Your Domain Registrar is Going Defunct — 6 Signs
Following RegisterFly, ESTdomains, and Parava, here are some tips to avoid bad domain name registrars.
Even when a relatively modest domain name registrar, such as Parava, loses its ICANN accreditation, it can have devastating consequences for web site owners. But there are usually tell-tale signs that a firm isn’t doing well. Below are six warning signs that your domain name registrar might not be in it for the long run.
1. It isn’t accessible in a public forum, such as a domain forum, Twitter, or Facebook. Most good domain name registrars care regarding their public relations. It will regularly monitor client feedback on open forums and will even proactively participate.
2. Registry and registrar expiration dates don’t match. If a registrar takes your money for a multi-year renewal but the registry shows only one year added to the expiration date, the registrar may be holding back the rest of the money to manually renew the domain each year. This means the firm has a cashflow problem, and it will only get worse as it pays higher wholesale prices year-following-year to renew your domain. It’s sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Don’t rely on the registrar’s expiration date; only the registry’s.
3. It never sends a representative in person to a domain conference. If the registrar never sends a real, breathing, human being to a domain conference, you ought to be worried. Perhaps the registrar is located in a remote locale different from its stated location. Or it doesn’t want to establish personal relationships with clients that it might screw over one day. The biggest registrars ought to send at least one employee to each conference; smaller ones ought to occasionally attend.
4. They use whois privacy for their own domain name. If a registrar protects its own contact information in whois, it’s time to run for the hills. What are they hiding?
5. Its founder has a criminal record. ‘Nuff stated.
6. It isn’t escrowing whois data. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to know right now if a registrar is escrowing its whois data. But if you find out (likely through a default notice), then transfer your domains out right away.
