[CLUE-Talk] How much to pay for domain service.

[Kirk Rafferty]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 04:57:49PM -0600, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-06-23 at 21:54, Kirk Rafferty wrote:
> > If you're paying less than $20/year, be very suspicious.  I have to wonder
> > how a registry can sell domains for sub-$20.  What are they cutting out
> > of their service, and how much are they going to help you if something
> > goes wrong.
> 
> Why is that, exactly? It seems that sub-$20 is the norm right now. I've
> gone through Dotster.com for all of the domains I've registered, and
> I've had no problems. 

There is talk within the "registrar" community that the $8.95 domain
pricing scheme is unsustainable.  Take that with a grain of salt of course,
since it's in their best interest to keep pricing higher.  But basically,
the low pricing relies on volume.  Dot com/net/org is pretty much running
out of names, and other TLDs haven't really caught on all that well.  These
companies rely on large volumes, which may not be there down the road.

> Other than registration, what kind of services do you expect?

For me personally, I wouldn't want anything but registration from a
registrar.  I do, however, see the value in "one-stop shopping."  Unless
Amazon have patented that, of course. :)

However, I expect that when there's a problem with my domain, such as
somebody hijacking it, that they're going to have the staff and expertese
to help me.  Any registrar (even Verisign) is going to be fine if you never
have a problem.

In any case, my point is this: Read and understand the registration
agreements, figure out what the hidden (if any) charges are, and try to get
a sense of what kind of help to expect if you need it.  Pricing should
be the absolute last thing to base your decision on.  It should be, at
best, the tie-breaker.  Even $30/year is pocket-change when it comes down
to the real value of your domain.

-k