registrars Who is the best registrar in the business?

[equity78]

It's been over 18 months since the last big poll here, a few things have changed, and there is new policy out of GoDaddy today. So let's take a new poll on best registrar. GoDaddy ran away with the last poll.

1. Godaddy
   303 vote(s)
   52.5%

 

[namesilo]

Hi Everyone. Just saw this thread, and, needless to say, we are very thankful for all of the votes and kind words - they are very much appreciated and I will be sure to share with the rest of our team!

We very much enjoy all of the correspondence with people we've met through NamePros. You are collectively a very knowledgeable group and the feedback we have gotten here has led to a number of the additions, improvements and adjustments we've made to our services over the years.

We look forward to rolling out numerous projects under development for 2018 and intend to continue building trust with our valued customers here at NamePros.

Thanks again on behalf of the whole team at NameSilo!

 

[Kuffy]

Name Silo is winning at the moment, and rightly so. They have everything - free privacy, a well designed market place with a reasonable charge for an "escrow" push, they accept and pay in Bitcoin, cheap prices, free privacy etc. If they included a morning coffee, they would be perfect.

 

[Hypersot]

I really believe EPIK should be mentioned in the poll

 

[HotKey]

Voted.

Porkbun should be on there..they're fantastic.

Domainmonster is no more, unless you're an existing customer. They are 123 Reg now.

 

[namesilo]

Very fast and knowledgeable support at NameSilo both via email and chat.

I agree with the member who earlier mentioned it is annoying that GoDaddy no longer offers email support. And the last two times I have used GoDaddy's chat support, they have barely had a clue about domains. I guess they need to know about many of the other products they offer, so they cannot be domain experts.

The only thing that "worries" me a bit about NameSilo is how they make money... I would love for them to make a good profit so we can use them for many years to come. But with low domain prices, free privacy and no other products such as hosting, I guess profits must come from marketplace commissions?

Thanks for the kind words - they are appreciated!

It is actually not an abnormal question for people to ask us how we are able to offer the pricing we do and remain profitable. We actually wrote a quick article on this topic:

https://www.namesilo.com/Support/How-our-pricing-can-be-so-low

To expand on the details covered there, we are backed very well financially and have remained profitable every year since our inception. We do not have the same overhead as many of our competitors - this allows us to keep our prices low and still make money. We are also extremely focused on the other cost factors associated with running the business. We have been in business since 2010 and have learned a lot in that time that allows us to continue improving operational efficiency without sacrificing quality of service such as fast and knowledgeable email/chat support, stable system infrastructure (DNS, Marketplace, etc.) and a control panel that simply works.

What this all adds up to is that our model remains viable and consistent (we haven't raised .com prices for example for about 5 years) while allowing us to continue to offer the pricing we do as well as to expand and refine our services.

Sorry that I can't offer more specific examples as that would get into the "secret sauce" of some of the elements of our successful operations and growth, but you can rest assured that we are in absolutely no danger of having our services compromised in a way that would prevent you from using us "for many years to come"... just the opposite really

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I really like the phone support I receive at GoDaddy, Though, I have a premier service rep, and he always makes me feel welcomed.

Though within the last year, I have became quite fond on how @namesilo has handled issues brought up by namepros members. Their marketplace is improving, and I haven't incurred much [if any] real issues there.

Here's one of my favorite @namesilo moments of the year HERE: Long story short, @Crysis did a good deed by returning a CVCV.com to its rightful owner after finding out he purchased a stolen domain from Namesilo. Namesilo then stepped up after reviewing the case, and issued @Crysis a refund.

 

[Arca]

I you are a domain investor there is no better registrar than NameSilo. Very practical control panel, good for managing a larger portfolio, helpful customer support, straightforward transfer in/out, afternic fast-transfer integration, free privacy, transparent and reasonable prices, and a superb marketplace for selling NameSilo registered names. I find them to be the best registrar in the industry and I hope they will be able to maintain their high quality of service for years to come.

 

[ResoluteDomains]

My vote is for NameSilo.

