Namecheap now offer .io domains | Hacker News Reader

Namecheap now offer .io domains

namecheap.com

143 pointskintamanimatt123 comments

Competitor to namecheap here. [1] [2]

We don't offer .io domains. Nor do we offer any of the TLD's that seem to be popular with some startups. Even though we could make money selling them. Like our competitors do.

Although popular (with startups) they aren't mainstream with the public. If you become successful you will just end up buying (at a much higher price) the .com equivalent. Or end up having misdirected mail and/or users or investors or bloggers or reporters etc. Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website.

I've been doing domains since the mid 90's. My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup.

Despite what you may think there are plenty of .com's you can register (try leandomainsearch.com for ideas (I have no affiliation to that at all but use it from time to time).

And not all people holding domain names are vultures, cybersquatters whatever you want to call them. Some are actually fairly reasonable (I do some consulting on the side where I help people buy domain names).

[1] No we are not looking to get HN business if we were I'd have who we are in my sig.

[2] We aren't cheap.

Am I the only one that thought that [2] from above was a clever reference to being "name.com" until I realised that name sell .io domains? So much for me being all clever haha.

Probably NetworkSolutions...

Nope.

I'd guess MarkMonitor and/or something equivalent.

>> [2] We aren't cheap. Could you explain why you aren't cheap? (as in, what would justify a higher cost compared to someone like Namecheap?)

Not the market we choose to be in. Selling cheaply requires more customer service as you generate volume. Just because you can sell something cheaply doesn't mean you want to sell it cheaply. It's just a different business model. Nothing wrong with the other business model but not what we do. (Same as Rackspace doesn't compete really with Digital Ocean).

So you're also not really a competitor to Namecheap, despite your declaration to the contrary.

You're actually in the business of selling <$10 parcels of cyberland to whatever sucker will pay $30 for them.

One of my old school friends is a domain broker, and he gets annoyed by .io domains as well. He said he would have a second car if it wasn't for alternative TLDs. For his birthday, I bought him a few programming books. To his credit, he read them, and now enjoys programming as a hobby. Given some time, he'll probably end up half decent.

That makes me really happy. I hope the new wave of gTLDs further devastates domain squatters/brokers.

Better to pay a lot for a domain name when you can than when you cannot.

What I sometimes suggest to people is to get an option on a name before they become so successful that the prices increases. So you hedge. That way they pay an amount of money to be able to buy the domain later at a reasonable price from the owner. Other variations of this are renting the domain and likewise which has it's advantages and disadvantages.

What is that amount? All depends on the domain, the owner of the domain and a host of other factors.

Might be true in the US but for the rest of the world, local tld's are fine. Amazon.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, etc.

Agree that in certain cases that is fine. But most people reading HN (I'm guessing) are doing a product or service where having a country specific TLD would limit their market.

> Whatever .com you can buy now will be much more expensive once the .com owner sees you have funding and a business model and a website.

This is why I buy the .com and .net along with something like an .io all at the same time.

>My strong advice is to stay away from anything but .com for your startup.

If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. When I discovered that new domains cost about 2 packs of cigarettes, I became a compulsive domain buyer. If the .com for my crazy idea isn't available, then I try .co, then basically whatever I can find. I use a combination of http://domai.nr and https://iwantmyname.com/ to see weird combinations. I think you would be hard pressed to find a startup can attribute its failure to the fact that it had a fancy TLD.

Odd tlds that hit it big: del.icio.us, bit.ly

Odd tlds that I visit often: github.io, any.do, 500.co, domai.nr

I think in a world where non-technical people use google as their address bar, we should fee free to use exotic TLDs. Not to mention with the upcoming release of new TLDs .com is about to be as important / common as www.

"If you make it big enough to have to buy the .com from the current owner, then you are probably going to be able to buy it. "

Let me address that specifically. First, you get people who are unreasonable and perhaps would think that because you are valued at a billion you will pay them 500 million or something stupid like that. They are wrong but their irrationality is not going to make it easy for you to get the domain when you want it.

I have a case right now where a startup is willing to pay, say, $100,000 for a domain. But the domain (not being used) is owned by a company in Europe. And they aren't interested in selling at any price near that. And the domain is not worth $100,000.

Second, your thoughts assume either "make it or don't".

There is an in between state. Where you appear successful and profitable but you don't have unlimited google resources. And actually I think it's quite obvious that there are a few companies that fall into this category. Since of course most people are not going to be "big enough" to buy what they want "at any price".

