about 3 years ago Syntax Podcast
Where to Register a Domain
- 00:33 Google Domains is closing
- 01:03 Discussing domain registrar features
- 12:07 Overview of top domain registrars
- 13:18 Namecheap has fast support
- 18:50 GoDaddy has poor UX
- 23:19 Hover has phone support
- 24:26 Name.com has old UI
- 27:00 Cloudflare has cheap domains
- 28:13 How to transfer domains
- 33:08 Domain name search tools
- 38:17 Best registrar recommendations
- 41:29 Overview of top registrars
Discussing domain registrar features
Wes Bos
in that country.
Wes Bos
I don't know. I don't really think there's a lot of money to be made
Scott Tolinski
before moving on. And I can if you ever heard of I can, you'll see I can all over these domains, passport here. Your handle I I like that. That's The best. Me too because I have a nice domain now, so I'd like to use that.
Wes Bos
Are they going to bait and switch on you? And I should ask for all the data, and that's that's a name server. So burning VC money for 3 years. And then when add a add a subdomain every time we want it. Yeah. Subdomain. Yeah.
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. Wild stuff. Alright. Let's get into the actual domain,
Scott Tolinski
Right? And then I think they just started that Zip. Then that's the dumbest idea ever. It's a I been who who
Wes Bos
.coms were like, oh, register it for $4, Squarespace. Yeah. There's another one out there, website creator. Hey. Can you go to godaddy.com?
Scott Tolinski
and they get to just say, alright. Yeah. You you can be a registrar or not. And then you get to then work on your actual technical back end for that service. But
Wes Bos
And sometimes trying to consolidate them, I was on like 7 or 8 over the years, and I have finally moved them all over
Wes Bos
before they sold it to Squarespace.
Scott Tolinski
I saw somebody saying, this is the biggest rip off ever. You're buying something that doesn't even exist,
Wes Bos
They used to charge you to hide many years. And it's always like, oh, yeah, I use Porkbun, and it's usually somebody who's like,
Wes Bos
Specifically GoDaddy, They could they could pull that out from under you. I probably wouldn't put your business on one of those, but if it's a kind of a fun domain, Another thing to think about is if they will proxy is For many years, I'm a big fan of it. Hover is from 2Cows.
Scott Tolinski
You have to give the ICANN $3,500
Wes Bos
Domain name registration So whoever is behind .online domains, they're probably You're allowed to keep your Af domain name, and here's all the details. So I was pretty surprised by them, and their pricing seems to be for actually implementing it. And I recommend Af domain names, but but hopefully you'll walk away from this quick episode with And
Wes Bos
it's actually to register this domain name. And then there's like a tiny little asterisk that says renews at domain name registration is where who you actually pay money to to get your .com or .io or whatever. And then the DNS, like Vercel. And you have like, whatever Vercel. App, Online register at a buck 53 per year. Renew what was going on. I was I was really happy about that. And they actually, like, you know, like, with support, when you email back, you get, like, a Totally random person every time that has no idea what is going on. I actually got to email the same person back, and then, like, 2 days later, they followed up and Had all the data, so I was like, okay, their support was fantastic, Which is just the thing. So the first one, Namecheap. They've been around for a while. No bait and switch on their pricing, which is really nice. I tested out their chat and I had a real human talking to me in 10 seconds. I'm not even lying. So I was very impressed by that. Yeah. And Screenshot.west.
Scott Tolinski
is that, like, everybody's found just a slightly different way to do it. And I who knows why? Why is that a thing? Like, why why don't you just copy everybody copy 1 central way of doing it? But we'll often see slight variations in exactly how this all works.
Wes Bos
DNS dot online on hover. Because, like, could you just take the Some of them were like a dollar. And I'm curious,
Wes Bos
So there are companies that own Some registrars meaning that in domain names because it seems like everybody's not today. Nickel and dime in them. Yeah, But maybe they they just, like, kinda did a little bit of a cash grab Looks like in 2014, super good, negotiation that goes on and your domain name gets moved over.
Scott Tolinski
before you buy it. And I I was like, well, I I wonder how
Wes Bos
of trying to like, how much money did they make? on the Internet. I get people that message me, like, once a month about it, And when he was born, something where they just like a lot. I think small businesses But on the flip side, some of them are dirt cheap. Like I was on spaceship it needs to know what server like a Squarespace, rip through
Wes Bos
After And then it says renews at $22 a year, and they count on people just being like, alright, well, I'll
Wes Bos
to as few as I possibly could, You can get your email. Because I think the way that a lot of these registrars make money is not on the domain name. They make their money on you register the domain name there and then you say, Oh, well, would you like To hook up an email address. Would you like to throw up a quick website? That's why Squarespace wants it. Right? All these people with domain names. Hey. Hey. 1 of us used to make a lot of money on, like, SSL certificates and things like that. When you want a secure site, that's $250 anymore.
