Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with domainregistration

Domain registrar(s) matching these criteria, for .com and .com.au?

sakahane — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:43:17 -0800

I have about a dozen .com and .com.au domains with GoDaddy and Name.com.au which I'd like to move, ideally to a single new registrar. Criteria below the fold: - no upselling or sneaky emails (appearance of basic trustworthiness)
- clean back-end with easy name server management
- easy transfers
- responsive email support (same or next day), or better, live chat or a phone number to call

I'm in the process of moving all my websites to a VPS, so I don't require DNS hosting, and I'm willing to pay a small premium for the peace of not having to deal with sleazy business practices or broken back-end websites.

Currently considering: Gandi (for .coms only), Namecheap, Jumba (have had shared hosting accounts with them, with no problems)

I'd also appreciate any cautionary tips on how to go about transferring domains from GoDaddy/Name.com.au (owned by the same people as Domain Central). None of my domains are up for renewal in the next month.

Full disclosure: I asked this question at webmasters.stackexchange.com but was told it wasn't right for their format. I hope Ask MeFi is the right place to ask for recommendations like this.

What kind of domain should I reserve for myself?

zooropa — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:01:11 -0800

PERSONAL BRANDING QUESTION: do I get a .me domain or .com domain? I have a question for all the personal branding gurus out there. Should I get a .me domain or a .com domain? Does it even matter?

Here's why I'm asking:

I've been using the flavors.me service for a while as a personal social media hub/online business card. I work in the business as a social media strategist for a Fortune 300 company, so I've been thinking that I should finally get on the stick and register my own domain.

My name is Michael E. Rubin, and my elevator statement is "Seasoned Social Media & Word of Mouth Marketing professional - and a Jolly Good Fellow to boot." With that in mind, here are some options I'm considering:

michaelerubin.com

michaelerubin.me

jollygoodfellowtoboot.com

jollygoodfellowtoboot.me

socialmediapro.me

Thoughts? All opininos are welcome. No flames, please.

What should a creative professional know about building a web presence?

embrangled — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:12:37 -0800

Please tell me everything a small-time creative professional should know about building a modest yet positive web presence. Must-dos, pitfalls, good habits and provider recommendations...I would like to hear them all.

Registering a .cr domain.

ASM — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:42:23 -0800

I'd like to register a .cr domain but I'm not sure which company I should use. 101 Domain as well as RWGUSA offer .cr registration. 101 Domain has a few spotty reviews and I haven't been able to find much on RWGUSA.

I'd love any recommendations from people who have registered .cr domains before. Is there a particular company I should use? Any that I should stay away from?

Any help would be much appreciated!

How me get website?

SebastianKnight — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:27:42 -0800

I'm thinking about making a website but it's years since I last did this, what are the best registrars, hosts, and insidey bits nowadays? I'm in the UK. I'm working on some creative projects at the moment (visual art, collaborative research - it's all very nebulous right now) and sooner or later they're going to need an online base. It's years since I last did any of this stuff and I'm completely out of touch - help me get up to speed.

The site structure needs to be flexible enough to house blog-like sections (serially updated content) and portfolio-like sections (non-Flash image galleries etc.), and I want to house several projects at one domain name like this www.domainname.com/project1 www.domainname.com/project2 and so forth. I'm not a techie person at all but I don't mind using an admin interface if it's straightforward. I really don't want to be fending off new exploits or spending days on setup and things like that though. Please ask specific questions if my thinking is too unclear.

I'd really appreciate some feedback from people who really know their stuff rather than from miscellaneous one-time satisfied customers. Keep in mind that I'm in UK, if that's at all relevant.

- Can you suggest any general resources for domain name ideas?

- Who should I register the domain name with? In the past I've used the godaddy service where they conceal your name and address from WHOIS queries. What do you think about that?

- Who should I buy hosting from? I'm not expecting much traffic and my budget is very tight but I would like to go with a company who've been proven over time. Easy setup is a plus. And I want to be able to do redirects easily (e.g. www.mydomainname.com/survey1 would redirect to something like Survey Monkey).

- When I have the name and the empty hole it points to, how should I put something in it? MTCreations recommended Wordpress to another poster here - do you agree with those comments? Would they fit my intentions?

I think that's it. My problem is that I want a good quality end product but that I don't have the knowledge or discernment to get there on my own, or the budget to buy someone else's.

Thanks everyone - you're saving me hours of reading in circles.

webhosting blues

ninazer0 — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:35:34 -0800

I need a web-hosting company and I know bugger-all about what to look for. Bonus: I'll need to re-register my domain soon. Can someone please hold my hand and gently point me in the right direction? I am in Australia. I run a small business from home. My current provider isn't working out for me - and, being overseas - they are impossible to contact if there's an emergency (which there is ATM), so I'd prefer one in Australia.

I have a small-ish site (minimal pages, but a fair number of images) and would get only a couple of hundred visitors per day and I don't need anything fancy. I need a few email addresses and that's about it. I have full backups of everything on my site so I just need to migrate to a new host. I think.

I tried Googling but I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of results and I realise that I know bugger all about this business. Even if you can't recommend a specific company, I'd appreciate advice about what to look for and what/who to avoid.

