Are You Planning to Register a Domain Name? Read First!

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decide "with whom" you plan to register it. A Google search will give you more options than you can handle. Price is certainly important, but you need to know some more important things than just the price.

First of all, you need to register a domain where you will have complete control over it. Most registrars do give you control, but not all. You need to have control over:

a) its ownership,

b) the ability to change registrant contact details (as well as admin and technical contact details) yourself, and in real time.

c) the ability to lock / unlock the domain yourself,

d) the ability to retrieve the EPP code yourself (this is required when you wish to transfer it to another registrar).

Next, you need to ensure that the registrar will not take over ownership of the domain in case of false complains. I've heard that godaddy does this – if it receives a Spam complain it will first take away your control and disable its propagation over the Internet until the matter resolves. This could take quite a few weeks, so you tend to lose a lot of business if you have a live website with good traffic.

Next, you need to ensure that there are no hidden charges associated with the domain. For example, I had heard that enom was not charging for DNS services and now it is charging as much as $10/annum! If you need privacy protection, it costs another $6! There are many domain name providers who offer these addons for free or at a much lower price, so do your research first if you want these services.

If you're planning to purchase hosting and / or website builder plans also, I wouldn't advice you to buy it from the registrar. Registrars provide these extra services because:

a) there is higher profit margin with these products.

b)being related products, it becomes easier for them to cross
sell and up sell them to their clients.

c) Registrars need to maintain dedicated servers for their domain activity and since they also have staff / outsourced companies for maintaining the servers, they might as well offer these related services, like web hosting.

Unfortunately, web hosting is a critical business and most registrars are not equipped to handle all the problems that arise with this business, neither are they equipped with the necessary support staff.

Bottom line – it is OK to buy a domain through a professional hosting provider when you buy their hosting (just be careful that you have complete control), but not the other way around. Most hosting providers are resellers of domains so they should most certainly be able to match / supersede domain prices of registrars, as they purchase in bulk. In fact, some hosting providers also lose money on the domain either by offering it free or at a subsidized price, if you buy hosting from them. Their main interest is to sell you hosting. Don't go for a free domain ever, chances are, you won't have control over it and it will be free as long as you host with them. If their support is bad, you can't shift for fear of losing the domain. Finally, just be careful that you have complete control.

Once you've identified about 3 domain service providers, it's time to check their background. You can go to domaintools.com and check the whois of their own domain. It should have been registered for at least 3 to 4 years from the current date. Then go to Google and search for domain+(service provider name)+fraud/problem/scam etc. Check out all the results you get closely. Finally, read their TOS (terms of service) to the word.