domain names and IP addresses.

All domain names are “attached” to the internet’s DNS (Domain Naming System), which serves as a virtual phone book of sorts. The DNS converts the letters and characters used in domain names into their unique, numerical IP (Internet Protocol) address, which allows computers to electronically communicate with one another and share data without the need for using the series of numbers.

Domain name registrars that have been accredited by the ICANN have to go through a stringent accreditation process, which isn’t for small businesses without a lot of money.

If a web domain registrar is not ICANN accredited, chances are they are resellers (distributors) of an ICANN accredited web domain registrar. An example is NameCheap.com – They were resellers for eNom.com before they became ICANN accredited.

ICANN accredited web domain registrars tend to be more reliable but RegisterFly is an exception. In 2007, ICANN ordered about 850,000 RegisterFly web domains to be transferred to GoDaddy. It takes more than just being an ICANN accredited registrar to be considered a good web domain registrar.

I used to buy domain names from RegisterFly and this transition period was a tough time for me because I had to prove to GoDaddy that I owned the domains. Some of the RegisterFly domains belonged to eNom as RegisterFly were their resellers for some time too.

Web Doman Registration Sites I Recommend

Some of the web domain registration sites you may want to use based on their good reputation, service and cost include the 3 companies below.

Netfirms.com is my favourite. The domains only cost USD $7.99 per year with free Whois privacy. The customer’s interface is very easy to use and the customer support is great. This is as good as a steal for this level of service and price.

NameCheap.com offers web domains starting at USD $9.16 per year. NameCheap.com is also now offering their Whois Privacy Protection for free for the first year to new domain names registered or for transferred names as well as a host of other beneficial features. Their interface is very easy to use and they don’t overcharge on their domains.

GoDaddy.com is another reputable web domain registration site that offers web domains $9.99 per year, although including extra services and add-on features can end up being rather expensive. Not to mention they charge an ICANN fee of USD $0.20 per year when others usually waive this charge.

I personally believe their premium prices are for covering their excessive marketing campaigns of hiring pretty models to advertise their services.

Web Domain Registration Sites to Avoid

• Avoid web domain registrars with a history of bad service and complaints from customers. E.g.  RegFly.com, also known as RegisterFly.com.
• Avoid purchasing web domains directly from web hosting companies who will more than likely ask that you sign up for their hosting service, or require that you pay many months in advance, which “locks” you in to a service you may or may not be happy with over time.
• Avoid purchasing web domains from a web design company who may be resellers of an ICANN accredited web domain registrar. They may even overcharge on the domain name fees if you do not know how much a domain name costs per year.

Benefits of Getting Your Own Web Domain

Buying a domain name proves that you are serious about your online business and web presence. It is simply unprofessional to use a free subdomain like “myname.blogspot.com” or “myname.wordpress.com”.

Not only does this help you to appear to others as a credible and professional source, but it also gives your customers or business associates an easy way to stay in contact with you and your company or service.

Using a free sub domain or domain service has its restrictions and you do not own this domain name. Some of them even display intrusive ads on your web site. If you violate the terms and conditions of the free domain service provider, they have every right to delete the domain name and your web site will be gone.

This won’t happen if you have your own domain name. You will only lose your domain name if it expires and you do not pay the yearly fee.

Why You Should Own Your Web Domain

When you buy your own web domain, you own the web domain. If someone else buys a web domain on your behalf, he or she owns the web domain.

I never register domain names for my clients.

If I did, I would own your domain name. What that means is your company’s web domain or your web site’s domain name is owned by me. You should never let anyone but yourself own your domain name.

When you own your web domain, you can:

1. Edit your DNS (nameservers) to connect to a different web host
2. Edit your personal or company information of your domain name
3. Ensure that the yearly fee of the domain name is paid on time every single year or pay a few years in advance. Either way you can ensure that your web domain does not expire.
4. Be sure that you do not need to be at someone else’s mercy when you need to do the 3 things above.

What I usually tell my clients after they have purchased their web domain is to edit the DNS settings of their web domain to connect their web domain to their existing web host (if they have one) or the free web hosting I provide.

Sometimes my clients have no clue how to do this and I will either walk them through the steps or do it for them if they need me to. It usually takes 5 minutes or less.

What if Your Web Domain is Currently Owned by Someone Else?

You should request the person or the company who is currently holding your web domain to transfer it back to you.

The process of getting back the ownership of your domain depends on where the current domain name is held at the moment and where it is going to be transferred to. I usually walk my clients through this process to make sure that they control their own domain name.

This could take a few minutes to months depending on whether the current owner co-operates with you in an efficient manner. Sometimes you can’t get back your domain name because the current owner refused to do so.

This is a lousy position to be in and should be avoided right from the beginning.

I read a post in a forum that mentions you can enter a random number into NameCheap.com’s EPP code verification box and get your RegisterFly domains transferred without any problems. I tried that for 2 of my domains and I am still waiting for the whole thing to process. I am not sure if it is going to work. It seems like RegisterFly is having problems with their EPP code system.

Therefore, if you have domains that are going to expire at RegisterFly, it would be better if you extend your domain with them for another year and move out once that extension is confirmed. My domain transfers have been dragging on for almost 2 weeks and they are not resolved.

Do yourself a favour next time, don’t do business with RegisterFly.

In this blog entry, I will go through some dos and don’ts when using RegisterFly. Should you fail to apply some of these tips I mentioned, be prepared to spend a lot of your precious time fixing them. Time is money, if you do what I say, I guarantee you will spend less time getting their system to work.

