Who should (and shouldn't) you register your domain name with?

Marketing
1

Found a site earlier today that listed the underhanded tricks some domain name registrars use. I was looking through some of my old bookmarks and saw one that suggested using Namecheap to register with. Anyone have anything good or bad to say about them? Would you choose someone else? Why?

2

I’ve been using namecheap for years with no issues. I think your choice for a web host is more important than the domain registrar itself. I’ve been burned by crummy/slow hosts, but never had any issues with registering domains.

1 Like
3

I used GoDaddy for years for JUST registration, not hosting. I switched to Google domains, any of the big ones are fine. You can switch your DNS records to any host you want.

4

I’ve used namecheap for years and have never had any issues. Like MagicMan said, your hosting provider is more important than the registrar.

5

namecheap and AWS (Amazon Web Services)

6

Thanks for the replies. For anyone who cares to reply… when you registered your name, did you also register the .net, .biz, and so on versions?

7

That can get expensive quickly. If I was going to grab any…I’d grab .com, .org, .net. Those seem to be the most popular.

But I think .com is sufficient. The only reason I’d grab the others is if I thought I needed to protect my brand name against a competitor or future competitor who might try to leech off my name.

1 Like
8

I personally don’t grab any other TLD’s for a specific domain name. Instead, I will purchase other domain names that could help with SEO and point them all to the same site.

9

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how registering multiple domains with redirects helps.

10

Well you could build landing pages on those domains that drive leads, or even build completely different sites that all forward contact to the same business, but what I’m referring to is about improving your main site’s ranking using keyword domains - keywords that are used to search for services in your area, but in the form of a TLD.

And I’m not talking about redirects. I’m referring to pointing the DNS to the same site.

1 Like
11

Google frowns on a lot of stuff like that. I don’t know if they’d frown on what you’re suggesting doing, but I’d definitely do a ton of research before considering it…and maybe you have. The SEO landscape changes all the time so it can be challenging to keep up with it.