Scott Tolinski
and a lot of this will be our experiences and some research in general. So we have a number of options here we're going to be getting into. My name is Scott Tolinski. I'm a developer from Denver. And with me, as always, is Wes, boss.
Scott Tolinski
When dealing with DNS
Wes Bos
will operate businesses in those countries That's big stuff.
Wes Bos
putting all of your DNS in one spot so that anytime you're making changes, you have zero downtime. With the syntax domain name, I've been using I Want My Name domain name, do what's called the top level CNAME.
Wes Bos
operates some sort of we care. Yeah. It's the like, if you bought a granola bar or, like, something like that, green hosting or something like that. You'd have that font on there.
Scott Tolinski
To be able to become a domain registrar, and then you have to give them $3,500
Wes Bos
TLD because it makes sense for your business. And a lot of registrars All of the possible options. Whereas a lot of the other ones will, like,
Scott Tolinski
for the most part, you're applying to be able to sell these domains and you have to prove to them that you
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. There's there's like some it is funny. The one thing that you'll find
Wes Bos
they have to have a meeting Oh, okay. I trust you. Yeah.
Wes Bos
maybe go for it. Yeah.
Scott Tolinski
Totally. Yeah.
Wes Bos
Register a domain name for you. So a lot of TLDs are country based, a year.
Scott Tolinski
websites or anything like that. In case, ICANN is,
Wes Bos
these days. I don't think I've ever Media or Donut Registration or whatever. So they own House, and I'm just going to pick random ones right here.
Scott Tolinski
in any of these systems
Wes Bos
Other things to think about is What are they going to do? Are they going to Google Domains Me in If you're registering a domain in today, what would you pick, Scott? I personally
Wes Bos
Other things is, does it come with domain name privacy? That's pretty standard Because Zip was controlled by Google. You could never register 1 ever
Scott Tolinski
You also have to be aware of, like, bait and switch pricing,
Wes Bos
doing some research for this
Wes Bos
seen use a top level domain like West. Io is one that I have.
Wes Bos
and act as a proxy to hold it. So I have a Af Pretty pretty ready to to make a decision. So the first thing we have here is, You know? Like, if if you think about $38 a year, they, like, hold it for you and then give you access to it, which is kind of sketchy because
Wes Bos
I think since the last time we've talked about it, a lot has changed. A lot of prices have kind of come down. So we're going to be getting into
Wes Bos
their $38
Scott Tolinski
I I actually was, like, really interested about this because I always see any time domain stuff comes up on Twitter, people are like, well,
Wes Bos
with that, you know, when you sign up for a service, you want to put a custom domain on it.
Wes Bos
We've we've talked about specific types of domain names. I think I'm with 3 or 4
Wes Bos
do they support domain name flattening? 2011, I bought West. Io there because they were one of the first I picked up the phone and the people were, like, very technical, You know, like, they understood Alright. That's it. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Catch you later.
Wes Bos
reach an agreement with whoever owns that. Like. Tech is another one.
Wes Bos
your home address
Wes Bos
meaning that you may only register them if you have a business It's called domain name flattening. So Cloudflare specifically does a lot of them do now, proxy agreement either by themselves when we decided to name our kid that name.
Scott Tolinski
We're gonna be talking about some privacy
Scott Tolinski
which, you know, this used to be a bigger problem because it used to be less Places to get a a domain name, and they used to be all sleazier.
Scott Tolinski
Theoretically, it's not that intense. So you basically just have to have You have to meet the accreditation requirements. You have to become a, I mean, I remember GoDaddy being obviously the sleaziest of the sleazy in terms of Both still are. But also, like, you have to click no thanks to 8 8 different offers. It's like, would you like a back scratch with this $10,010,000?
Wes Bos
Which is by far the cheapest you can get a .com for anywhere.
Wes Bos
often, that is the same company, but it doesn't have to be. So when you have a a domain name, You set your name servers on your domain name. And, basically, k. Which is usually 35.
Wes Bos
Tech was a sponsor of ours for a long time. Big fan of the tech domain names. They have control over tech. Right. And anybody who wants to sell a tech, So, but they did say on Twitter the other day that they will support it by the end of the summer. Okay.
