The question hits our sales queue on a regular basis, do we, or will we, register a domain name for a potential customer.
Our answer to date has been no. Historically my web hosting operations have not engaged in any form of domain registration. My philosophy has been to let those specializing in the trade (accredited registrars) handle the high volume, low profit margin business.
Domain registration for the most part is a completely automated mechanism. I’d imagine that a provider such as GoDaddy handles a large percentage of their domain orders without a single electronic or telephone based customer service request from the customer.
So with the potential for such an automated system, why do I continue to lean in the direction of not providing domain registration? Because we are a web host, and our specialty is putting together high performance hardware, tier 1 network connectivity, and the linux operating system into a nice package at an affordable price. Our business is heavily focused on quality service provisioning and domain registration does not fit in this model.
I see domain registration and web hosting as two separate solutions. Far too often do I hear complaints from customers transfering to our services on how difficult their former ‘web host / register’ is being in either updating their dns records, or allowing them to create custom dns hosts with the IP addresses we provide as part of our unbranded reseller services. And it surprises me to hear web hosts acting as registrars telling our customers that domain registrars cannot register new nameserver hosts, and that this is a function of the web host. False information being provided by an entity that has no business providing domain registration on any level.
I don’t want to be a burden on a customer should they wish to exercise the freedom of going elsewhere, nor do I want my staff to bear the burden of managing domain names for web hosting customers who opt for a different provider.
For now, we will continue to do what we do best by offering a well packaged solution at an affordable price, minus the domain registration.
No to domain registration, for now
Posted by Thomas in Comments on October 1, 2006
The question hits our sales queue on a regular basis, do we, or will we, register a domain name for a potential customer.
Our answer to date has been no. Historically my web hosting operations have not engaged in any form of domain registration. My philosophy has been to let those specializing in the trade (accredited registrars) handle the high volume, low profit margin business.
Domain registration for the most part is a completely automated mechanism. I’d imagine that a provider such as GoDaddy handles a large percentage of their domain orders without a single electronic or telephone based customer service request from the customer.
So with the potential for such an automated system, why do I continue to lean in the direction of not providing domain registration? Because we are a web host, and our specialty is putting together high performance hardware, tier 1 network connectivity, and the linux operating system into a nice package at an affordable price. Our business is heavily focused on quality service provisioning and domain registration does not fit in this model.
I see domain registration and web hosting as two separate solutions. Far too often do I hear complaints from customers transfering to our services on how difficult their former ‘web host / register’ is being in either updating their dns records, or allowing them to create custom dns hosts with the IP addresses we provide as part of our unbranded reseller services. And it surprises me to hear web hosts acting as registrars telling our customers that domain registrars cannot register new nameserver hosts, and that this is a function of the web host. False information being provided by an entity that has no business providing domain registration on any level.
I don’t want to be a burden on a customer should they wish to exercise the freedom of going elsewhere, nor do I want my staff to bear the burden of managing domain names for web hosting customers who opt for a different provider.
For now, we will continue to do what we do best by offering a well packaged solution at an affordable price, minus the domain registration.
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