Over the course of the last few years I have dealt with a wide range of ICANN registrars and their resellers.
Some experiences have been good, some fantastic and some excruciatingly painful.
Which ones stick out?
The bad ones of course!
It is a well known fact that people remember bad service and, more importantly, talk about it more than they do about good service.
About a year ago we were given the opportunity to signup with Directi and get cheap domains.
There was a full API and all the other “gizmos” and the price was almost too good to be true (especially if you look at the ICANN rates).
I should have known better.
I’ve always been a strong believer in the “you pay for what you get” philosophy, and with DirectI you will get cheap domains – definitely.
Just try actually managing them!
And please oh please, do not even try to open a support query.
You stand a 10% chance of getting a relevant reply on a good day.
The web interface is obviously your main point of contact to manage your domains. You’d expect it to be accessible, or is that too much to ask?
Problems:
- API – the slightest typo throws it out and certain fields that shouldn’t be compulsory are
- Transfers – they have a tendency of vanishing
- Support – non-existent or simply irrelevant replies to queries
- Management – impossible to actually manage all domains in your account
- Buggy – we’ve ended up with domains being split between multiple accounts ie. ours and that of a competitor. Directi cannot explain these discrepancies
- Gateway support – they added 2checkout but ONLY for US dollar! The 2checkout API works with multiple currencies, why exclude clients?
- Uptime – Both the web interface and the gateway “vanish” from time to time. Haven’t they heard of load-balancing?
When we initially moved our billing over to using Modernbill one of the things that bothered me was the lack of support for Directi. Now I am really happy that they do not support it.
The number of issues we have had with their interface and API, without even mentioning issues sub-resellers ran into, far outweigh any price advantage.
Domain registration can and should be an automated process for CNOIB domains.
Each manual intervention has a direct impact on margins.
Each manual edit takes time, so costs you money.
If you have the choice between a system that “just works” and gives you real technical support when you need it and a system that malfunctions but “saves” you a few cents, which one would you choose?
I know my answer.
Cheap registrars with poor support are the reason that some hosters maintain their domains with more expensive registrars. The domain splits issue sounds very worrying. I wonder if they have a proper ACID database design.
John
I doubt they’ve heard of the concept.
They took their entire interface offline for 8 hours this week for “maintenance”!!
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irony
€30 for a .ie domain seems fairly cheap to me 😛
George – it’s a special offer. What’s your point?
no point really, other than the irony of an article titled “Why cheap domain registrars fail to deliver” when your company are offering cheap domain registrations! 😀
George – and I could argue that your employer is overcharging…
Ah now Michele, there’s no call for an argument! I would find it ironic (and amusing) even if I worked for you.
Also Michele I have a lot of respect for any man that runs his own business (i believe I’ve told you that before when I was in my previous job and we did business fairly regularly) I don’t think either of us really wants to have an argument on your blog. If you want, you have my personel e-mail address feel free to contact me on it. I really did just think it was ironic and I thought you would see the funny side. My apologies if I have offended.
George – sorry – I’m a little bit touchy as a result of comments from someone else recently
Michele
This is on behalf of ResellerClub:
Just came across this post of yours today (it was linked to the DomainNameNews post). Almost a couple of years late for a reply though; however being a part of ResellerClub I would just like to address a few things written in the post.
Back in 2005, ResellerClub was still Directi. This segregated business unit of Directi was just about beginning to emerge onto the big scene. However, over the past couple of years we have grown tremendously. Having being consistently ranked amongst the 10 fastest growing Registrars and being amongst the top 5 Reseller focused Registrars in the world surely speaks for the stability as well as reliability of our systems and support.
Many of the issues cited in the post might have been a certain bad experience. I completely agree with you on the fact that one bad experience is more spoken about than ten good ones. Also, many of the issues did surely exist, which we have worked on over the past couple of years. I wouldn’t say that we are the best out there and our systems are unmatched. What you can be sure of is a technologically advanced, stable, user friendly system and expedient & accurate Support.
Your feedback and suggestions go a long way in improving our systems and the way our Reseller Program functions. Feel free to drop in a line at sales@resellerclub.com. We would love to hear from you. 🙂