Do you conduct a proper research before you buy a domain name from a domain registrar?

If not, you should.

Here is why:

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) on 28 October 2008 sent a letter to EstDomains Inc saying it terminated its registrar accreditation agreement.

The action is swift too, it says the termination will be effective within 15 calendar days i.e.… on 12 November 2008.

The official letter notifying EstDomains:

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-tsastsin-28oct08-en.pdf

NOTE: ICANN is a non-profit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA.

(The latest news is that the notice of termination is under review and is stayed.)

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-29oct08-en.htm

According to ICANN, EstDomains has approximately 281,000 domains under its management. I hope you understand – the owners of these domains must be really worried.

Of course one can transfer a domain to another registrar, but the process is not very easy especially for dynamic database driven sites (example blogs, ecommerce sites etc).

Think of the unnecessary hassle they must have gone through.

So before buying a domain look for the following in the domain registrar’s website:

1. ICANN Accreditation: See that they have ICANN Accreditation. It will be in the form of a logo, link or text. If not they CANNOT register a domain for you. If they are still doing it, they are basically domain resellers and purchase domain on behalf of a registrar. Unfortunately since these companies get a commission, you will have to pay a higher amount for the same product. My advice is to stick with the original registrar and not buy a domain from a reseller.

2. 24/7 Customer Support: Make sure that your domain registrar has a 24/7 customer support phone line, a contact us page and other forms of contacting them. It’s important because business online is 24 hours a day and if need be you should be able to contact them in the middle of night.

One easy way to know about the quality of their customer support is to write them a mail and see how long they take to respond back.

3. SSL Certificate: They must be able to provide SSL Certificates. Also known as secure sockets layer (SSL) – they are required for e-commerce sites. If in future you feel the need to add credit card processing application in your website, the SSL certificate will be an absolute essential.

The SSL protocol is the Web standard for encrypting communications between users and SSL sites. Data sent via an SSL connection is protected by encryption. This is a method that prevents tampering with any transmitted data. SSL provides businesses and consumers with the confidence that private data sent to a Web site, such as credit card numbers, are kept confidential.

SSL websites have https rather than http and their browser displays a little gold padlock at the bottom.

Again, you may not need SSL while booking a domain, but you may always need it in the future.

4. Privacy Protection: While purchasing a domain you need to provide your name, address and phone number. Please note that you are required to provide your real name, address and contact number while registering. This is required by law. If in future it is found that you provided false information, legal action may be taken against you.

Anyone who wants to know the owner of a domain can do a whois search and know about their name, phone and address. However, if you don’t want your name to be displayed, you can always buy a privacy protection. This way your contact details will not be displayed in whois search and you will still hold the domain.

5. Domain Transfer: A domain registrar should allow easy domain transfer. Say after a year of service you are not comfortable with your registrar, you should be able to transfer your domain to another registrar without any hassles.

6. Domain Parking: It’s important from branding point of view. Let’s suppose you own seo.net. You work hard and make it a huge brand. Someone buys seo.com. What happens? People who will not remember .net may type in .com and land straight in your competitor’s website. Unfortunately this is still happening. To prevent this domain parking is done.

You can buy seo.com and point it to seo.net or vice versa. Domain parking is a great tool, it helps traffic stealing.

Try these:

http://www.Google.net/ – Goes to http://www.google.com/

http://www.Yahoo.net/ – Page not found, but you are still in Yahoo!

http://www.Live.net/ – Goes to http://www.live.com/

7. Good Reputation: Finally the domain registrar should have a good reputation in the online community. To know their reputation you can search forums, social networking sites, do a search in search engines with their names + the strings “good or bad”. For example if you want to search for abc.com domain registrar, you can search for “abc.com good or bad?” I am sure you will get some interesting results. Don’t bother if a few people are not satisfied, but if a lot of people are not happy from their service, then its better to avoid such registrars.

You can also search Google News with their names to know the latest about them.

Have I missed something? Are you a EstDomains customer? If yes what are you doing with your domains?

Recommended Reading:
 
1. InterNIC – FAQs on the Domain Names, Registrars, and Registration
2. Domain Name Registration FAQ