Preface: I have to tell you about the problems I had to explain why I liked GKG so much....so bear with me on this one...

OK, I got my cablemodem installed a few months ago. So, since I had a 24/7 connection to the net, and wanted to put up my own webserver, I decided it was time to go get my domains registered and set up.

Somewhere on the net (I don't remember where now) is a site that rates all the registrars based on their User policies, especially relating to Domain Name disputes. GKG was one of the ones that had a good rating, so I popped onto their site to see what they had to offer. The first thing I saw was a great big graphic informing me that they were running a sale - $9.95 a year for up to 10 years. Bonus. But, alas, no money right now, so I had to wait until my next paycheck. Fortunately, the sale ran to about 2 weeks after my paycheck arrived.

In the meantime, I trolled around looking for domain names. GKG has an interface that searches all the .com, .net, and .org TLD's for the name you enter. I finally found one, my paycheck arrived, and I registered the domains (3 of them).

So I set up the domains, borrowing my friend's name servers just to get entries in. Now a problem arose. Because I was on a cable modem and my address could change at any time, I couldn't put in my IP Address for a master DNS server. Nor could I set up my friend's servers to take updates from me for the same reason.

Fast forward past a week of playing with various things. No way to send updates. Realize I have a 'permanent' hostname through my DynDNS.org account. Yay. Go to GKG's page, edit my domain, plug in my hostname, error. No such host. How odd, I just logged into my host. Check some things, try again, error again. Send Email to GKG through their contact form explaining to them that I can't enter my hostname as a name server because it says there's no such host, but I know that host works. If you're confused, that's OK, cause so was I, and I know what is is I'm trying to do here.

A day later, I get an Email from a Todd Coble. He tells me that my host is not a valid DNS host. Now I'm confused, because I know the hostname can be reached, and if I use it for lookups, it answers correctly. Send him an Email back explaining that this host does resolve, and does answer lookups. He figures out part of what I'm saying, but tells me that the registrar of my DynDNS.ORG domain needs to add my hostname as a valid DNS host. I don't know why they would need to do that, I don't want to do DNS for dynDNS.org.

Anyway, we send some more Emails back and forth, neither of us understanding what the other is saying. A day or 2 goes by, and while I'm sitting at my desk at work one day, I get a phone call from Todd. I didn't ask him to call, I figured I would have to go back to playing around with updates. But he calls, and we figure out what he's telling me (the host doing DNS has to be registered in WHOIS), and what I'm telling him (what DynDNS.org is). He tells me he's going to go look at some stuff.

Another call from Todd about 2 hours later. He apparently went to the DynDNS site and read all the documentation there (something I skimmed but didn't go over in depth). Apparently, I missed the question in the FAQ on the site about how to do exactly what I'm doing. He pointed out where the FAQ question was, and even wrote up a sample zone file for me to use.

Having worked with some other registrars (I won't mention any names, but I did some domain registration stuff back when there was only 1 registrar), my jaw about hit the floor when that phone call came in. in fact, I put him on hold just to run around and tell people that my Registrar had called me on their own to fix things. Not only that, but they went out and read up on what I was using just to figure out how to do what I wanted. Without a doubt, if anyone else needs to register domains some time, I'm going to tell them to go to GKG.net.

The sale notwithstanding, their registration fees are pretty standard ($25 I think). Right now, they are running yet another sale ($12.99 a year for up to 10 years). Their admin interfaces are sorta 'eh', but how much do you really need to do to maintain the WHOIS records of your domain? My only real complaints, and they are more like gripes, is that their web site tends to be slow, and I'd rather have all of my click nav links up toward the top of the page, or at least duplicated at the top, so when I need to click to 3 levels down in the administration area, I don't have to scroll the screen each time. Oh, and the error I kept getting wasn't explained anywhere on the site. That should be changed shortly, however, since with all the trouble I had, Todd said they were adding long explanations of their error codes to their FAQ.

But so far, this is the only problem I've had with them. If you need a domain name registered, go visit GKG.net, I think you'll be quite satisfied.



Recommended: Yes