I agree that squatters can be unreasonable or downright insane. I think that my main argument is that owning a ".com" neither helps nor hinders a startup and its quest for eyes. I could never remember how to spell del.icio.us, but it didn't matter, I bookmarked it. If I was on another computer, I googled it.

>I agree that squatters can be unreasonable or downright insane.

There use to be a company called songbirdnest.com that made something that could be described as an open-source version of iTunes(but they preferred it wasn't thought of that way). The person who owns songbird.com refused to sell. Apparently a very hansom offer was made too...

http://songbird.com/ site looks the same as it did back in 2008. Considering that the site doesn't look like anything that's generating revenue, I don't understand why that person refused to sell...

> Considering that the site doesn't look like anything that's generating revenue, I don't understand why that person refused to sell...

Maybe because unlike you, he's not an unquestioning whore to the almighty dollar. (I expected a small bird-feeder business before I clicked, but the point remains.)

>username223 33 minutes ago | link

Maybe because unlike you, he's not an unquestioning whore to the almighty dollar. (I expected a small bird-feeder business before I clicked, but the point remains.)

Ouch. You've hurt my feelings. Just like to add that if he said something about sentimental value or some such, I'd understand. Otherwise, why refuse just for the sake of refusing? But, seeing as you're already on insult-mode, probably nothing good will come of this discussion.

Lets not forget last.fm.

I launched JobBoard.io any so far haven't encountered too many issues with "normals" being confused. Some ask what it stands for, but that's about the extent of it.

I felt it was a better option than buying super-awesome-hyphenated-job-board-software.com

Challenge accepted.

domainregistry.com - not cheap ($30/year), no .io (.com .net .org and .info only), run by a guy name Larry.

Is your startup really so pathetic that $30/yr is relevant?

I probably shouldn't feed the trolls, but I never said anything to that effect. $30/year is not "cheap" compared to budget registrars which usually charge $10/year.

For what it's worth, I've been using namecheap for over 2 or 3 years now, with around 10 domains registered with them, and I have to say that their service is quite good. The support is capable and promptly responsive. Very rarely, if ever, have I experienced technical difficulties. Even if it's not the cheapest in the market, the service is worth the extra $

Do they offer proper DNS services?

Yes. Even email forwarding.

Yes, I think so.

The reason I use Namecheap for all my domains is really because of their DNS services. For example, I have a subdomain that points to my home network router. The public-facing IP address of my home network is dynamically assigned by my upstream ISP, so it changes every couple months. I have a script that runs every day that checks if my IP address has changed, and if so, executes a cURL command to dynamically update the A record of the subdomain. Namecheap provides this HTTP API and dynamic DNS capability.

So, you have a good deal of flexibility in configuring the DNS, although of course not as much as running your own DNS server or writing your own zone file.

For most people, however, their DNS services should be sufficient. It certainly is for me.

Gandi has an API, DNS editing in free mode or wizard mode. Multiple versions of zone files etc. Plus they are cheaper than namecheap (at least for .io). And every time I was in contact with their customer service they were helpful and friendly.

I moved all of my domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap. I host my own DNS. Recently, I decided to take a stab at implementing DNSSEC, but one condition is that your registrar must support it[1], and Namecheap doesn't[2]. I'm in no rush, but it's a little disappointing. I have no idea if DNSSEC is an option when Namecheap hosts your DNS. They've also only recently added support for IPv6 glue records. Nonetheless, I'm happy to be rid of GoDaddy and find the Namecheap interface to be much simpler and easier to use (concise email notifications of logins and account changes are also nice, and readable in more email clients than the noisy upselling HTML garbage that GoDaddy spews out).

[1] http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/dnssec-re...

[2] http://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/dnssec/deployment

Don't give up on DNSSEC just yet. You can use DLV (DNSSEC Look-aside Validation) if your registrar doesn't support it yet:

https://dlv.isc.org/

If someone who knows something about DNSSEC wrote a blog post explaining it to noobs, I'm sure it'd make the front page of HN.

Bonus points if you include some information that's actually actionable for those of us who host our own DNS servers but aren't DNS experts.

Yes, and you can use it even if your domain is registered elsewhere: https://www.namecheap.com/products/freedns.aspx

I use this for all my domains not with namecheap. It really makes managing things much easier.

I've never heard of namecheap, but given their name I'm surprised they charge so much more than gandi.net ($39).

Is it normal for a company branded as the low cost provider to charge above market for rare goods?

> Is it normal for a company branded as the low cost provider to charge above market for rare goods?

At least I would not be surprised if that would be the case... like those red and white "SALE" stickers that some shops have at their windows during the whole year, while being actually more expensive than other shops.

