$34.99 For A Domain?

I could barely believe it the first time I saw it. A few years ago my favorite registrar, Yahoo!, (who gets domains through Melbourne IT) upped their domain name price to $34.99 per year. In a betrayed outrage, I began transferring my domains to a registrar much like GoDaddy.

A few years later it appears that the $34.99 rate is only increasing in popularity. I want to know – why? I mean, sure a domain is worth $34.99 a month and more to many online businesses. And maybe if all registrars raised their prices like this it would cut back on the number of domains wasted on spam-sites. But what about the little hobby sites and the non-profit and low-profit informative sites such as this one?

Although I have lost several dollars by not transferring a few domains in time, overall this trend has been an eye-opening learning experience. I have found that not only do some of the cheaper registrars such as GoDaddy offer much lower rates. They also have superior customer service and give you more control over the domain name you paid for.

I’m just saying – don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking that $34.99 domain will be worth any more than that $9.99 domain name. While recently transferring a client from a big-name $34.99 registrar to GoDaddy, they told me that GoDaddy has “hidden fees” and other undesirable qualities. Personally, my past experience says that GoDaddy’s “hidden” fee (a required ICANN fee) and everything else that was pointed out is reasonable. And in the end – they still deliver excellent customer service and the lower price.