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registrars Good registrar to transfer customers to

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IT_Architect

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I'm simply here to leverage the ideas of a group whose passion is all about domains and registrars for ideas that I might not be thinking about.

Situation
: We have bare metals in large data centers. Because of our other businesses, people asked us to make their web stuff go away and just send them an invoice. We've done their sites, SEO work, etc. We've been doing this forever including buying all of the domain names for them from our two enom master accounts. This all started long ago before there was whois protection. (actually when one guy did domains for the web) What is good about what we have is when we setup new or shuffle sites between servers, the customer does not know or care. The enom control panel was the best when we first went with them. It works great for changing things in bulk. It's easy for us to approve changes. These corporations are our friends. They trust us completely, and don't want the web to be a thought that distracts them from what they do. Some already have automated backdials before answering, send some to voicemail automatically, or require a code or credit card to talk to anyone.

Problem: I don't want to own their domains anymore. It's not in their best interest and we don't want to have a business that owns us. Clients don't want to hear about it when we change their name servers to new servers.

Goal: Have the users have their own accounts, and I can still easily manage them without generating Emails to the owner of the corporation where it would end up in his spam, or him not want to be bothered by something that annoys him. Some of them don't turn on their computers for weeks at a time. They don't care if I have their user name and password, in fact for customers with their own registrars, they ask us what their password is once in a while when they have to renew, use their web site control panel, and often get calls from them for their Email password when they get new cell phone. That means no Reseller Club, GoDaddy, or Network Solutions where they run you through their upsell fun house when the only reason they want is to renew, which we also do for them from time to time. Obviously I could create their accounts under my reseller account or create them on enom and push them.

Summary: Your registrar recommendations don't have the be the cheapest, and gimmicks and deals count for as negatives. They simply want to respond to a renewal page after they get a notification to renew, or more likely when their Email stops working, and renew their domain, at a price that is close to what they paid the time before. We do work from time to time with accounts on GoDaddy, NameCheap, NameSilo, and Uniregister, Network Solutions, etc., but like once every year or two. enom is the one we know. The only one I hated with a passion is OpenSRS.

Thanks!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
It's not clear what you are asking for. Do you want your customers to have their own registrar accounts, or do you want them to have their own registrar accounts, under your master account at a registrar? The latter was always pretty good at eNom, although their interface hasn't been updated in years. Their support has also become a huge pain. IMHO. Aren't you using that system now? If this is what you want, you need a Reseller Registrar, like eNom.In which case I would recommend eNom :) They are by far the biggest reseller registrar, and you should probably use them, since you have experience with them. Although I'm not sure how much has changed with their recent change of ownership. The only big reseller registrars today are eNom and OpenSRS (same owner), Endurance's Reseller Club, and GoDaddy's Resellers. I don't see how you get around a Reseller Registar, doing what you want to do. Or am I missing something here?
 
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If you are looking for a registrar where you can plunk your clients into, and leave them to manage their own domains, then I'd recommend either Dynadot or NameSilo. Both have good support and pricing, IMHO. I'd even go as far as saying that having a regular GoDaddy account could be an advantage for your clients :) But any registrar choice is going to be a million miles from the hands-free service which you are providing. Which is going to be a jarring shock for most of them. Prices could be very high too, at places like GoDaddy.
 
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But reading your post again. It sounds like you want them to have their own registrar accounts, which you open and manage for them. Then I'd go with my suggestions above, of Dynadot and NameSilo. But I'd ask why you can't do that at eNom? Except maybe for the pricing being a barrier. But I would point out, that with each customer having their own account, would mean some of the economies of scale won't apply. Which would be the same at all registrars. I'm not sure if that is a concern or not.
 
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Why don't your customers register for 10 years and forget it? I know, the yearly ICANN verify comes up though.

I don't like most web interfaces you mention, tried many of them. I prefer to use (2): Namesilo, but lately prefer Namebright for speed of use of sorting all columns and bulk operations on all fields. You might register one domain and test it out, the nameserver changes I find work very fast on Namebright also within a few minutes to a couple hours. They actually have real live humans who answer their phones during business hours too.
 
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@offthehandle - I'd be sure to forget it after 10 years :) I'd be on my 3rd computer at least by then.
 