How can I cancel an IPS TAG change?

Scramblejam — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:07:57 -0800

How can I cancel an erroneous IPS TAG change? I am trying to help one of my clients manage their domain portfolio. Recently, I was instructed to change the IPS TAG for the domain, in order to transfer it to another registration provider. The trouble is now that I've discovered that the current destination registration provider doesn't support the domain extension involved (.ltd.uk) and I cannot use their control panel to transfer the domain - leaving it essentially in limbo between registrars.

Is there any way I can cancel the IPS TAG change, or to redirect back to the old registrar?

Thanks.

Who really owns a domain?

missmagenta — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:56:05 -0800

Who really owns a domain? If a company registers a domain under the name of an individual, who really owns the domain and what are their rights? If a hosting company registers a domain on behalf of an individual, who owns it, the individual or the company? Specifically, if the whois record lists the individual's name as the registrant can the hosting company hold the domain to ransom? If the individual wants to change hosting suppliers but keep the same domain what are their rights if the hosting company refuses? Do they have any?

Which domain auction service gives me the best odds?

oddman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:17:45 -0800

Which domain auction house is associated with dotregistrar/mydomain? A domain that I want is set to expire in May of this year. If it does expire I'd like to snap it up, and following previous posts, I'm going to use a domain auction house.

Here's the catch:

Namejet (formally eNom) claims to have exclusive access to domains listed on their partner registries (Network Solutions for one). However, they don't seem to provide a complete list of their partners (or I couln't find it). Snapnames and Pool would presumably have a similar deal (however. I couldn't confirm this.)

Understandably I'd rather not pay all three services, if one is more closely associated with my target's current registrar.

So, can anyone tell me if dotregistrar (now working under/with mydomain.com) is partnered with any of these (or some other) domain auction site? In other words, wich of the auction houses is most likely to actually get the domain for me?

Problems buying a Canadian domain name

clarissajoy — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:07:18 -0800

I'm trying to buy a Canadian domain name (.ca) and every registrar that I've tried tells me that my Canadian corporation name is not valid. I need to buy a domain name for the Canadian branch of the organization I work for (I'm in the US).

We are incorporated in Canada, as well as being a registered charity in Canada, and as such we meet the requirements for buying a .ca domain name. However, when I fill out the domain registration form, it says the name of our organization is invalid (I tried this at a few different registrars).

I called one to ask why, and was told that we need to use our full official name, which must contain a suffix such as Inc, Ltd, Ltee, Corp, etc. (they gave me a full list of about 25 different possibilities). All the registrars have their forms set up so it won't validate unless one of those words are included in the corporation name.

However, our official name doesn't include any of those words. It's simply "Organization Name." I double-checked on our incorporation paperwork.

Am I supposed to just add "Inc" after our legal name, since we are incorporated? This doesn't seem right, since the form clearly says to enter our "full legal name," which doesn't include an "Inc." But I can't figure out how else to get past the name requirement in the form.

I don't want to do it wrong and then end up with them canceling the domain registration later.

I keep thinking there must be a simple answer to this, but I can't find anything on google, and the domain registrar I called didn't know what to do either. They kept insisting that I must not have the correct name.

Anybody gone through this before and have any ideas?

How can a domain name be "not found" on Internic Whois but not available to register either?

nramsey — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:14:46 -0800

What explanation is there for a domain name to be "not found" on Internic Whois but not available to register either?

Help me get my domain back!

genial — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 16:42:36 -0800

In March of this year I registered a domain name using GoDaddy (went with the cheapest option). When the whole "Godaddy condones torture" scandal thing hit I immediately decided I didn't want to give them my business and procedded to cancel my domain, which apparently is not what I wanted to do. Help me get my domain back! Ok, so the process was complicated but apparently I was not familiar enough to know the difference between transfering a domain and cancelling a domain and I chose to cancel my account. Now my domain is parked with lovely advertising for GoDaddy's service (the irony....) and I can find no option of getting my domain back unless I wait until march of next year (or later). What are my options?

Help me identify all registered domain names containing the string fortruth.

gwint — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:16:08 -0800

Is there a way to get a plain text file with all currently registered domain names? Also, is there a way to use whois (from the command line or via a web site) to do partial searches (e.g. whois meta*.com) for large searches (whois seems to cut off after 20 search results)? (domainsurfer.com can do this but their db hasn't been updated for 2 years) Kind of inspired by wanting to find all of "*fortruth.*" because of this comment.

Is there any knowledge base software out there that is reasonably simple to configure?

mcwetboy — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 12:10:00 -0800

Two questions in one, relating to a new web site I'm working on. First: is there any knowledge base software out there that is reasonably simple to configure? What I have in mind could conceivably be done through Movable Type or a wiki, but the kbases I've seen are a better fit. Suggestions? And second: my hosting provider does not register .info domain names -- can anyone recommend a .info registrar?

Figuring out where a domain was registered

damnitkage — Wed, 25 Feb 2004 06:49:20 -0800

Client has forgotten where he registered domain. We need to change name server info. Whois doesn't really help as it just tells us he's the admin contact, etc. Anyone have any ideas how I can find this info?