Domain Registrars

After the Sale, Are You More or Less Likely to Use Moniker?

I’m sure you’ve already read the news that Moniker and Snapnames  were  acquired by KeyDrive in a private transaction. I am very surprised that neither Oversee.net nor Key Drive sent an email to Moniker / Snapnames clients, and I don’t see anything that would indicate that either company issued a press release to announce the news yet.

I have met a few employees of KeyDrive, although I don’t know a whole lot about the company, aside from some of its business assets and location. For some people, having a registrar whose European corporate “home base” will come as good news, while others may not wish to have their domain registrar located outside of the United States (keep in mind that the .com registry is of course located in Virginia).

Technical support and customer service are both important to me, and I don’t know anything about the support or service that will be given by KeyDrive. At one time, I knew I could send an email to Bari Meyerson, and she would handle any issue very quickly. That changed in recent months, and I was then required to submit everything directly to Oversee.net support.

With all of this said, I am wondering what your immediate thoughts on the sale are, and if you plan to use Moniker going forward.


Importance of an Account Manager at a Domain Registrar

A little over a week ago, I expressed my dismay that Bari Meyerson no longer works as my Account Executive at Moniker. Today, I want to share some reasons why having an Account Executive or Account Representative at a domain registrar is important to me.

Obviously we all put a lot of trust into our domain registrar. Our assets are digital, and there is always a concern they could be stolen and pushed to another account or transferred out all together. Should something like that happen, the process to recover domain names is a bit opaque, and having someone to help with that process is assuring. Knowing I have someone to email who would advocate for me and help me is important and reassuring.

In addition to this worse case scenario, there are every day issues that come up. There have been a number of times where transfers were denied for various reasons, and it’s always helpful to have someone tell me exactly what the problem was. Further, instead of having to submit a ticket to resolve the issue and then submit a ticket to get a refund and re-try the transaction, it has been helpful to have someone willing to make this easier and expedite it.

When I receive renewal notices via email, I am often away from my desk. It’s great to be able to forward the email to my account representative and ask him or her to take care of the renewal for me. It’s one less thing for me to worry about, and it also means that I won’t end up transferring the domain name elsewhere.

Oftentimes, domain registrars are larger companies with various products and services (hosting, web design, marketing…etc). When a problem arises, it’s nice to know you have an ally within the company that will speak with the people who can get things done when they aren’t able to do it themselves. My account representatives know what steps need to be taken to resolve an issue or head off potential trouble, and they are proactive on my behalf.

In various domain related surveys I’ve taken over the years, I’ve been asked to state the importance of having an account representative and/or good customer service compared to other needs like pricing, security, back-end user interface, additional products and service offerings, and other features/aspects. I am pretty sure that customer service was the first or second choice for me – always.

With a dedicated account representative, it’s likely I will do more business with the domain registrar. I am inclined to work with people I like and trust, and if I have an established relationship with an account person, it’s more likely I will register and renew domain names at that registrar.

I understand that it wouldn’t be economically feasible for companies to assign Account Executives to each client, but I can tell you that it does impact my decision when it comes to registering and transferring domain names.

Registrars Increasing Prices More Than the Verisign Price Increase

One of my biggest pet peeves is being nickeled and dimed. It’s usually not that I can’t afford to pay a tiny bit more for something, but it’s annoying to pay more than I should be paying.

Yesterday at midnight, Verisign increased .com and .net domain prices by 7%. The wholesale cost for .com domain names increased from $7.34 to $7.85. Obviously domain registrars are going to pass this price increase along to customers, but one would assume they’ve already got the profit margin they want, so the price we pay should correspondingly increase by 7%.

At least that is what I thought would happen.

It seems that some domain registrars are increasing prices by more than the 7% increase that was passed on to them. One registrar I use increased my prices by 12.5% and another by about 10%. I would imagine other companies are doing the same to their customers.

Perhaps this is standard across the board, but it’s annoying. My portfolio only has about 500 domain names at any given time, so an increase isn’t going to cause me any issues, but it’s an annoyance, and I am sure there are people who will be impacted by this.

