A New Breed of Painless, Affordable Domain Registry
Written: Sep 22 '00 (Updated Jan 30 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Competitive pricing, responsive customer service, easy-to-use interface
Cons: No provision for looking up owner info for domain names already registered
The Bottom Line: Dotster makes registering domains easy and affordable.
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| sprockets's Full Review: Dotster |
Recently, I decided to stake out a piece of e- real estate by securing my very own dot com address. Vain? Perhaps. Practical? Eventually...I hope so.
As a newbie, I know quite little about the ins and outs of how to set up a website. However, I knew enough to realize that securing a domain name in a timely fashion is a crucial first step. For now, I'd be content with just parking my name on a plot of land in the ethereal pastures of the internet.
I stumbled across Dotster on the Epinions site while researching domain registries. After reading all the reviews, one thing was for certain: Network Solutions was to be avoided at all costs. Numerous reviews told of poor support or customer service at other companies. One company seemed to stand apart from the others, however, and that was Dotster (based in Longview, Washington).
For $15, Dotster will register your domain of choice (currently, with the following domain levels only: .com, .net, .org, .tv, and .ws; the latter two cost more) within 48 hours, for one full year. Dotster has priced their domain registration very competitively. No longer is there a need to shell out $35+ per year to secure a domain name, and while their prices are good, they don't cut corners on service. Prior to registering with them, I ran Dotster through a test of sorts: I sent them a question using their website's own inquiry-form. If they were slow to respond to me now as a potential customer, they would be slow later on if I were a real customer and they simply would not get my business. Dotster passed: I received a thorough reply within one day. Incidentally, my domain name was successfully registered within 36 hours.
The Dotster site itself is very easy to use. As others here have noted, making changes to the registrant, contact or billing info is as easy as filling out an online form. The FAQ is quite comprehensive and addressed all of my concerns. For nosy people like me, it would have been useful, however, to be able to look up the owner info for domain names which have already been registered, as is possible on sites such as www.yournamefree.com (doing business as NamesDirect.com).
I am happy with my experience with Dotster and would recommend them to anyone considering registering a domain name. Dotster is a relatively new player in the registry game...let's hope they stay in the scene for a while.
And what am I going to do with my future website? I'll figure that out later. I'm content just to be one of 6+ billion people on this planet with a good parking spot on the e-highway.
UPDATE:
It is now almost February of 2001 (4 months after the initial writing of this review) and Dotster is still in business and my domain name is still just parked and dormant. Since I first wrote this review, I have gone on to register 16 more domain names with Dotster (for both business and for a friend). As of *this* writing of this update, dot-com companies continue to drop left and right and this may mean that prices will also continue to drop for domain registrations...may only the better domain registries survive.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sprockets
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Location: Canada
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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