I have heard that it is best to purchase one's domain name from a seperate vendor than the web host. Is this correct?
Who should I purchase from and what price would be considered is a good deal?
:cool:

If you buy a domain name from a webhost, most of the times they register your domain name under their name.
When you want to move your domain name to another host, this can be a problem, because your webhost may keep the domain name for itself.
So the best thing to do is to register the name for yourself.

Some good places to register domain names are :
www.000domains.com
www.directi.com
www.myostrich.net
www.godaddy.com
www.namecheap.com

Good luck ! :)

Originally posted by kat
I have heard that it is best to purchase one's domain name from a seperate vendor than the web host. Is this correct?
Correct.
Originally posted by kat
Who should I purchase from and what price would be considered is a good deal?
:cool:
Browse through this forum and you should see many recommendations. I have had a long, excellent track record with http://www.dotster.com ; also, http://www.myostrich.net is a member here and seems to be very knowledgeable and helpful, particularly in the domain name forum (so if you're new to the domain name world it might be worth it to pay a little more to get better service).

when we are just talking about paying a little more and get great service, then you should check out www.directnic.com. My domains are registered with them and their support is just amazing :D

Originally posted by wwww
when we are just talking about paying a little more and get great service, then you should check out www.directnic.com. My domains are registered with them and their support is just amazing :D

Forgot that one. DirectNic rocks :D
Used to have a few domain names there , and was very happy with them :)

Thanks for your suggestions. I find that there is a broad price range $8-$500 a year! Pardon my ignorance but what if the company you purchase the name from goes out of business?

I dont agree that it is best to buy from a company away from your webhost in all cases.

We register domains and include domains in most packages but the registration is always in the clients name. Should they wish to move there is no problem and they can take control of the domain.

I agree, it is probably best to check this first though.

Go with stargate.com :)

Originally posted by kat
Thanks for your suggestions. I find that there is a broad price range $8-$500 a year! Pardon my ignorance but what if the company you purchase the name from goes out of business?
Where did you find domain name registration for $500 a year?!

In many cases domain registration companies are actually resellers for larger companies. These larger companies are accredited by an organization called ICANN, which is the entity overseeing all domain name registrars (basically). If a reseller went out of business, the domain registration would default back to the main ICANN-accredited registrar. It's very unlikely that an ICANN-accredited registrar would go out of business; if one were to go out of business, there is no doubt in my mind that their inventory of names would be picked up by another ICANN-accredited registrar.

Unless something unforeseeably catistrophic happens, if you register your domain with an established registrar with a good reputation you're going to be perfectly safe.

Originally posted by SuperDon
I dont agree that it is best to buy from a company away from your webhost in all cases.

We register domains and include domains in most packages but the registration is always in the clients name. Should they wish to move there is no problem and they can take control of the domain.

I agree, it is probably best to check this first though.
Why do you feel it's better to buy a domain from a host rather than a trusted third party registrar? I mean, besides the fact that you're trying to sell domain names with your hosting accounts.

I have heard that it is best to purchase one's domain name from a seperate vendor than the web host. Is this correct?


I wouldn't make a generalization like that. There are hosting companies that offer domain name registration and provide good service, just as there are some registrars that provide terrible service.

Thanks so much for the info that you have shared. I a, leaning toward directnic. I find that the name I want is not available in a .com. But is available in .net. What will the difference be.

Also I read on here were people purchase several domain names. Should I purchase more than one if I only plan to have one site? :confused:

Originally posted by kat
Thanks so much for the info that you have shared. I a, leaning toward directnic. I find that the name I want is not available in a .com. But is available in .net. What will the difference be.Not much difference really. And that's the problem. If you want to be unique, it's better to have the .com version since that's the first one people will go to.

Also I read on here were people purchase several domain names. Should I purchase more than one if I only plan to have one site? :confused: Only purchase more than one if you're crazy like a lot of us WHTers are. If you're only going to have one site, then one domain should be enough. If you're building a business however, sometimes it's worth getting several names. For example, if your business is called Fronk Widgets, then possible names might be Fronk.com, or FronkWidgets.com. But you might want to cover your bases by buying both. For that matter, you might also want to buy widget.com, widgets.com, widget.net, widgets.net and so on. In most normal cases however, this shouldn't be necessary.

Looking for under $10 domain registar with free URL forwarding. Please recommend.

Originally posted by freehtml
Looking for under $10 domain registar with free URL forwarding. Please recommend. Namecheap.com