Nominate Your Favorite Domain Registrar

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Namecheap was voted the winner of LifeHacker’s Best Domain Name Registrar poll, which concluded early this morning. A little over 17,000 votes were cast for the five finalists: Dreamhost, Gandi, Hover, Namecheap, and Name.com.

In my opinion, there are many factors that make a domain registrar stand out from others. In no particular order, these factors include customer service, price, user interface, security, ease of transfers and account changes, extra fees, and additional services available. I am sure there are more factors and people would rate the importance of these factors differently.

I am interested to know which company domain investors favor when it comes to their domain name assets. Early next week, I will post a poll with the top ten or so nominees that you choose in the comment section below.

Nominate your favorite domain registrar, and I will post the poll next week with your choices.

LifeHacker Vote: Five Best Domain Name Registrars

LifeHacker is currently running a poll, asking readers to vote for their favorite domain name registrar. When the poll was last run in 2010, the winning domain registrar was Namecheap. The poll will close this year at 6am on Tuesday, so you should vote now.

There were only 9,142 votes cast in the 2010 poll, and there are already 11,217 votes in this year’s edition. I think social media has probably played a roll in this year’s voting. In fact, Namecheap is even offering a special promotion  via Twitter if it’s voted the best registrar and Name.com is retweeting comments from customers who voted for them.

The five finalists (chosen by readers) include:

  • Dreamhost
  • Gandi
  • Hover
  • Namecheap
  • Name.com

One interesting aspect of the vote is that LifeHacker isn’t hiding the vote totals. At the moment, Hover is the leading vote getter, followed by Name.com.

The only thing on the line here is pride, and likely additional business brought on by the added exposure. Vote for your favorite domain registrar today – I am sure each would appreciate your support.

PS: My vote is for Name.com because the company has been a sponsor of my blog for a few years, and the people at the company really seem to care about their customers.

Domain Registrars: Who Has The Most Klout?

I am still fascinated by Klout, and I thought it would be interesting to see the Klout scores of some of the most popular domain name registrars.

A company’s Klout score is based on a proprietary algorithm, but important factors include social media mentions, posts, retweets, likes, comments, and a variety of other factors. I believe other outside factors are also taken into consideration,

Here are the top Klout scores for domain registrars:

  • Name.com – 78
  • Go Daddy – 75
  • NameCheap – 67
  • 1&1 – 56
  • Network Solutions – 54
  • Blacknight Solutions – 53
  • Dynadot – 50
  • Register.com – 50
  • Enom – 49
  • Dotster – 47
  • Melbourne IT – 46
  • Internet.bs – 45
  • Tucows – 44
  • Moniker (and Snapnames) – 44
  • Fabulous – 31

Favorite Domain Registrar of Politicians

I read an article this morning in USA Today (“Presidential campaigns buy up domain names for ‘microsites‘”) and I wanted to do a bit of research to see what domain registrars presidential candidates and other politicians seem to prefer. I also checked the registration of domain names used by political parties.

Listed below are the candidates and parties, as well as the preferred domain name registrar based on the registration of the domain name that is used as the primary website. Candidates and parties may use other registrars for their “microsites,” but that would be more difficult to track.

Infographic: Tracking the Growth of NameCheap

I am a big fan of infographics because they do a great job of illustrating facts, and they’re more fun to look at than a chart or numbers.

NameCheap recently published the infographic below, which charts the company’s growth and identifies key milestones in its history. The company was founded in 2001 and it currently boasts over 3 million domain registrations. The infographic charts where NameCheap’s website visitors come from as well, its social networking prowess, and the brands the company operates.

I wish other registrars and companies in the domain space put out similar infographics. It’s a neat way to look at things.

(Click the infographic to see it larger)

Best Rates for .ORG Domain Names

As I mentioned earlier, there is a  .ORG price increase tomorrow, July 1, 2012. The Public Interest Registry, the organization that manages the .ORG registry, is raising prices, and domain registrars will almost certainly follow suit.

I have listed the current .ORG prices at leading domain registrars as of this afternoon, and I would bet most of the prices will increase tomorrow.  You may be able to get better rates if you transfer instead of hand register names, and some customers of registrars are able to get better rates based on their relationship with the registrar.

Here are the current advertised .ORG prices on hand registrations (not logged in to any of my accounts):

  • Dynadot – $9.75
  • Enom – $13.95
  • Euro DNS – $23.75
  • Fabulous – $9.49
  • Go Daddy – $6.99
  • Moniker – $8.82
  • NameCheap – $10.69
  • Name.com – $9.99
  • Network Solutions – $34.99
  • Register.com – $35.00

There are some discount / promo codes and coupons that you can find, so look around to get better rates on registrations and transfers. You can also probably get better pricing on larger order. There are just a few hours to go before prices will most likely increase.