And Gandi isn't that cheap to begin with...

Really? Where is it cheaper to buy an IO domain?

Really curious not trying to be snarky, I have some projects I'd like to put on that domain for fun but $40 or more dollars isn't worth it.

moniker.com has a $13 offer for .io right now

https://www.moniker.com/co-domain/

That link is for .co, not .io domains...

Apologies, my mistake. Also, when talking about Gandi's pricing I was speaking generally, i.e. they are more expensive than average domain registrars. I've, however, bought domains from them myself and their support and admin are great, so I would totally recommend them.

Namecheap is appreciably less expensive than Gandi for nearly all other TLDs.

For example, .COM: $10.69 vs $15.50.

I use namecheap for all of my domains (all transferred off of GoDaddy). Not sure about getting .io TLD from them, but otherwise their service is really good and prices are very competitive. It also doesn't have the stupid amount of dark patterns that GoDaddy has.

And 100% fewer girls in swimsuits, elephant hunters, and SOPA supporters.

namecheap is my preferred vendor and is generally cheap, as the name suggests. Their interface is great and their customer service tends to be pretty good. They're miles ahead of other popular registrars like godaddy and netsol.

I have no idea what io is or why the people at ICANN or wherever are allowing all these new subdomains. Its clearly a cash grab by all involved and the registrars are feeling out the market value of yet another vanity domain. I'm sure it'll settle into a more crowd-friendly price. Not sure what the point is. Just more domains businesses need to worry about. I'm sure Disney doesn't want some random jackass to own Disney.io.

.io is the CCTLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io

Abusing foreign domains for vanity purposes is still the ugly greed I'm complaining about. Especially the geniuses who would buy domains attached to anti-enlightenment, anti-liberal cultures that can pull your product/site for any caveman reason.

While I agree there are some bad examples of TLD abuse, the British Indian Ocean Territory is not so much a country as a military outpost. The native inhabitants were forcibly removed decades ago, and in the very unlikely event they were ever repatriated I think it's unlikely they would stick with the name "British Indian Ocean Territory". The TLD .io would essentially go unused if foreign registration weren't allowed.

Whatever the name, they provide a good service. I have an .io domain with Gandi but if Namecheap was offering io domains while i was shopping for it I would have went with them.

Namecheap is just an eNom reseller[1]. They simply use the eNom API to handle all domain management and registration. Their prices are dictated by the prices given to them by eNom.

Their business is low margin, high volume.

[1]http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/troubleshoote...

Namecheap is an accredited domain registrar, they started out as an eNom reseller and still maintains that account.

They still register all of their domains through eNom.

If you could find a citation for that, I think we'd be happy. You don't become a registered ICANN registrar if you're reselling from eNom.

Maybe that's the price of free speech. Namecheap doesn't have any unusual restrictions on what you do with your domain after you buy it. Gandi does. You have to uphold their ethical code and affirmatively fight "deviant uses of the internet" to register domains through them. Hacker News would violate that code, and under the terms of Gandi's service agreement, they could revoke service and cancel this domain if it were registered through them.

http://en.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g2/pdf/MSA-1.3-EN.pd...

You've posted this msg at least twice in the thread (at least one was deleted). Seems you're using the thread in a way that doesn't help HN as much as yourself.

Can you post some examples of this policy being used unfairly? Surely some real-world, verifiable examples would help your case. (And what if the examples are nonexistent... what then?)

Domain registration is a commodity service, where all but one company selling this commodity does so without any strange contract terms. Even if the chance that Gandi acts on their contractual rights is slim, there's no reason to give them that right in the first place. A company's brand, good will and years of backlinks are tied to their domain -- it's not something to put at risk lightly.

I deleted the copy of my comment, not a moderator, as it didn't need to be said twice. This does not "help me" in any way; I'm not affiliated with any registrar. The reasons one would point out an unusual contract term are pretty obvious -- most people don't read them, and this one's quite material to the decision of who to register a domain with.

So no examples, then? Sounds like FUD to me.

We call companies out on their ToS all the time, even if there's no provable harm that has happened in the past. If it's in the contract, they both intend to use it and have the legal right to use it. I'd rather not that that chance, personally.

I appreciate the strange terms being brought to my attention. I don't have time to worry about a company morally and subjectively policing the product I bought from them. The TOS is not a place to be clever and funny and this information has helped inform a decision for me. Just because you happen to not care doesn't mean other don't.

Surely it would be unwise to agree to an outlandish contractual item purely on the grounds that one hasn't seen it invoked yet.

