How do I forward a register.com domain without the ads or fees?

January 28, 2013 4:57 AM

I have a domain, myname.com, that I want to have forwarded to my Google Sites webpage. My old domain company did it for free but now that I signed with register.com they want either a fee to do it or I have to accept their annoying banner ad. How do I get around this?

Did I make a mistake going with register.com? Do I need to reregister with another company that has free forwarding?

posted by nestor_makhno to technology (12 answers total)

you could just create an index page for the original web site that forwards to the new url...an example is located here.
posted by HuronBob at 5:29 AM on January 28

Are you talking about their 50$ fee? That seems expensive. Elsewhere, you can have 5 years of domain hosting and forwarding for that. Maybe you can move your domain?

This article seems to be relevant to your interests.
posted by Too-Ticky at 5:31 AM on January 28

you could just create an index page for the original web site that forwards to the new url...an example is located here.
posted by HuronBob at 5:29 AM on January 28 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

But wouldn't I need someplace to host that index page? Register.com wants $13/month for just a basic site.
posted by nestor_makhno at 5:51 AM on January 28

Domain registration is separate from hosting. You are paying a lot for domain registration at register.com.
posted by rdr at 5:58 AM on January 28

I know, I should have said that Register.com wants $13/month for basic site hosting. I paid $12 to register the domain. So without paying for hosting my only way to forward the site would be to reregister it with a different company?
posted by nestor_makhno at 6:04 AM on January 28

Nope. You can have one company register your domain and another company host it. Or you could host it yourself.

Once you join a hosting company you like, all you need to do is add the nameserver to your register.com's information.
posted by royalsong at 6:13 AM on January 28

Ah I was just answering your last question. Rereading your original question and looking over register.com's website. It looks like you don't have a choice. Either you pay their fee or display their banner. (Also, this is really shitty of them)

If you don't want the banner, don't want to pay for hosting, and don't want to pay their fee, then the best solution is to register the domain with another company.

You could set up hosting through a place like NearlyFreeSpeech (Super low cost "pay for what you use" hosting service) and from there put up a forwarding page it like huronbob is suggesting.
posted by royalsong at 6:25 AM on January 28

For over a decade I've used French domain registrar Gandi.net to register my domains, and they do free redirects. (They are not the only company to do this, but I chose them at the time because they were the only registrar I found to explicitly guarantee you the ownership of your domain name & rights at a time when some major registrars were suspending domains for questionable reasons.)

The cost to you would simply be for adding a year ($16 for .com) to your domain ownership as you do a domain transfer to them.

I have two domains which redirect, one to a Tumblr account and one to a Posterous account. No problems.
posted by skywhite at 6:56 AM on January 28

NameCheap also does free redirects (with or without a frame -- the frame hides the destination URL). I recommend them.
posted by kindall at 8:14 AM on January 28

Yes, you made a mistake going with register.com. A provider that charges for basic name server functionality or inserts ads for any reason whatsoever is a scam operation.

I've had good experiences with Namecheap.
posted by zjacreman at 10:04 AM on January 28

What you need to do is transfer the domain to a less rapacious registration company. You will then be able to forward both email and web pages to wherever you want.
posted by Lanark at 11:57 AM on January 28

It should be possible to use a different DNS host while keeping your domain registered at register.com. There's quite a few free dns hosting options. I think namecheap gives you free dns even if you don't have a domain with them. There's dyn.he.net, clouddns.net, and others if you google for them. If you set DNS hosting outside of register.com I can't see how register.com could do the banner ads. I've never used any of these services because my registrars' DNS options were OK. It's probably easier to transfer the domain away from register.com.
posted by rdr at 5:22 PM on January 28