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@offthehandle - I'd be sure to forget it after 10 years :) I'd be on my 3rd computer at least by then.

I did that with several active website domains. In fact, I had to remember to renew after the first 10 years, luckily I did as I sold it last year for good $.
 
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>It's not clear what you are asking for.<
Because I don't know what I want, is no excuse for you not give me the answer I need. :xf.grin:

1. >...or do you want them to have their own registrar accounts, under your master account at a registrar? In which case I would recommend eNom :) They are by far the biggest reseller registrar, and you should probably use them, since you have experience with them.<
+ It is a single interface that I am familiar with..
? What happens though when I don't want to do this anymore? I could sell it to another reseller? My experience small resellers is near non-existent support. I would be back where I am now.
- I'm the one that has to do the accounting because they pay me and then I pay eNom.

2. >Do you want your customers to have their own registrar accounts?<
+ If they are all on the same interface, I only have one to learn. They only thing I require is a capable one. After that, what matters most, is where the customer is best off.
+ I'm off the hook for their invoicing and making sure they renew. They'll figure it out when their Email stops working, call me, or I'm not hosting for them anymore, someone else, who will tell them to renew their domain, and after calls, Emails, a trip the notary, and faxes, because they no longer have their password or login, they will be back up and running in ~3 days.
+ It makes it easy for me to bow out of hosting other people's domains.

Thoughts:
a. No matter which way I go, I lose the ability to use bulk tools across customer domains, so number 2 gets me off the hook more ways.
b. With the customer's domains off from eNom, it wouldn't make sense for me to use eNom for my own few remaining domains and retain the hassle of maintaining a balance at eNom. I could push anything else to the other eNom account if I really wanted to, but probably wouldn't.
c. What makes sense going this route is:
1. NameCheap - $9.69 - 9 million domains, U.S.-based, steady growth, Free +WHOIsGuard and +Email Forwarding for those with parked domains. ~Upsell hosting if they want it. No experience with their control panel since they branched out from being eNom reseller to ICANN certified registrar.
2. NameSilo - $8.99 - 2 million domains, U.S.-based, and now Canada-based, steady growth, Free ~WHOIsGuard and +Email Forwarding but WHOIsGuard is flawed in that all domains that belong to the same owner have the same contact, even if they do change the contacts periodically. No hosting upsell and everything is included.
3. UniRegistry - $10.88 - 1.3 million domains, HQ Cayman Islands with presence in U.S. and U.K., flat growth, CP has bulk management tools, you can attach documents or photos to domains in the control panel. Their panel and services make them a darling for domain flippers. -No Email forwarding. They have phone apps as well for management. +No hosting upsell.

Thoughts: No Email forwarding in UniRegistry is a real negative. There is normally only a $0.70 price gap between NameCheap and NameSilo. NameSilo doesn't upsell but has a fishy WHOIsGuard. Anything else make more sense than NameCheap and NameSilo?

Other:
GoDaddy is the largest domain reseller at 60 million. I'd be interested hear what possible advantages GoDaddy actually has. In my limited experience, and I told a customer what they needed to do, GoDaddy led them down the yellow brick road. When I called for them afterward, they were crooks, lying about how DNS works, to prevent them from pointing to non-GoDaddy server, and their nuisance upselling was second only to Reseller Club, and right in there with Network Solutions. They've also threatened me about domain name information accuracy and how they would take them away when the domain was not even hosted by them. They wade into political areas when the believe it will somehow benefit them. I'm guessing the key to their success is their shared hosting business, smart brand building, but perhaps I'm missing real and technical value somewhere.

Thanks!
 
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So price is important to you. My comments about GoDaddy were because they are the biggest (by far) retail register. But with $15+ .com renewals for small accounts, and as you've mentioned, their general attitude, I wouldn't put them on the shortlist either. Although I like Uni's CP. I don't think they are attractive, for small timer registrations. In fact they are going in the wrong direction, by increasing prices. It's not the market they are interested in.

