How To Choose The Best Domain Registrar

There are many reasons you might be interested in buying a domain name and starting your own website. However, the one constant is that you’ll need to buy it through a domain registrar. While it sounds simple enough on the surface, there’s much that you should know about domain names before moving forward. Once you understand how these entities work, you’ll be able to select the best domain registrar for your needs.

The Best Domain Registrants, Registrars, and Registries

Registries around the world maintain a total of over 370 million unique domain names. This is an incredible organizational achievement, one which domain registrars help make possible. Registries certify these companies to handle the commercial side of leasing domain names. Registrars are essentially middlemen that take on the expenses of marketing while profiting off of domain name leases and added value.

What Differentiates The Best Domain Registrars?

In short, choosing the best domain registrar comes down to understanding your needs and choosing the most suitable registrar.

What Is Cybersquatting?

Reverse Cybersquatting

“Using the UDRP in bad faith to attempt to deprive a registered domain-name holder of a domain name.”

UDRP case decisions are not legal decrees, but they do invoke the power that ICAAN holds to transfer domain names. In general, the greatest danger of reverse cybersquatting is that complacency may result in the other person winning the case. Even if you win, you still might end up spending a great deal of time and money on the case.

Choosing The Right Domain

Selecting the right domain is an important step in pursuing the success of your website. A few domains are restricted, such as the educational institution-exclusive .edu domain. However, most are available to any interested user, and their public perception has evolved in interesting ways.

For instance, .com and the similarly-named domain .co are the two most highly trusted choices according to a study by GrowthBadger. While .com is nominally a shorthand for commercial businesses, .co has no inherent relationship to business. It’s actually a country-specific domain for Colombia, but it’s become popular and reliable by association.

Using A Different Domain

Other less common domains might be part of a strategy to make a website more memorable. Someone running a website named “Food Guru” might use the name “Food” and the obscure .guru domain. Such an approach is double-edged because the aforementioned study indicated that when people misremember a domain name, they typically assume that it uses .com. While websites have used unorthodox domains successfully, it’s not a decision to take lightly.

Find The Add-Ons You Need

SSL Certificates

Private Registration

Other Add-Ons

What To Watch Out For When Comparing The Best Domain Registrars

Pricing Schemes

Another trick is including add-ons by default. Before paying for your domain name, make sure that you’ve un-checked any unwanted add-ons. If you stay alert, you can avoid spending money on services that don’t hold value for you.

Expiration Policy

Find The Best Domain Registrar For You