And surely it is a good thing to bring it to the attention of people who aren't likely to read every word of a 20 page contract just to buy a domain name.

Don't pretend that Gandi is unique. Even if such specific language isn't in their legalese blob, Godaddy has arbitrarily yanked domains many times. And I'm betting that most low margin registrars would simply turn tail if threatened with expensive lawsuits.

I really appreciate you posting this information. I had considered Gandi in the past and would not have read their ToS; I'll stay away now.

As for our friend jjblue, you can safely ignore his citation trolling. The rest of us appreciate the warning. There's no point in waiting for victim #1 before telling your friends about danger. Thanks again!

Deviant uses is defined as "spamming, phishing, hacking, cracking, or attempts at hacking or cracking". That's a pretty standard ToS right?

Not at all. Neither is that the extent of the agreement. You agree that you will not use your domain to distribute any information in violation of their ethical code. You agree that you'll also police any 3rd parties with the ability to publish content (i.e. blog comments or forum posts). The list of things you can't talk about on your site include anything "prejudicial", not just illegal. It includes any discussion that doesn't respect the "image" and "honor" of any other person. It includes any discussion inappropriate to the "age and sensibility" of anyone the site is meant to be read by.

That's all from section 3.3 of the agreement. Making your ownership of your domain name contingent upon active monitoring and censorship to uphold ambiguous "moral standards" of a 3rd party is NOT a standard registrar ToS.

After the SOPA escapades, they became my primary registrar away from GoDaddy. So far i'm actually pretty happy with their service.

I've been an exclusive Namecheap user since RegisterFly screwed me out of thousands of dollars worth of domains back in 2004 with their whole fraud thing... Have been very happy customer of theirs. Great company, plus they are Anti-SOPA, having been very helpful to GoDaddy users looking to leave them when that drama went down.

They've made multiple (not insignificant) donations to the EFF as well.

I think it's just the name. In many ways they don't act like a typical low cost provider. For example, they accept bitcoin.

Kind of a dumb comment considering that Namecheap is appreciably less expensive than Gandi for nearly every other TLD.

I'm using http://iwantmyname.com for http://gitignore.io and they have been great. They update their DNS records very quickly and I haven't had any problems with their service and right now they are $49.

Me too. Very happy with them after I switched off GoDaddy.

I'm using them as well, very helpful and quick customer service with a simple interface.

Also using iwantmyname. Happiest I've ever been with a registrar.

They are fantastic. Very supportive of the startup scene here in NZ too.

I was actually looking at building a site like that a few weeks back. Discovered the .io was taken and was what I wanted to build. Thanks.

Hehe sorry :) and You're welcome. The code is all on GitHub and I actually want to re-architect the site.

I love the IO ccTLD, but it's just too expensive to justify on a free side project that doesn't make any money. First-world problem, eh?

Not coincidentally, that's also why so few .io domains are parked. Overall, I'm OK with this.

It's definitely a trade-off. For me, I just ended up doing -io.com :)

If the more expensive price tag means a less flikr's and alot more flickers than its worth the money to me.

I think this is an understated problem. Vowel-stripping from names has become a part of today's bleeding edge tech culture, but it's really just a work around the crowded domains market.

Vowel-stripped names sound and look OK to me today, but I wonder how well they'll stand the test of time 10 years down the road, whether they'll feel reputable or whether we'll see a lot of successful businesses add back a few of their missing a-e-i-o-u's.

I think it's a mixed bag. flickr never re-voweled, but twttr did.

Vowel stripping is a feature that highly correlates with a tech target audience of a domain. So I'd prefer to see more vowel-stripped domains intended for tech crowd and regular word .com domains for general public.

I like the .io TLD but it seems like Namecheap and others haven't really done much to make it cheaper. I can't see myself paying more than $30 a year for a single domain registration, so I've simply used other TLDs when I've had opportunities to register a domain for a project. If .io was cheaper I'd buy a couple of domains in a heartbeat, though.

The upside is that the higher price may be inhibiting squatting and thus you're more likely to find a good name available.

Actually, this is something I've found too, and people seem a little bit more motivated to actually use the domains they've bought. Plus I love this extension for web apps that are used by the tech community because they actually understand understand generic ccTLDs.

Exactly this. I was able to easily snag a two letter domain name (iz.io) before thanks to the high prices. Eventually let it expire when that startup had run its course though.

"the higher price may be inhibiting squatting"

The high price is a result of the fact that the base cost of the domain is much higher than it is for .com/.net/.org/.info.