I've been moving things to NameSilo in 2017. Reasons include Godaddy eliminating email customer service and do not seem to want to bring it back. Afternic is a very buggy system - much frustration with them.. The user interface at Godaddy Auctions is confusing and its antiquated. Also, as a domain investor I like the NameSilo interface. At Godaddy I feel like any other customer who is upsold all the way through the domain purchase and renewal process.

Little by little these things added up and I started to wander... I found NameSilo, among others, and I am really impressed with NameSilo for my registrar.

 

[tonyk2000]

An interesting question. I'd say that one-and-only best registrar for all users simply does not exist.

There are so many things to consider:

Non-U.S. user is always more safe with non-U.S. registrar.

One should not forget that most complaints, udrps etc. are originated from the United States of America, it is very easy for such complainants (~$150 filling fee) to sue non-U.S. registrant in U.S. court with or without reason if the complainant wants to obtain a valuable domain which belongs to non-U.S. registrant, and (!) if the domain is registered with U.S.-based registrar. It is not happening too frequently because of greedy corporate lawyers who prefer to avoid such a cheap method, nothing else. However, if non-US domain owner registered his valuable domain name with non-US registrar, it would become somewhat more hard to sue them in the United States (of course there is an option to use Virginia court for com/net domains as verisign registry is located in Virginia, so the domain name is also technically located there, but it is another story).

The above does not apply to US-based domain owners, as they are already in mentioned country and can be easily sued regardless of registrars location.

For an enduser based outside U.S., I would recommend EasyDns registrar. They are Canadians, reasonably safe to use, easy control panel etc, and they would not shut the domain name down just because somebody emailed them asking to do so ("hello, we are London police, please disconnect the following domains"). There were such cases. Most registrars promptly complied - Indian Bigrock, many U.S.-based registrars, but not EasyDns. No order from Canadian court = no action.

For an enduser based inside U.S., I would recommend NameSilo of course, but if and only if the user is technically advanced. NameSilo has soo many cool professional features that an average enduser may be lost. A next development step of this no doubts the best U.S.-based registrar might be introducing two types of accounts/interfaces - simplified for an enduser and professional(current) for a domainer or reseller.

Uniregistry? Also an option, because of safe Cayman jurisdiction. I wish they could improve their marketing team though, I feel I still need some "psychological recovery" (or a lot of beer) after they sincerely promoted .xyz(!) on the 1st page and by email like the next big thing similar to bitcoin... And I never know what image will I see next time I visit uniregistry. Ok, at least there is no dancing Jean-Claude Van Damme (who was dancing on GoDaddy a few years ago for a couple of weeks or so).

GoDaddy? Please return Danica Patrick . It is boring to see the same no-named guy with headphones, for many months, each time I'm going to login page. With a dedicated account manager (and only with a manager) GoDaddy is OK. Or with @Joe Styler who is always here to help, thank you so much Joe for being a member of this forum

 

[namesilo]

Yes, but they've been saying that for quite a while now, so not sure if/when it will happen. If it happens, they will be the perfect registrar for me.

Thanks for the note. .in is the next ccTLD that we will likely support. It is a bit slow-going with the registry, but the process is underway. We are hoping for .uk some time in the first part of 2018.

We work only directly with TLD registries instead of going through middlemen like many registrars. This is the best way for us to offer the lowest pricing and best customer support, but it does mean that it takes us longer to complete integrations. Thanks for your patience and we're on it

 

[Embrand]

To transfer names within epik is smooth and hassle free. I haven't tried to transfer out yet. Would be nice if anyone has experience with transferring out of epik.

It is very easy to transfer out of Epik. The system automatically checks if the domain is eligible for transfer-out, unlocks and sends the auth. code to you. They also provide for instant approval of the transfer, so no need to wait 5-7 days.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Fair point Hyper, I actually included the same names from the old poll, I should have switched out Domain Monster for Epik. @Eric Lyon can you edit that I don't think polls can be edited.

Updated.

Note: At the time of editing, Domain Monster had 0 votes.

 

[Silentptnr]

I voted GoDaddy for one reason. Telephone Support. It's the best imo. But everything else needs tweaking badly.

