Namecheap now offer .io domains

[larrys]

Competitor to namecheap here. [1] [2]

We don't offer .io domains. Nor do we offer any of the TLD's that seem to be popular with some startups. Even though we could make money selling them. Like our competitors do.

Although popular (with startups) they aren't mainstream with the public. If you become successful you will just end up buying (at a much higher price) the .com equivalent. Or end up having misdirected mail and/or users or investors or bloggers or reporters etc. Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website.

I've been doing domains since the mid 90's. My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup.

Despite what you may think there are plenty of .com's you can register (try leandomainsearch.com for ideas (I have no affiliation to that at all but use it from time to time).

And not all people holding domain names are vultures, cybersquatters whatever you want to call them. Some are actually fairly reasonable (I do some consulting on the side where I help people buy domain names).

[1] No we are not looking to get HN business if we were I'd have who we are in my sig.

[2] We aren't cheap.

[tpaul]

One of my old school friends is a domain broker, and he gets annoyed by .io domains as well. He said he would have a second car if it wasn't for alternative TLDs. For his birthday, I bought him a few programming books. To his credit, he read them, and now enjoys programming as a hobby. Given some time, he'll probably end up half decent.

[tlrobinson]

Challenge accepted.

domainregistry.com - not cheap ($30/year), no .io (.com .net .org and .info only), run by a guy name Larry.

[cmalpeli]

I launched JobBoard.io any so far haven't encountered too many issues with "normals" being confused. Some ask what it stands for, but that's about the extent of it.

I felt it was a better option than buying super-awesome-hyphenated-job-board-software.com

[crisnoble]

>My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup.

If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. When I discovered that new domains cost about 2 packs of cigarettes, I became a compulsive domain buyer. If the .com for my crazy idea isn't available, then I try .co, then basically whatever I can find. I use a combination of http://domai.nr and https://iwantmyname.com/ to see weird combinations. I think you would be hard pressed to find a startup can attribute its failure to the fact that it had a fancy TLD.

Odd tlds that hit it big: del.­icio.­us, bit.ly

Odd tlds that I visit often: github.io, any.do, 500.co, domai.nr

I think in a world where non-technical people use google as their address bar, we should fee free to use exotic TLDs. Not to mention with the upcoming release of new TLDs .com is about to be as important / common as www.

[alphakappa]

>> [2] We aren't cheap. Could you explain why you aren't cheap? (as in, what would justify a higher cost compared to someone like Namecheap?)

[pbreit]

Better to pay a lot for a domain name when you can than when you cannot.

[hugofirth]

Am I the only one that thought that [2] from above was a clever reference to being "name.com" until I realised that name sell .io domains? So much for me being all clever haha.

[slimbods]

Might be true in the US but for the rest of the world, local tld's are fine. Amazon.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, etc.

[buckbova]

> Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website.

This is why I buy the .com and .net along with something like an .io all at the same time.

[Link-]

For what it's worth, I've been using namecheap for over 2 or 3 years now, with around 10 domains registered with them, and I have to say that their service is quite good. The support is capable and promptly responsive. Very rarely, if ever, have I experienced technical difficulties. Even if it's not the cheapest in the market, the service is worth the extra $

[hardwaresofton]

Do they offer proper DNS services?

[dlss]

I've never heard of namecheap, but given their name I'm surprised they charge so much more than gandi.net ($39).

Is it normal for a company branded as the low cost provider to charge above market for rare goods?

[dangrossman]

Maybe that's the price of free speech. Namecheap doesn't have any unusual restrictions on what you do with your domain after you buy it. Gandi does. You have to uphold their ethical code and affirmatively fight "deviant uses of the internet" to register domains through them. Hacker News would violate that code, and under the terms of Gandi's service agreement, they could revoke service and cancel this domain if it were registered through them.

http://en.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g2/pdf/MSA-1.3-EN.pd...

[mbesto]

I use namecheap for all of my domains (all transferred off of GoDaddy). Not sure about getting .io TLD from them, but otherwise their service is really good and prices are very competitive. It also doesn't have the stupid amount of dark patterns that GoDaddy has.

[shiftpgdn]

Namecheap is just an eNom reseller[1]. They simply use the eNom API to handle all domain management and registration. Their prices are dictated by the prices given to them by eNom.

Their business is low margin, high volume.

[1]http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/troubleshoote...

[Killswitch]

I've been an exclusive Namecheap user since RegisterFly screwed me out of thousands of dollars worth of domains back in 2004 with their whole fraud thing... Have been very happy customer of theirs. Great company, plus they are Anti-SOPA, having been very helpful to GoDaddy users looking to leave them when that drama went down.

