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Domain Name Registration Reviews
Updated April 2007
If you want to create your own website with a personalized domain name, you'll need to lease the right to use your chosen name from a domain registration service. In addition to a domain name, you'll also need a web host -- a service that actually posts your website on the Internet. See our companion report on web hosting, which is the more complicated of the two decisions. Be aware that you can almost always get domain registration from your web hosting service, but there are some reasons you might wish to purchase a domain name independently. If the company is still in business as you read this, reviews say RegisterFly.com should be avoided. In almost every review we found, RegisterFly is criticized as a questionable domain registration service. User reviews amplify the cause for concern. The company is currently embroiled in life-threatening legal battles. One battle is internal, and the other is with ICANN. In February 2007, domain name owners began complaining that they couldn't manage or transfer their domains. Frequent downtime was followed by a shutdown of the RegisterFly website in early March (though it was back up at press time). As of April 2007, ICANN was trying to force RegisterFly to fix its problems, but the situation is as yet unresolved. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit business, manages the domain-name system (DNS) of Internet addresses under the authority of the U.S. Department of Commerce. A domain name is the core part of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example, our ConsumerSearch home-page URL is "http://www.consumersearch.com," and our domain name is "consumersearch.com." ICANN establishes official top-level domains, such as .com, .org, .net, .ca, etc. Individuals can lease any domain name that isn't currently registered with an ICANN-accredited registrar. However, certain top-level domains, such as .edu, are restricted. Until 1999, Network Solutions.com was the only domain registration service.
Now, there are almost 700 of them. VeriSign, an Internet security company,
acquired Network Solutions in 2000. In 2003, VeriSign sold part of the business,
including the Network Solutions brand name. The company currently called Network
Solutions is the third largest domain registration service behind GoDaddy.com
and eNom.com. You do not have to use or go through Network Solutions to lease
a domain name. However, VeriSign continues to provide all .com and .net domain
registration at the wholesale level. VeriSign currently sells domain names to resellers for $6.00. ICANN charges
a 25¢ fee for each domain name, so the wholesale cost of a .com or .net name
is $6.25 per year. You cannot buy a name directly from VeriSign. You can only
get domain registration from a reseller (or a business that is one step further
removed from the process). Reviews say that the main considerations for choosing a domain name registrar
are price and business ethics since the process and operation of registering
a domain name is very uniform from reseller to reseller. That's probably why
PC Magazine, Consumer Reports, and other major computer, consumer, business
and Internet magazines haven't reviewed domain registration in years, if ever.
The coverage we found in mainstream media is primarily devoted to web hosting
services that also offer domain names. Thus, the best reviews we found are
on specialty websites. We also found and disregarded many third-party marketing
sites that claim to review domain name registrars, but don't actually include
any testing or evaluation.
PickRegistrar.info and ReviewsOnLine.com have good reviews of domain name registrars. The other good reviews we found are outdated, which makes them potentially very misleading for an industry where companies frequently change prices and policies. User reviews are important for evaluating domain registration companies. NamePros.com is the best source for user reviews, but we checked many others as well. To help identify the best domain-name registrars, we explored newspaper and magazine articles, Internet forums, blogs and other sources with unscreened user feedback. We summarize useful coverage of domain registration in articles in the "Not quite reviews" section below. ... Continued
Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
Namecheap earns the most recommendations in reviews, and all reviews are favorable. User reviews are equally favorable, and customer opinion is consistent. Some describe Namecheap as a plain vanilla service, but that is a huge compliment relative to competitors with questionable business practices. Moniker is less popular than Namecheap, but it has an equally clean reputation with reviewers and customers. Dynadot garners the highest kudos in user reviews, but it hasn't yet been professionally reviewed. All other domain name registration services that have been recently reviewed generate mixed reaction. GoDaddy, the most successful registrar, is widely commended for good prices and service, but it's heavily criticized for some of its business practices. Advertisement
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© 2008 ConsumerSearch, Inc. A service from 
, a part of The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
ConsumerSearch and ConsumerSearch.com are registered trademarks of ConsumerSearch, Inc. Other trademarks or service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. ConsumerSearch is not sponsored by any source reviewed, and we accept no consideration or payment for including, excluding, or ranking any reviews, products or services in our reports.
* Pricing information is approximate as of the time this report was written and is based on observed market selling prices and/or list prices. Actual selling prices may differ.