1. Do not submit replies to your support tickets if RegisterFly has not replied

I learnt this the hard way. RegisterFly puts you in a queue when you submit your support request. Should you reply to your support request, you will put to a lower position in the queue. I don’t really understand how this works exactly but I think it is very stupid. Other support systems have an urgency criteria for you to select from something like critical to not so important issues. RegisterFly uses a “first come first served” queue system. They push you back to the back of the queue if you reply to your own support ticket too many times.
I highly recommend you pick up the telephone and call their support team directly if your issue has not been resoved in a reasonable amount of time. They seem to get things done faster this way. Please try to be polite to their staff, it is not their fault. It is the fault of the people who created such an inept system.

2. Do not use their “whois protection” service

One of the things that attracted me to RegisterFly was their free “whois protection” service. Don’t use it! Why? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. I remember I had to enable ProtectFly for my domains one by one because the mass update form doesn’t work!

Simply enter RegisterFly‘s contact information and address in your domain’s profiles to get a “fake ProtectFly” profile. Alternatively, enter some “dummy data” and save it. Whenever you need to update your domains’ information, load it up and mass update all your domains at once. Sometimes their mass update tool does not work and you will have to update them one by one. You have been warned!

3. Create multiple RegisterFly accounts to organize your domains

I highly recommend you create multiple RegisterFly accounts to organize your domains. I use multiple accounts for the different groups of web sites I own. It is so much easier to mass update information and get support for my domains this way. You may “push” your domain to another RegisterFly account quickly and easily. This is one feature that I am very proud of RegisterFly because I have not experienced any screw ups here.

4. Always fund your account before purchasing domains

It is not a wise move to enter your credit card at the end of the domain checkout process. RegisterFly is famous for charging you for error purchases. What that means is you pay money even when the order did not go through. If you do not wish to go through lengthy chargeback and refund procedures, simply plan how many domains you wish to purchase and deposit the exact cost of those domains to your account.

One more thing… Do not use PayPal as a checkout option. I thought using PayPal during checkout means that my PayPal money will go into RegisterFly‘s PayPal. My PayPal money went into my RegisterFly account instead and I had to do another order to complete my initial order. It is like paying for an item with an ATM card and having the cashier withdraw cash from your ATM card via their cash drawer and you return that cash to them. Does that make sense to you? What a waste of time!

5. Call them up if you are using a totally new DNS

If you wish to create your own DNS for your web sites, don’t use RegisterFly. Get another domain registrar to do this work. You cannot trust RegisterFly for something as important as your DNS domains.

Sometimes your web host might assign you with DNS RegisterFly has not seen before. When this happens, RegisterFly will give you an error when you try to link that DNS to your domains. I find the support staff too slow on these issues. Simply call them up and tell them to add your DNS to their “registry”. This will allow RegisterFly to let you to use this DNS for your domains. Strange I know… but this is how they work.

Conclusion

I might have more issues to bring up but this is all I can recall at the moment. I rank RegisterFly as my second worst online experience after some other major issues with some other lousy merchants. I do not recommend RegisterFly as your domain registrar of choice because the wasted time you spend fixing your issues will cost you more time and time equals to money, therefore you are wasting your precious time and money on them when you could get better deals for your domains elsewhere. If you must use RegisterFly to save money, I recommend following some of all of the tips I mentioned in this blog entry.

.ORG Domains

Reseller Club is my first choice of .ORG domains because they cost only $1.49 for the first year if you are a Reseller Club reseller. You will need to put in a deposit of $199 to open a reseller account. Once you have done that, you may create a customer account to buy domains at your wholesale price.

.NET Domains

RegisterFly is the way to go for .NET domains. During a weekly 48 hour promotion period, you will be able to grab a .NET domain for only $2.99. Check out RegisterFly’s Fly Paper every week before Thursday EST to see what promotions they have.

Unfortunately, RegisterFly’s system does mess up very often and I will go into greater detail about how to use RegisterFly without pulling your hair out in another post. If you can’t get a $2.99 .NET domain from RegisterFly during the promotion period, get it from NameCheap.com at $7.98 instead with the latest coupon code from Domain Name Coupons.

.COM Domains

I choose Netfirms.com and NameCheap.com for .COM domains because their systems are much more stable than RegisterFly. I am tempted by RegisterFly’s $6.99 promotion but for a $1.00 difference, I do not wish to go through all the drama to get RegisterFly to work properly.

.INFO Domains

RegisterFly used to have this crazy $0.60 .INFO domain sale every Friday morning EST. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Now they have increased the price to $0.75. If you’re only buying a couple of domains from RegisterFly, it would be manageable. If you plan to buy hundreds of them, I would recommend that you be mentally prepared to spend a lot of time fixing all the errors you get in RegisterFly’s system.

Reseller Club has caught up with RegisterFly with their “Mega Bargains Month” promotion. They are selling .INFO domains at $0.99. This is $0.24 more per domain than RegisterFly. I highly recommend you to avoid RegisterFly if you do not have a lot of time to burn. Just do a search on Google for “RegisterFly Complaints” and you will get what I mean.

Conclusion

I would normally avoid RegisterFly if I need to get my domains urgently. I used to plan my domain purchases around RegisterFly’s promotion period. Now, I simply purchase it from the alternative domain registrar as mentioned above.

RegisterFly is cheap but it comes at a price of your time. Everything that can go wrong might go wrong when you use RegisterFly. Their system is so crappy it is almost insane! In my next post I will detail how I use RegisterFly to purchase domains to get the most out of RegisterFly and to reduce my anger levels.