Weblog entry #46 for Steve
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I'm looking to register a pair of .org domain names. I will need to be able to :
- Update subdomains, both CNAMEs and A records.
- Setup MX records.
- (Possibly require wildcard DNS. icky.)
Anybody have any horror stories, or suggestions?
I usually use Easily.co.uk, but they appear to be charging 35.00 for two years which strikes me as almost four times more than the 8.00 charged by companies such as 1and1.
Hmmm.
Currency in UK pounds. I don't much care whether I pay $, or UK pounds, so long as I'll not suffer more fees when making changes or transferring away from the provider.
(I have no need for webhosting, mail hosting, etc. I have a dedicated host.)
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Hmmm it appears they do .. I hadn't realised. The coverage on their website is minimal.
Still the prices look reasonable.
I'm going to arbitrarily ignore them though - I always like to have DNS + hosting from seperate companies. (Mostly so I don't get locked in, but partly for a clear seperation.)
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Thanks.
So far the obvious contenders are :
- 1and1.co.uk
- godaddy.com
- namecheap.com
I'm tempted by the first but I've seen some real horror stories about them - although they appear to all be concerned with the hosting, which I don't need.
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Thanks for the comment - that was enough to swing me towards namecheap.com.
I've registered my names now, and the DNS control panel is nice and functional. Recommended .. for the moment!
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We will (if you ask nicely) zone transfer from your own server (i.e. you master your own domain). Although to be honest I'm loathed to encourage people to do that, it is a pain to manage because they never get it right.
Otherwise the 20 quid a year gets you, me (currently) making the changes for you on request, which is even better than a web interface, or "vi", because I come with built in "DWIM" technology, and one of the previous admins wrote a good database app for in-house domain information.
Obviously for 20 quid we hope you don't want to register NHS.UK with the corresponding rate of changes that would incur ;)
The alternative is of course is to use your own server as one nameserver, and I think Nominum (the people who wrote bind9) offer a free or cheap secondary service for the first few domains. Certainly there were a couple of big DNS companies who did free secondary services if you just wanted one or two domains.
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We transfer domains from the other companies in the business, and I'd avoid the very cheap end of the domain market where people can afford to. We have horror stories to tell. Domains are a bit like insurance, you only really know if they are switched on when something goes badly wrong.
TUCOWS, our registrar, are excellent and responsive (at least during Canadian working hours, we have an "out of hours" emergency contact), and so I'd expect most TUCOWS resellers would be able to do "okay" without much effort on their part (just the X hundred dollars to sign up as a reseller, and a website).
But given what TUCOWS charge us for a domain per year, I doubt you'll find anyone with a viable business plan offering .org domain from them for less than 10 quid a year, and even then it will be based on low support costs, and selling related services alongside.
Bad registrar, and it doesn't matter how good the company you are paying is, your domains could get in a mess, and it would take them time to sort it. It is a chain and the money is hoovered up one level below where the difficult problems are dealt with.
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Definitely agreed on the registrar comment - I got into trouble a long time ago with my very first domain. I first bought it from register.com, then moved it to a really cheap company.
Big mistake.
I think there are still cached copies of my "website" on archive.org, showing the errors in their redirection service:
Prying the domain back onto a service I could use properly was painful, but I think I did the right thing moving away from register.com - they were slow to update, and very pricy.
I think at the time I registered it because they were one of the earlier companies I'd found doing ".org.uk", and they let me take "steve" :)
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Good to know, thanks!
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I already run my own nameserver so that I can do a couple of things I couldn't manage otherwise (return TXT records, and enable wildcard DNS for a couple of names).
I'm fairly keen to move away from doing this though, as it always means finding a friend to run as secondary for me, and of course it is yet another service to manage/worry about.
In the past I've been tempted to setup some kind of online DNS management system to make it all handsfree - then offer to host other people, but it seems like zoneedit.com has the market pretty much sewn up!
I know what you mean about people never getting it right though - I've had to manage customer DNS servers in the past and people will insist they know best ... *sigh*.
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It's a "legend" and a symbol in the french internet, because it was created by a little groupe of friends who were afraid of the price of domain registration back in late 90s. So they offered registration for 12EUR a year ! which was very cheap in 2000 (natural prize in the USA was 30-35 EUR, and more in France!).
Of course, they offer complete management of your DNS zone, and you keep the 'property' of the domain you pay for (unlike some commercial registrars).
Gandi is also known for their utilisation and collaboration in free software.
And it seems their webpage and interface exists in english too... check it out, and verify if their services responds to your needs...
I particulary appreciate the 'non-commercial' aspect of the interface, no funky flashy commercial interface with lot of ads, but simplicity and efficacity.
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They may well have a wonderful service, but I found navigating around it very difficult - so they lost out.
Thank you for the tip though, it is nice to learn of new companies. I'm pretty sure I've not heard the name before, but I'll try them out in the future if they can make their site a little friendlier.
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I'm working for a hosting company. (http://www.networking4all.com)
We've got a portal where you can register names and change everything about your domainname.
If you are interresting... maybe i can arrange some for you.
Cheers, Sebastian
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Looks like you were too late, as I've already got my names up and running.
But I'll certainly bear you (them) in mind in the future.
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