By Jay Lyman
November 11, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Whether they’re free, $3, $5 or more, the price of domains caught the attention of Web hosts talking on industry forums recently. A WebHostingTalk (webhostingtalk.com) thread began with the question of how a reputable company could offer domains for $5, adding that such a price was attractive for purchasing a number of domains. However, the original post was quickly followed by doubts over the bargain domains, which might be more trouble than they are worth in the long run, according to subsequent posts.
“Sometimes the extra [dollar] or two [can] be a really good investment in the long run,” said one.
The discussion also focused on the registrar cost of $6.25 for domain, with one poster asserting, “If they are selling below, the registrar is losing money.”
However, other posts clarified that $5 or like-priced domains typically are offered during limited promotions or as bonus offerings with Web hosting plans. Along with more discussion of the merits of cut-rate domains, there was recognition from one poster that the low-cost domains may be sufficient, but that renewal might be more in line with higher prices.
Another recent discussion at HostHideout (hosthideout.com) focused on a prediction that the trade price of domain names, currently at $6.25, is likely to increase as much as 7 percent per year because of the recent domain registry agreement between ICANN and VeriSign.
“The result of this will probably be higher costs for registering .com domains in the future,” said the first post, which complained that other companies had offered to run the domain registry at a lower price.
While a subsequent post scoffed at the idea that domain prices would be rising too quickly, the original poster reiterated his concern, stressing that over a period three or four years, the increase could be substantial.
Other posts welcomed the idea of more expensive domains, which one host argued, “would keep a lot of kiddies out of the business.”
A later post recalled the days when domains were far more expensive, indicating costs had likely hit bottom and were due for increase.
“They’ve gone a bit too low and now we have cyber squatters that have made a business out of buying [domains] for a bag of pennies and selling them for the prices of used cars,” the post said.
The discussion was rounded out by some doubt that domain price increases would keep kiddies out of hosting, as well as criticism from the first poster that VeriSign is “cashing in” on its unique position and arrangement with ICANN.
HostingDiscussion (hostingdiscussion.com) had another conversation that began with an excited first poster pleased with $1 domains from a vendor. There were some limitations, such as only one $1 domain per customer, and subsequent posts complained about the service that can be expected from a company that offers such prices.
Another criticism of bargain domains was that they appeared to lead to other features and functions that were being offered at additional cost. The same poster also pointed out that customers must pay a higher price, and then receive credit to get the dollar domain deal.
After some users stressed the fact that buyers must beware and read the terms of agreements, there was more criticism of the company offering the cheap domains, which was called out for poor support and DNS update time.
The discussion also touched on the issue of the difficulty of removing a domain from a register.
“They’d probably try and make it difficult to move your domain name away from them too,” said one post.
“They do, we have been transferring all of ours away. Takes some time,” said a response.
Lastly, a SitePoint (sitepoint.com) discussion contemplated where to get the cheapest domains, with Yahoo! called the unofficial winner at $2.99 per domain. While some argued that was only with a hosting plan, other posters indicated they had purchased the cheap domains without problems.
However, the renewal issue came up again and one poster – citing slow DNS resolving, poor “canned” support, and lack of custom name server support for host IPs – said he would not purchase such domains again.
Another post in that thread, which indicated domains through other registrars might work out to be cheaper in the end, cautioned against registering for only one year, largely because of the Google sandbox effect, which reportedly penalizes new Web sites that have yet to be deemed viable.
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