I went thru a similar exercise to you about some 5 years ago. but only for me. My shortlisted three registrars were Dynadot, Name, NameSilo, out of about 50-60 Registrars. I would say I'm a (Semi+) Power User of a Registrars Offering/Control Panel. I removed NameSilo from the final 3 because 1) Their Control Panel wasn't the easiest to navigate and looks like it was designed in the 20th Century, although it is complete and everything is free, and 2) They were a fairly new registrar at that time (doesn't apply now). I then removed Name, because they had 1 quirk which always irked me, a 2 line domain info in their Control Panel. Which I think they eventually fixed. Leaving Dynadot. Which ticked most all boxes for me. Personal Account Manager (not important for you), a very good control panel (which needed some learning to get the best out of it). also not important in your case, and good prices, probably also not going to be as competitive as NameSilo. Until this day. I have never regretted the decision I made. And I would make the same decision today.

From your list I would choose NameSilo, because their support is pretty good, and their prices are excellent plus, everything else is free. But they are a registrar only. They don't sell hosting. Maybe/Maybe not, that would be an important factor in your decision making.

Buy it really isn't crystal clear what your ultimate goal is. You say you provide the hosting for your customers, as well with the help with registration etc. You want them to take responsibility for their own registrations. And you said you then also intend stop providing hosting services. Basically, you want to offload all these troublesome customers and then bow out of their hosting. I don't have any trouble with any of that. But, why not just offload the business complete? Or is it just not profitable? Judging from what you are saying, these customers depend on you for everything. that attitude is going to be difficult to manage your way out of.

Personally. I would NOT recommend putting your webhosting and domain registrations with the same company. Because if you get into trouble with your hosting, your domain registrations will be at risk of being blocked. Meaning you are totally F*. Which is not the case if they are separated into 2 different companies.
 
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>So price is important to you.<
I have only one customer that has 16-20 domain names, the remainder have 1 or 2, usually the .net and .com. It probably should be lower in my thinking.

> But it really isn't crystal clear what your ultimate goal is. You say you provide the hosting for your customers, as well with the help with registration etc. You want them to take responsibility for their own registrations. And you said you then also intend stop providing hosting services. Basically, you want to offload all these troublesome customers and then bow out of their hosting. I don't have any trouble with any of that. But, why not just offload the business complete? Or is it just not profitable? Judging from what you are saying, these customers depend on you for everything, that attitude is going to be difficult to manage your way out of.<
The whole thing might make the most sense and certainly the easiest.

> From your list I would choose NameSilo, because their support is pretty good, and their prices are excellent plus, everything else is free.<
NameSilo is beginning to gel with me, on more than price.
- NameSilo’s insecure WhoIsGuard is not something that matters small companies with one or two domains. The one with 16-20 do their own web site design and are not into blackhat tricks.
- NameSilo is not in the hosting business.

> Personally. I would NOT recommend putting your webhosting and domain registrations with the same company, because if you get into trouble with your hosting, your domain registrations will be at risk of being blocked. Meaning you are totally F*. Which is not the case if they are separated into 2 different companies.<
From our own real-world experience, you should never buy your domain from your hosting service. People immediately think of billing issues, but that is not the problem. No matter what they promise, any time the success of your business reduces the number of sites they can have on a server, even when you have not even come close to exceeding what they promised, they call it abuse, and lock you out, until you call, and then negotiate a dedicated server they cannot keep running, and their response to support tickets start to become days apart. Usually the domain is included in the same control panel, and often you have no control over the name servers it points at. Transferring a domain away from them can be a lengthy process involving support tickets, failed transfers, and 1-2 week affairs. If the hoster has a business problem, you have a domain access problem due to a business relationship they have with the registrar, which is often another corporation they own, which is commonly done to divide their business risk. If the ICANN registrar part has a business problem, ICANN will appoint another to host your domains right away, and you will be running. (How some domains ended up on eNom before our consolidation and reseller account) There are also ICANN rules they need to follow that do not require your limited power and money to enforce. Over the years, we have experienced every one of these issues. A registrar that is not in the hosting business is a plus in my book because if domains are the only thing that floats their boat, they don’t have anything else to cover for doing a mediocre job with domains, and there are fewer opportunities for conflicts of interests that are not in your best interest.

Thanks! You've helped me TONS!, with no small part of it being a sounding board to define my objectives. Now I just need to weigh the options.
 
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@IT_Architect - From what you are saying, it sounds to me that NameSilo would be a good choice. As I said above. Glad to have been of help.
 
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