ICANN ACCREDITED/RESELLER LICENSED

Now if you are not familiar with ICANN or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, this is a non-profit organization that started in 1998. They are responsible for creating unique letters
and numbers to form a domain name all over the world. Before the ICANN came into place, Network Solutions handled everyones unique indentifiers for people looking for a domain name.

With the implementation of ICANN, people now have many choices over registrars where they can regsiter for a domain name. Currently there are over thousands of domain name registrars and resellers looking to earn their share of people who want to register a domain name, thus, it is important that you select a registrar that is accredited by ICANN. This should be the FIRST STEP when choosing the right register.

CHOOSING A CHEAP DOMAIN REGISTRAR

As mentioned in my previous posts, cheap domain registrations may be safe and maybe not. Take a look on how you can differentiate them here.

Price is always everyones number one thing they look at when searching through all the registrars, but this can lead you to make bad choices. Price should never be the most important or at least should not be number one on your list. My recommendation would be to choose a registrar that has a strong customer service and managment system that is easy to use. For lower prices, your best bet would probably be GoDaddy and 1and1.com

Prices vary quite a bit when trying to regsiter for a domain and can range from $9 to as high as $30 per year (for .com's). Also when regsitering for a domain, privacy options are also available, however this might incur extra charges but at this time, I beloeve 1and1 and GoDaddy offer free private registration if you register 5 or more domains. The thing to watch out for is smaller registrars or resellers that might show a very low domain registration price but its the additional charges and fees that sneak up on you.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

To some, you might take customer service for granted (e.g. oh, they have customer service, so what?). Truth be told, I've had to contact them more times than I thought I needed. Having great customer service is a great plus in my books. Not having to wait in line or sometimes a quarter of an hour to get a message through to the live chat is great, especially if you are in need of immediate help. Here are the most important things to look at when we are talking about Customer Service.

How can I reach customer support? (live chat, email, phone, contact form)
- its always a plus if you can contact them by phone, but if you are living in a different country, then live chat woul be the next best option. Standard email replies often take a day or more.

24 hour service? - this is important.

How quick is their reponses or replies

Overall you should feel assured that someone will be there to help you whenever you have a problem with your domain.

INTERFACE

I'm come across quite a few registrars over my time and trust me when I say some backend management interfaces are just crap. Usually the rule of thumb is if you can manage the registrar's website easily, then usually their interface is somewhat good. Meaning if you can navigate their website then the same ease of navigation should be present in their interface. Now why is this important? Let's say you need to manage 50 websites under the same registrar for your company.

Now lets say you had to go about changing the NameServers for all 50 websites, would you want to do it one-by-one or with one simple click? I don't need to answer that for you. Bulk management features are in this situation extremely imporant. Go Daddy and Moniker are known to have great bulk management features.

REGISTRAR ADDON SERVICES

You can expect every registrar to try an upsell their services. After selecting your domain url and proceeding on to checkout, the registrar will most definately have a list of additional services of features they want you to apply for. Now take a moment to read these features as some may be quite important. Some of these services might be great but alot of the times, they are sub par quality. Sometimes a registrar is great but their hosting services aren't that great and vice versa. So in this case, pick a domain name registrar that is great.

Top Domain Registarars

I've made a short list of the top 3 registrars that are great for it's name registration services.

1. Go Daddy

2. Namecheap

3. Name.com

Happy Hunting!