It doesn’t sit right for me that domain registrars are using the Verisign price increase as a way to pad their margins. Have you noticed the same thing?

.Com & .Net Prices Increasing Tomorrow

As you should be aware by now, the price of .com and .net domain names will increase tomorrow, January 15, 2012. While some registrars are passing the exact price increase percentage along to clients, others use this as an opportunity to raise prices even higher.

Here are the price increase details from Verisign, the company that operates the .com and .net domain registries:  “Verisign announced that as of Jan. 15, 2012, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $7.34 to $7.85 and that the registry fee for .net domain names will increase from $4.65 to $5.11.” Keep in mind these are the wholesale prices and not the retail prices we pay.

If you have .com and .net domain names to renew in the near future, or if you want to renew some of your better domain names at the current lower price, you should take steps to do that ASAP today. Come tomorrow, prices will be increased across the board.

Namecheap Hits 25,000 Transfers Today

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As I mentioned earlier this week, Namecheap sponsored  Move Your Domain Day, and the company pledged to donate $1.00 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for every transfer initiated to the company today.

By early this afternoon, the company surpassed 10,000 transfers, and Namecheap CEO Rick Kirkendall doubled down on his offer, in news that broke on this blog. Kirkendall promised that    “if we hit 25k transfers today, we’ll double our donation to EFF.” This was followed up with an article on the Namecheap blog confirming the offer.

Late this evening, it appears the company has surpassed the 25,000 transfer mark, and per Kirkendall’s revised offer, Namecheap will now donate $2.00 for every domain transfer. This means the company will donate at least $50,000 to the EFF.

Based on the all of the Twitter activity, tech news blog posts, and consumer action, it’s quite clear that the Internet community is rallying against SOPA in a big way.

It remains to be seen if action will be taken against other public supporters of SOPA, listed on a pdf on the House Judiciary Committee website. Companies like the NFL, Disney, ESPN, Time Warner, Mastercard, Visa, and others are all listed a supporters of SOPA. It’s quite interesting to watch this unfold, and I hope this action sends a message to our elected officials.

Why I Am Not Transferring Domain Names from Go Daddy

I am entirely opposed to SOPA, and I’ve made my opinion known to people who are able to do something about it. I know that Go Daddy was originally in favor of SOPA, and then didn’t support SOPA, and the company is now supposedly firmly opposed to SOPA.

A number of  influential  people and companies have called for a boycott of GoDaddy. They feel that they should not support a company that supports a bill that can harm the Internet. Several companies have been giving special offers to transfer domain names today (like Namecheap).

That being said, I am a client of Godaddy’s (among many other registrars), and I am not planning to move my 100+/- domain names to another registrar.

From a financial perspective, I can think of many other things to do with $1,000 than spend that money transferring domain names. For $1,000, I can have a site redesigned, pay for an advertising campaign for some of my websites, can buy a nice domain name in the aftermarket, make a donation to a politician while letting him or her know I oppose SOPA, or just spend it on an expensive dinner and bottles of vintage wine. Whichever I choose, it’s better than wasting it on unnecessary domain transfers.

I also don’t believe that transferring domain names away from GoDaddy will do anything at this point. They’ve heard their customers and Internet community loud and clear. Whether they really are opposed to SOPA or are just saying they are opposed to SOPA because of the outcry is really a moot point for me.

I don’t feel badly at all for Godaddy. They made a terrible decision in my opinion and are doing what they can to rectify that decision. My account representative at Godaddy has always been helpful to me, and I don’t think spending my money on domain transfers from Godaddy is going to stop SOPA or make it more difficult for SOPA to pass.

I think Godaddy would be well served to start campaigning to their elected officials on why they now think SOPA is bad. That’s the least they can and should do to show that they now mean what they said.

I might not have the need to pinch pennies, but I am not going to wastefully spend my hard earned money to prove a point that has already been clearly proven.

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