Here is the wholesale .io pricing which is based on volume (doesn't work that way for .com/.net/.org/.info)

http://www.nic.io/join.html

So for example nic.io regular price is $60 US.

Even at the top bracket the best a registrar could do is $30 per domain.

This is compared to around $8.xx for .com that a registrar pays (we are a registrar).

Where do you see the nic.io price is $60? I just paid $96 us dollars last week from the site. Nic.io prices are in pounds.

Your right. I missed the pound saw it for EU but missed it on non eu.

What's nice about Namecheap is their UI doesn't suck. I've found nic.io confusing compared to my experience using Namecheap.

Why would you expect the domains to get cheaper anyway? That's not really within Namecheap's control.

I guess it could be if they were to be able to buy in significant enough bulk (although not sure how much of that is already factored into the price): http://nic.io/join.html#benefits

I suppose they could, in theory, negotiate a better deal with the nic.io folks, with the pitch that making it easier to register domains will increase overall registration. Like you've said, nic.io isn't the most user friendly experience. I stopped myself a few times when registering, wondering if I was indeed on the correct site (because the official domain registry for a TLD couldn't possibly be this awkward).

Hey, at least it's cheaper than what InterNIC used to charge ($100 initial, then $50/year).

Doesn't seem to be avaliable for transfers:

"ignite.io cannot be transferred The domain name seems to be invalid or the TLD is not supported. Please make sure you entered the domain name properly and don't add www. in front of the domain name."

Same here. I just chatted with customer support and it's currently not supported. The guy I spoke with didn't know whether that was something they were working on.

I've transferred or am transferring about 10 of my domains from places like GoDaddy and 1and1 to NameCheap. I love NameCheap. I typically go for whatever registrar is the cheapest regardless of how crappy the interface is and NameCheap has successfully become the cheapest registrar for a number of my TLDs. The benefit is that their service and web interface are great! I highly recommend.

Bleh. My personal domain renewal is coming up and Namecheap has gotten lots of recommendations here at HN. But on the other hand I'm bit reluctant to move domains from (my current) Swiss registar to US one, even if they all ultimately are based on ICANN.

- Out of curiosity, who's your current registrar?

- I don't know if you're talking about a ccTLD or a com/net/org but if it's the latter I don't think a non-US registrar can help you since those TLDs are directly under US control.

Currently at joker.com, and .net domain. Yes, I know escaping US control is ultimately futile, but that doesn't mean that I'd be wanting to give in any more than necessary. Even in the worst-case scenario a Swiss company should be able to communicate about the circumstances, while US based registar might be gagged with NSL or equivalent and I'd be left in the dark.

Facing the same problem. The whole US government fear, uncertainty and doubt mess makes me question decisions which probably don't even concern me in the long run.

I guess namecheap is about as popular as it gets and most European sellers like gandi aren't as cheap, but there is no way for me to know whether choosing a US based domain seller could ever have any adverse effects on me as an European, whether it's censorship, laws, transfer problems, ownership problems or anything I can't even think of.

I switched to Namecheap several years ago and have never looked back. They are one of the only registrars to offer two-factor authentication.

Purchased a domain, went through all the steps, account acc. card info, process transaction. Well funded card etc.

Register <snip>.io 11 Year $58.88 Charged: $0.00 $0.00 There was an error connecting to the registry. Free WhoisGuard 1 Year $0.00 Charged: $0.00 Related item failed.

I've been using Namecheap for five years, but my .io domain is registered at name.com. I'll move back it to namecheap once it nears expiration just to put all my domains in one place and of to pay 58USD rather than 99USD.

I use Namecheap for my domains. Been a good company so far.

Does anyone recall a few months back a 3 and 4 letter .io search engine someone made and posted here? I can't find it in the HN search.

Here ya go: http://shortdomainsearch.net/

I tried to place an order twice and received this error both times: "There was an error connecting to the registry."

I use NameCheap because it's simple. Nothing fancy about it. I hate the crazy amount of popups GoDaddy gives you.

Hey, hover.com offers .io domains as well; and I couldn't be happier with them. (not affiliated whatsoever)

hexonet and gandi are equally trustworthy and have .io registration for cheaper

I suppose google.io is taken.

Created 2002-10-01!

they will automatically buy any and all TLD as a matter of policy

By Google: http://nic.io/cgi-bin/whois?query=google.io

gandi.net offers a better deal at 29€ for an .io domain.

A month too late :-) Gonna have to move it :)

"as low as $58.88 per year?"

dang! eie.io is taken.

Oh good. Now to setup a blog about programming web api's in GO complete with a little round picture of myself.

Haha. This is the best comment in this thread.

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