Wes Bos
A couple of bucks more it will renew at instead of you pay 7 and then it renews that 8.50, which is not a big deal, but also is a registrar, but I find their search really good. Like, I can search downtime. Or the other thing you do is you get the whole domain name in your new registrar.
Wes Bos
And the reason why sometimes these registrars don't offer all the TLDs is because they couldn't and DNS, Oh, yeah. If you if you increase it to 2 years, it goes up from 4 to $40.
Wes Bos
Yeah.
Scott Tolinski
domains? Right? How does that even how does that even happen? And turns out It's actually I I don't know.
Scott Tolinski
Like, no thanks. I don't want that. You just have to keep clicking no until you get to the thing. That that's what I always told people when you're registering a domain. Alright. You're gonna do it here, but just say no to absolutely everything that it tries to sell you on until you get to the real, you know, real checkout.
Wes Bos
At least, you know, there's 1 spot where you can go and log in Yeah. I don't know if I own any dev.dev at spaceship.com.
Scott Tolinski
and it's gonna see everything in one spot. Yeah. And that makes sense. I, you know, I I tend to not do that, but It's like I I do it on a per case basis, but you're right. You should just probably have all all your DNS in the same spot. That makes way more sense. Yeah. I you You can't get away with only doing 1 registrar because a lot of these registrars don't offer
Scott Tolinski
and then is the Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers, the ICAN.
Scott Tolinski
We're gonna be talking about some UX stuff. We're gonna be talking about some DNS based features.
Wes Bos
TLD offerings.
Wes Bos
Restaurant
Wes Bos
Sometimes if you want to use a service or do you want, Like, you know, they'll try to suggest
Domain name search tools
Wes Bos
and the ones that are taken. I don't care. I just want to
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. You're right. Because I even just on domainer right now, it gives you, like, 6 options.
Scott Tolinski
who graciously
Wes Bos
I literally messaged
Wes Bos
I gave her son free courses for life, They got that shit about. GoDaddy has that, like, font.
Wes Bos
Also,
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. And and luckily, let me just say,
Wes Bos
on Cloudflare on Hover. And when we joined Century, part of that was we had to give Century the syntax out of him domain name,
Scott Tolinski
I like
Wes Bos
which is the name of 1 of my son. One of my son. My son.
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. But my that's the only one I use.
Scott Tolinski
d o n. I pretty much always domainer.
Wes Bos
Yeah. I own HitBoss.com,
Scott Tolinski
I really like their management features.
Wes Bos
on, or where email should go to. Those are MX records or And then there's a button that says hide unavailable domain names, and they will you wait a couple of seconds, but they'll populate
Scott Tolinski
that was suggested to me by a syntax listener And turn off your hand blocker. It's like I know more than you. Please stop.
Wes Bos
And then I have all my kids names. And I told that story once. Right? Let Tucows owns Ting, which is like a, you could use that to
Scott Tolinski
That needs to be a name. Is the domain name as important as it was Once before, I don't think it is. It's important as it used to be. The handle what's important. Good point. Although, you know, we we did talk about, like, blue sky and some of these new,
Wes Bos
how many domain names do you have? Should I count? domain names via an app, don't ever do that. That's that's a weird thing where, like, you sign up for, like,
Scott Tolinski
One of them is
Scott Tolinski
am going to be Picking Cloudflare.
Scott Tolinski
$27,000. It's like, no. Yeah.
Wes Bos
things If something I get to keep So Hover is offering Five SSL certs, which who cares anymore about that? Is it a VPS? Is that what it is or what? Yeah. It's a VPS.
Scott Tolinski
Cloudflare's UI.
Wes Bos
hover, and say, I want to move this domain name.
Wes Bos
So I was really happy that we could snag that because I have all of my kids protection stuff. I know a lot of people don't like Cloudflare
Wes Bos
when they're older, or is it gonna be like, Why didn't you get me your TikTok name? You know? Yeah. Why didn't you register dot TikTok? You know? And, like, Do they offer team client access although it sounds like Porkbun is probably another very good option Yeah. For that type of thing. And then also, $20 what do you need to look for in a registrar? had If you register your domain at a specific registrar, you don't necessarily have to use their see what's available to me. Interesting. Like, let's see. What's Scott?
Scott Tolinski
the rest of them there. So, yeah, I I think that's really what it's gonna be for me is moving them to to Cloudflare. I you know, I could be convinced of other ones as well as well. But
Wes Bos
quite a bit lately. I used to always use this one called domainer, came on Twitter, what the renewal cost is? a year for the basic SSL. You know? I forgot about that. Yeah. That was probably a big a big business for them before that sort of thing went away. But so the the spaceship thing here, They're just putting a fresh coat of paint on it for hosting and making it like a one stop shop kind of deal, maybe. Yeah. That's probably what it is. Because, like, who's going to their domain and register to build a website? You know, not me. Nobody. Yeah. So maybe they're starting their own thing. Spaceship.com is pretty sweet domain name. It's a good domain name. Yeah. If you're a domain holder, the domains are Cheap as hell, too. They're cheaper than Cloudflare, which I was surprised.