I think Uniregistry underestimates the importance of telephone support. The support hours need to be adjusted or expanded.

I basically like all of them including registrars that aren't even listed. They each have little nuances.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Ah....Bulloney. I voted for Epik because Rob Monster is first class. Most of my 450+ domains reside at GoDaddy, but my last 22 domains I purchased at Epik. It may be because I'm new, or it may be because I'm old, but Rob Monster has gone out of his way to help me. At GoDaddy I'm a tiny fish in a big Ocean, but at Epik I can swim with the head Shark.

 

[Peak.Domains]

I've been really happy after switching to NameSilo after using NameCheap for years. I never really liked NameCheap's redesign of their backend, it just felt kind of unnecessarily "big" and cumbersome. Had one little issue over the whole .co kerfuffle, that wasn't even their fault, and they had it sorted out super quick. I've also used GoDaddy when I've had to, but not a huge fan of their renewal prices or all the other charges they ding ya for.

NameSilo gets my vote for helpful support staff, a really simple dashboard, very reasonable prices, fast transfers when I make sales, and becasue the silo reminds me of spending summers at the farm.

@namesilo Keep it up!!

 

[equity78]

Been awhile, and could not help but notice the poll taking up the right column when I signed in.

The way the question is worded, I can only conclude the poller wants the reader to believe Godaddy made a bad policy move (so let's have a new poll, and see if they win Now). Of course the wording of a poll question most often skews-up the results. As 'leading questions' don't produce objective results.

Though, in my case it did reinforce why I go with Godaddy -as one of the good things about larger, stock holder, owned corporations is the Objective Quality of Service. Something I don't often find with the smaller 'culture clan' shops -where the level of service often depends on if they like you. And, if they don't -they can mess with you in ways Godaddy customer service reps can't get away with. Then there is the phone service, which has always quickly solved any issue I had.

Actually Claude no, I don't want the reader to do anything, their choices don't affect my life in any way, shape or form. I had been planning on starting a new poll actually a month prior because I like a yearly poll on this topic in the largest community in the domain industry.

There have been a lot of changes this year, not just GoDaddy's policy change which I was neither for or against. Enom is now owned by Tucows, Name.com is now owned by Donuts. Sentiment has been growing in favor of NameSilo on here for awhile. So I thought it was about time to see where the community was at. There is no leading question, Who is the best? pretty cut and dry in my opinion, not who has a cute swag giveaway, who you like for a certain tld, but overall, who do you think is the best. Mentioning GoDaddy won the first time was noted for historical purpose.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

 

[thedotsol]

And maybe increased support coverage time. But that said, I voted for them as they ARE very good

I got answers from their support even on Sunday and almost instantly.

Aside from already stated about them, for me the most important is their constant willingness to be better. They do that simply by listening to their customer's needs.

 

[anantj]

I got answers from their support even on Sunday and almost instant.

My bad. I meant chat support. But yes, their support is very good irrespective

 

[EmotiveDomains]

NameSilo are the best in my opinion. Fair pricing and great customer service.

 

[campout]

Namesilo don't support fast transfer out.

Yes they do.

 

[MackieMesser]

NameSilo.

 

[Haris]

NameSilo is the best.. and it still keeps improving unlike the rest!

 

[Joshua Harding]

I'm happy to see NameSilo in the lead - of all registrars I've dealt with, they are simply the best. Great customer service, and simple yet functional UX with reasonable prices.

 

[JB Lions]

..because of their massive marketplace ? what else??

Cheapest prices if you're in their club and you have lots of domains. We went thru the actual numbers in some other thread.

I've always had great support, VIP account rep. Not sure how it is with a basic account.

And like you said the marketplace. It's easy to buy and sell, move domains.

Namesilo is good too. I just registered names for the first time during the BF/CM sale. I like their interface better.

Looks like GD is catching up in the poll, 126, Namesilo 141.

At the end of the day, if you're happy with where you have your domains, it's all that matters.

The last poll it was
GoDaddy
Namecheap
Dynadot
Namesilo - so they've been moving up