Registrar w/ bulletproof mail redirect?

December 23, 2007 6:18 AM

Registrar w/ bulletproof mail redirect?

For several years I have been content with service on my dozen domain registrations with my old registrar, but no longer. I recently registered a .com domain and created one email redirect and one webmail account but neither work. I had to hunt on the registrar's site for the contact-form and never received an automated email with a ticket number. (UPDATE: finally got an automated email this very minute.)

I'm looking for a registrar which offers superlative mail forwarding. I don't really need webmail or hosting or spam protection -- just rock solid redirect from a registrar who isn't going away and has a good reputation. I'm currently paying US $15/year per domain (a mix of European and American domains) -- offering 5 webmail accounts and 1,000 redirects per domain, and I would be willing to continue to pay in that range.

posted by skywhite to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I don't have a specific recommendation but the Web Hosting Talk forums are a good resource for this stuff.
posted by sharkfu at 6:29 AM on December 23, 2007

(If you do ask in another forum, note that "bulletproof" in some forums means "where I send spam without getting kicked off")

In my experience, finding low-cost hosting where the service always works is rare. If what you have has been working fine for years, I'd be very cautious about switching.
posted by winston at 7:22 AM on December 23, 2007

You could have told us who you're using now, just as a measure of your current level of quality, but you should just choose a large registrar like GoDaddy or Joker or whoever. They don't want to be hearing from a $15/yr customer every two weeks about a mail that took an extra hour to get to them, so they're going to have bulletproof setups.
posted by rhizome at 9:26 AM on December 23, 2007

zonedit.com can do it. If you leave your registrations at your current registrar and switch to zoneedit.com's name servers, you can set up free DNS and mailforwarding for up to five domains.

Their web presence is geek minimal, but they are a legit registrar, and they give you full control over your DNS records (including TXT records). I used to host DNS and mail for a some of friends and small businesses but now I just use zoneedit.com mailforwards to GMail and it works great. Never seen a dropped or unreasonably delayed email.
posted by ldenneau at 9:59 AM on December 23, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

You could have told us who you're using now, just as a measure of your current level of quality

Gandi.net. I didn't mention them because I didn't want to slime them, but I am very frustrated by the current issues.

but you should just choose a large registrar like GoDaddy

Oh dear God not them.
posted by skywhite at 1:58 PM on December 23, 2007

note that "bulletproof" in some forums means "where I send spam without getting kicked off"

Eek! Thanks for the heads up.
posted by skywhite at 2:00 PM on December 23, 2007

ldenneau, zoneedit looks interesting.

After a bit of research today (including at webhostingtalk -- thanks, sharkfu) I'm also considering pairnic, the domain side of the respected pair.com webhosts, as well as possibly setting up a 'tiny' hosting/registration plan at smallorange.com with mail forwarding.
posted by skywhite at 2:03 PM on December 23, 2007

Seconding Zoneedit as a rock-solid no hassle provider, though their whole "credit" system for payment is annoyingly hard to get your head around.

Also seconding "oh god not them" on GoDaddy, the choice of cheapskates, newbies and suckers everywhere. :)
posted by rokusan at 3:52 PM on December 23, 2007

Interestingly, according to the comments on this site, dotster bought zoneedit, and complaints have increased about zoneedit's reliability and inserted advertising.
posted by skywhite at 4:59 PM on December 23, 2007

You probably know this but its not entirely clear. The registrar and email provider don't have to be the same company and its often more flexible and safer to keep them separate. It's only in the last few years that many registrars have started trying to be a one stop shop. I think its fair to say that when a company that is primarily a domain registrar offers email forwarding then it's often as a "free" extra and not part of the their core business so it might not be the greatest service.

I've been very happy with NameCheap as a registrar. I haven't used their email forwarding much but I helped a friend set it up and I haven't heard any complaints.

As for hosting, I've used and suffered cheap hosts for about ten years. I finally settled on JodoHost and I'm very happy with them. It may or may not be what you want but you could get their cheapest Linux host package for $4.95 per month. That allows 3 domains but unlimited aliases so that would work with many domains provided you can live with [e-mail] being the same [e-mail].
posted by tetranz at 5:28 PM on December 23, 2007

Having worked for one of the largest hosting companies in the world who was not an accredited registrar and now working for an accredited registrar who is not a web host I'm fully on the bandwagon of splitting these two things up.

I'd register all of your names with a cheaper, yet fully accredited and solid registrar and get a decent hosting account.

Alternatively, my company, Name.com, offers fully integrated Google Apps for your domain with registration at just $5.99 you'd actually be saving a good chunk of change. If that didn't fit your bill you could buy inexpensive hosting at iPower, BlueHost, etc. and have all of your email handled that way.
posted by FlamingBore at 5:29 PM on December 23, 2007