Dotster

Overview

Dotster.com’s tagline is ‘We Dot What You Want’ and it mostly delivers on this promise. Dotster is a domain registrar that offers additional services that are essential to clients considering to establish or enhance a web presence. Aside from domain names, Dotster offers web hosting and do-it-yourself website builders, custom web design, online marketing services, and security and privacy solutions, with small and medium-sized businesses as its main clientele. This jack-of-all-trades approach to providing domains and hosting works well for shoppers looking for convenience, but might not be so to those looking for specialized services. Is any of Dotster’s multiple offerings particularly excellent or is this registrant a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none type of provider?

Usability

In terms of usability, a basic but important aspect when considering registrars, Dotster has all the functions you could need for a simple web hosting. The website is modern and minimal, and a large search form gets you started right away. Links to log in to your account dashboard and user email are prominent on the index, which is always nice to see. Especially useful but perhaps underappreciated feature of most registrars is the domain name suggestions or as it is called in Dotster, Domain Ideas, which comes in handy when you’re registering for several domains with similar names with different extensions. Searching for and purchasing several domains with same-sounding names is not an uncommon practice and the suggestions in its Domain Ideas function is not a totally indispensable one.

Domain Privacy

At Dotster, you can purchase domain privacy when you register your name for $8.99 per year, an amount which is pretty standard across many domain registrars (some offer privacy at $7.99 - $9). Dotster also lets you disguise your personal information through their privacy program at any time after you're purchased the domain. Domain privacy is one of the most necessary features of a registrar but is often overlooked as such. Fortunately, this service is offered at Dotster with every domain purchase and can easily be added on to the purchaser’s cart, so it’s quite hard to miss. This service is available for most generic extensions.

Bulk Registration and Management

You can easily register the same domain name with different extensions, but Dotster is lacking when it comes to bulk domain registration. Similarly, you'll find a distinct lack of support for bulk management under your account with Dotster. This might be due to the fact that it targets small and medium-sized businesses most of which might not have a great need for bulk registration and management. Still, it would be a feature that would be a welcome addition.

Access Levels and Delegating

Because Dotster offers hosting services as well, you can access a reseller account and create sub-accounts for your customers. However, this applies only to hosting. There is an option to create FTP subuser if you need someone managing website files. Granting another person access to your account entails surrendering complete authority to the account, with no limit on what the other person can do. If granting management and technical access rights to a third party is a strict requirement, you might have to consider other registry options.

Pricing and Coupons

With most domains starting at $14.99, Dotster prices are just a little higher than the competition. Other registrars offer dirt cheap prices for domains – some go as low as $1.99 per domain – and even those averagely priced registrars charge way less than Dotster. Dotster does advertise registration sales directly on its "Domains" tab. This pricing strategy is even more puzzling when you think about the fact that their other services, web hosting, Wordpress optimization, site protection and performance accelerator, and others are modestly priced. You can find promo codes to enter into the cart from sites such as RetailMeNot. Coupon code "Take25" will give you 25% off your order of $80 or more. It would be best to constantly check, though, as coupons expire and update constantly.

Customer Service

Live chat, phone support (with separate lines for sales and support), email ticket submission, and an account-specific support, are all available for those needing some assistance for one reason or another. Support is advertised as being available 24/7, but there are instances when connecting to a live chat personnel takes a few minutes which is not that bad but quite noticeable. Having several options for support, however, is still a plus even though the quality of support varies in each case.

Management Summary

Dotster uses a simple control panel that lets you easily find the information you're looking for. The company also has video tutorials to aid you in activities such as adding domain privacy, pointing your domain somewhere else or adding a domain to your hosting account. If you've used cPanel, you'll be able to use the control panel offered by Dotster. You could argue that Dotster is really on the ball by providing different support centers for new and old customers, but it just makes things confusing. If you're looking for information before you buy, you won't be sure where to go. There's definitely some overlapping information, and perhaps older customers should be the only ones to see the link for the old support center--once they're logged in. In addition, Dotster.com does have an affiliate program, which can help offset some of your hosting and domain costs or make you a bit of money, and it's definitely a company to consider if you can find a great coupon code.