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Any recommendations on website registrars? I've used NameZero and Register.com in the past but my domains are just parked. Going to be looking for another domain name soon and wondered if there are better choices.

Thanks.

Clarification regarding "better choices" -- I was primarily thinking about price - example register.com is full retail - and TLD coverage which seems to vary but also thinking about features, etc. Thanks.

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Thanks everyone for the answers. I appreciate it. – SteveD- Feb 7 '11 at 23:12

5 Answers

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I like to separate this into two -- domain registrars and DNS hosts. Most commercial vendors offer a mix of both, but I like to keep the feature sets separated while thinking about the features.

For registrars, the things I look for are:

  • How many Top Level Domains (TLDs, like .com, .uk, .de, .es) they have; and which I need.

  • Price.

  • Support. All other things being equal, I like a vendor in the same timezone as I'm in, and ideally with a support telephone number.

  • Antispam measures (filtered email accounts for the public WHOIS records).

  • Simplicity of the user interface.

So far, I like:

  • Gandi. French company. Relatively good UI. Basic DNS hosting is free of charge for domains registered with them, so they're a great value for parked domains. Has spamfiltering for Whois records for free.

  • GoDaddy. Well, actually I hate GoDaddy. Their UI is totally cluttered with up-sell "opportunities" and messy. But they're cheap, and they have a wide variety of addons like fx SSL certificates.

  • Dotster. Same general idea as GoDaddy, but perhaps a little more smooth and less cluttered.

  • easyDNS. Canadian company. Good service, relatively good UI, good global DNS resolver network. Selection of TLDs is limited. Significantly more expensive than the cheap brigade, but still <100 USD/year.

  • DNSMadeEasy and their companion sites like DomainsMadeEasy. Like easyDNS they're a higher quality outfit, with an excellent global network of DNS resolvers at a good price. UI is a little too "beginner friendly" for my tastes, but it's easy enough to use.

  • DynDNS. Perhaps the best, and oldest, solid DNS host for SME. Their basic domain registration packages are less feature rich (have fewer top level domains fx), and their base DNS hosting packages tend to be a little more expensive than the competition. Their higher end Dynect platform is perhaps the best geo-aware DNS platform there is for SME's, but costing around ~200 USD/month or so.

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Please don't recommend godaddy they are so so awful – Tom Sep 3 '11 at 13:21
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I have been using Namesecure.com for the past 10 years and have not had a single problem. I only use them as a registrar, I have not tried any of their other services such as hosting, email, etc...

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You have to define "better choices". Can suggest Moniker I use only them. They have quite good system for registration and renewal.

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I have used Name.com for many years. There interface is very intuitive and the few times I have need support they were responsive and knowledgeable.

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I like Dynadot -- they have a very nice API for managing your domain.

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