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Your Favorite Domain Registrar Is…

There were a couple of surprises when I asked for you to nominate your favorite domain name registrar. I wasn’t surprised that 15 registrars were nominated, but I was surprised that Moniker and eNom were not. Just a few years ago,  Moniker would probably have been a top 3 vote recipient. How times have changed.

After a few days of voting, the favorite domain registrar choice of those who voted was Go Daddy, by a fairly solid margin. The company offers 24/7 phone support, is generous with coupons and discount codes, and it offers dedicated account executives for many people who are active in the domain industry.

Here are the five best domain registrars from the poll I ran:

  • Go Daddy
  • Namecheap
  • Dynadot
  • Name.com
  • Fabulous

One thing to note is that with the exception of Fabulous, all of these companies have cultivated a strong following on Facebook and Twitter. For many people like myself, it does make a difference when dealing with companies that you “know.” These social media accounts take on a company personality, and that could help with brand loyalty.

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.

Name.com Video: How to Generate Leads with Content and Social Media

I really like what Name.com has been doing with videos, and the video I am sharing with you today can benefit you if you are developing your domain names into businesses or communities. The topic is how to generate leads with content and social media, and it features Rebecca Corliss From HubSpot. The video was shot at HostingCon 2012 in Boston.

Kudos to Name.com for their outreach efforts – I’ve mentioned them several times in the past for their humorous and informative video channel as well as the company’s engaging Twitter feed. I think it’s good for the domain industry, especially when a company called “Name.com” is out there selling domain names and engaging the small business and developer communities.

The company is certainly practicing what it preaches in the video.

Video: Name.com Humorously Explains the Benefits of Domain Names

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Gotta hand it to Name.com for their creativity in sharing why a domain name is important to purchase. Name.com may be a relatively small registrar compared to the industry giants, but they have a pretty savvy marketing staff. I think the company’s Twitter feed is one of the more active amongst domain registrars, and they are frequently creating humorous videos like this one. Nice work!

Video: What Makes Name.com Different

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Here’s Name.com CEO and founder Bill Mushkin explaining what makes Name.com different from other domain registrars and hosting companies.

Sisters Working in the Domain Industry

Forker sistersThe domain industry is relatively small with considerable overlap between companies and individuals. Many people have worked for different companies in the domain space, and there are strong relationships that have been forged over the years. I want to share a story about one relationship that I think you’ll enjoy reading about.

If you’ve ever been to a domain conference before, you’ll notice the team from NameMedia is very close. One reason for that is because Christina Forker, Customer Service Manager/Business Services Manager at Afternic, and Danielle Romeo, Business Development Associate at NameMedia, are former high school classmates that stayed in touch with each other.

After graduating from college, Christina worked for a payroll company for several months and wasn’t interested in pursuing a career in that field. Danielle told her about an opening for a Customer Service Representative position at NameMedia, and Christina was intrigued by the idea of an online domain marketplace to buy and sell online real estate. Christina applied for the position and was hired by the company.

At DomainFest last year, I was introduced to Christina, and she and I spent some time discussing how I could work with her to have some of my domain names listed for sale at Afternic. We also had a friendly conversation about the town of Newburyport, since she lives there and I owned Newburyport.com. It was a fruitful discussion, and I continue to work with Christina when it comes to Afternic sales listings.

A couple of months after DomainFest, my wife and I flew out to Denver on our way to a ski trip in Breckendridge (awesome skiing there fyi). We made a quick stop at the Name.com offices, where I met Marketing Coordinator, Ashley Forker. After speaking for a little while, Ashley mentioned something about her sister working for NameMedia, and I connected the dots.

I asked about how Ashley found her job in the domain industry since NameMedia and Name.com don’t have a formal relationship (aside from being partners on Afternic’s DLS). According to Ashley, “I had recently graduated college and was again trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life when my sister offered me a gig working for her doing compliance (eye opening experience, there really are some foul domain names out there!!!).”

After working there for a couple of months, Ashley emailed Andrew Hyde of Boulder.ME to ask about job opportunities in the Internet/tech space, and he passed her resume on to Paul Carter, VP of Operations at Name.com. They called Ashley in for an interview, and after “15 minutes in a room with Bill Mushkin, I was sold on Name.com being the right place for me and the rest is history 🙂

As you can imagine, the Forker sisters are able to use each other as resources since they operate in different areas of the domain industry. According to Christina, since the industry is so small, “it is so awesome to have my sister as a part of it, to bounce ideas off of, to talk in what everyone thinks is code at dinner parties mentioning SLD’s TLD’s ccTLD’s, gTLD’s, DNS, ETC. It is also great that we both work on seemingly opposite sides of the industry, her working for a registrar and myself in the aftermarket but are still involved in each other’s worlds. She is an immediate resource for all of my registrar-esque questions and the Name.com team is so helpful as well.”

It’s been great to get to know Ashley and Christina over the last year, and when you do get to know them, you’ll know why Ashley and Christina are valued by their companies and clients.

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