[swalsh]

After the SOPA escapades, they became my primary registrar away from GoDaddy. So far i'm actually pretty happy with their service.

[lignuist]

> Is it normal for a company branded as the low cost provider to charge above market for rare goods?

At least I would not be surprised if that would be the case... like those red and white "SALE" stickers that some shops have at their windows during the whole year, while being actually more expensive than other shops.

[joeblau]

I'm using http://iwantmyname.com for http://gitignore.io and they have been great. They update their DNS records very quickly and I haven't had any problems with their service and right now they are $49.

[charlus]

I'm using them as well, very helpful and quick customer service with a simple interface.

[2mur]

Me too. Very happy with them after I switched off GoDaddy.

[bnycum]

I was actually looking at building a site like that a few weeks back. Discovered the .io was taken and was what I wanted to build. Thanks.

[mumbi]

Also using iwantmyname. Happiest I've ever been with a registrar.

[jscheel]

I love the IO ccTLD, but it's just too expensive to justify on a free side project that doesn't make any money. First-world problem, eh?

[firloop]

I like the .io TLD but it seems like Namecheap and others haven't really done much to make it cheaper. I can't see myself paying more than $30 a year for a single domain registration, so I've simply used other TLDs when I've had opportunities to register a domain for a project. If .io was cheaper I'd buy a couple of domains in a heartbeat, though.

[clone1018]

Doesn't seem to be avaliable for transfers:

"ignite.io cannot be transferred The domain name seems to be invalid or the TLD is not supported. Please make sure you entered the domain name properly and don't add www. in front of the domain name."

[dangoldin]

Same here. I just chatted with customer support and it's currently not supported. The guy I spoke with didn't know whether that was something they were working on.

[LukeHoersten]

I've transferred or am transferring about 10 of my domains from places like GoDaddy and 1and1 to NameCheap. I love NameCheap. I typically go for whatever registrar is the cheapest regardless of how crappy the interface is and NameCheap has successfully become the cheapest registrar for a number of my TLDs. The benefit is that their service and web interface are great! I highly recommend.

[zokier]

Bleh. My personal domain renewal is coming up and Namecheap has gotten lots of recommendations here at HN. But on the other hand I'm bit reluctant to move domains from (my current) Swiss registar to US one, even if they all ultimately are based on ICANN.

[ElongatedTowel]

Facing the same problem. The whole US government fear, uncertainty and doubt mess makes me question decisions which probably don't even concern me in the long run.

I guess namecheap is about as popular as it gets and most European sellers like gandi aren't as cheap, but there is no way for me to know whether choosing a US based domain seller could ever have any adverse effects on me as an European, whether it's censorship, laws, transfer problems, ownership problems or anything I can't even think of.

[sigkill]

- Out of curiosity, who's your current registrar?

- I don't know if you're talking about a ccTLD or a com/net/org but if it's the latter I don't think a non-US registrar can help you since those TLDs are directly under US control.

[danepowell]

I switched to Namecheap several years ago and have never looked back. They are one of the only registrars to offer two-factor authentication.

[easy_rider]

Purchased a domain, went through all the steps, account acc. card info, process transaction. Well funded card etc.

Register <snip>.io 11 Year $58.88 Charged: $0.00 $0.00 There was an error connecting to the registry. Free WhoisGuard 1 Year $0.00 Charged: $0.00 Related item failed.

[larkarvin]

I've been using Namecheap for five years, but my .io domain is registered at name.com. I'll move back it to namecheap once it nears expiration just to put all my domains in one place and of to pay 58USD rather than 99USD.

[joshdance]

I use Namecheap for my domains. Been a good company so far.

[mingabunga]

Does anyone recall a few months back a 3 and 4 letter .io search engine someone made and posted here? I can't find it in the HN search.

[kintamanimatt]

Here ya go: http://shortdomainsearch.net/

[Splendor]

I tried to place an order twice and received this error both times: "There was an error connecting to the registry."

[MichaelTieso]

I use NameCheap because it's simple. Nothing fancy about it. I hate the crazy amount of popups GoDaddy gives you.

[caiob]

Hey, hover.com offers .io domains as well; and I couldn't be happier with them. (not affiliated whatsoever)

[kbar13]

hexonet and gandi are equally trustworthy and have .io registration for cheaper

[ape4]

I suppose google.io is taken.

[jffry]

By Google: http://nic.io/cgi-bin/whois?query=google.io

[kintamanimatt]

Created 2002-10-01!

[growt]

gandi.net offers a better deal at 29€ for an .io domain.