Choosing Registrar

The cost of registering a domain is pretty inexpensive today because of the tough price competition among Registrars. The process is also easy and the result is instantenuous. However it is important to follow some guidelines as described below to avoid future problem.

Domain Registry, Registrar and Reseller

Domain Registry is the organization administering the operation (i.e. domain allocation policies, domain registration and technical operation) of certain top-level domain (TLD). At the retail level, under SRS (Shared Registration System) Registries delegate the domain registration to Registrars, or companies specializing in taking domain name registration accredited by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Further, in order to achieve the mass sales scale, Registrars normally appoint multiple domain name Resellers from all over the world.

Obviously, we do the domain registration with either Reseller or Registrar rather than with the Registry directly.

Cost of Domain Registration

In the old days before the enactment of the SRS, the retail price of registering a domain name was around USD35 per domain per year. Now most registrars / resellers charge a price in the range of USD7 - USD15 per domain per year.

Domain Controls

When choosing a Registrar to buy or to register your domain name, do not merely look for the low price, as Registrars offer different degree of domain controls. Often Registrars only give you limited access of domain control to their customers. The basic domain control offered by this kind of Registrar is access to administer the Registration contacts (Registrant or domain owner, admin,billing and technical contact information) and the nameserver settings.

The better degree of domain name control is having access to DNS or called zone records where you can create sub-domains on your domain, modify your mailservers, creating A (address) record, creating redirection of your domain or sub-domains, etc. Read for details.

Some Registrars charge you separately for this extent of control but some do not. So look at the totals before you decide.

Domain Authorization Code

Domain Authorization (or Auth) code is a secret code set by the registry to protect unauthorized domain transfer (moving the domain from one Registrar to another). You will be asked for the code when you are transfering your domain to other Registrar. This Auth code is not readily viewable and you need to do steps to retrieve the code. Make sure that the Registrar allows you to do the retrieval or otherwise you will need to contact their support person to retrieve it for you.

Additional Benefits ?

To make their offer attractive some Registrars may give you bonus, mostly webhosting facilities, you can use for your domain. Be careful to include this offer to your decision making, mainly for two reasons:

Mostly the hosting facility given to you is pretty basic i.e. you can only upload your web site files through their web interface, or you can only create your web site using their predesigned templates. Most of the hosting facility is ad supported, meaning that you site will display their ads.
Having your web sited hosted in your Registrar's server leaves you with very little control over your domain.

Beyond Technicals

If you want to register you domain with a Reseller, it is worth checking how long that particular Reseller has been in business. I have personally a bad experience that after a year or two my Reseller closed their operation without giving announcement or some sort of transitional service, that made me lost control of my domains and I had to contact the Registrar directly.