Scott Tolinski
But now I do have to migrate yeah. Alternatives was a slimy company for most of my career, and they were often
Wes Bos
there are people on the Internet who just acquire that domain and be like, LOL, I got it. Yeah. I got I got sniped on 1 recently, and I'm I'm a little bit upset about it. Yeah. So thank you for that. But I didn't think to to grab it. That's That's the other thing is, like, you might think, oh, it's not a big deal, but, like, I probably have online for 4.99 take the dollar and then move it move it over to hover? and their price.
Wes Bos
Let's have a fun. Oh, you got Such a good domain name recently. What? Tolinski?
Scott Tolinski
I like just the general flow of it, and I use their product for everything.
Wes Bos
That was the only one that was not available That's not because of them. It's because of whoever they have To pay it to. Have you ever heard of 101domain.com?
Wes Bos
and TypeScript dot church, you know, and you can just, like, TV ads or And until they opened it up via Google domain names a couple of weeks ago. And, like, how many .zip domain names were registered in, like, 1 week? Probably probably 60 domain names in total. So it's it's not cheap, you know? And it's kind of a bummer because, like, a lot of them are just similar idea is another one is hover, and I have used hover for and I was very happy about that. But you can't always get them into just one because of the like, not a not significantly cheaper than the other ones, but the the prices are always just as good as the rest of them. Yeah. And and this, it seems like as long as the prices aren't bad, They're usually that's,
Wes Bos
Important.
Wes Bos
I have dot. The big one is Donut trying to be Io. And I was like, no, I want to use straight up west. Io.
Wes Bos
like, trying to sell you something. I think they probably make a lot of their money off of affiliates, I think. Yeah, I think they make a massive amount of money on it. Which is funny because I want my name So can you renew a domain name for $4? Probably not. It's probably that initial registration that's only cheap. Be careful for those $1 domain names. They are not a dollar in the long run.
Scott Tolinski
Since I already have so many at Cloudflare, it's like, well, I might as well move them to the spot where I have the most of them and a service that I like. Yeah. Big fan of Cloudflare. That's where I go. By default, I go to Cloudflare.
Wes Bos
to to what I've done before.
Wes Bos
I want my name in their search.
Wes Bos
Like, desirable
Scott Tolinski
I probably have
Wes Bos
And I was like, hey. Like, you're not using this domain name. She was it's just being redirected.
Scott Tolinski
So all of my most important and most beloved Domains have been already living on cloud for there already anyways.
Google Domains is closing
Scott Tolinski
A lot of people just had the Rogue pulled out from under them with the announcing of Google Domains closing. So if you are just hearing this for the 1st time and you have domains on
Scott Tolinski
by Squarespace
Scott Tolinski
Google Domains. Well, they have been acquired a registrar Shopify is. Probably massive. Same with Ioan, like, Squarespace and all those, right? Yeah. He's out there. Imagine
Scott Tolinski
becoming a Squarespace customer unless you move your domains off of Google Domains. So we figured what a perfect time to do an episode on domain registrars.
Scott Tolinski
and that means over the next x amount of months, you are going to be,
Overview of top domain registrars
Wes Bos
And then notes,
Wes Bos
But I thought your little table here that you put together was neat, Wes. Yeah. So we just kinda said, here's the the big ones that people are Commending, I asked on Twitter what people are using, and then I went through and said, like, how much is the .com? How much is the IO? I'm not going to rattle through it because almost always I've heard of people using them for years. So it's not Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Like, I know Cloudflare doesn't have .dev domain names.
Wes Bos
It tries to run you through some sort of stupid knowledge base, they had it. You know, like, it's Your client says, oh, yeah, I registered it here. And I think that's a lot of these companies
Wes Bos
Just run into, which is the syntax domain name, which is like, how do I let Scott
Wes Bos
The prices are within a dollar or 2. Not enough that it would ever matter, episode, You mirror the entire DNS to your old one.
Wes Bos
give you an AI answer, and then Give you a contact form, which they'll email you back in 3 days. You know? Yeah. Long contact form is really what those are.
Wes Bos
to that type of stuff?
Name.com has old UI
Scott Tolinski
their jQuery,
Wes Bos
SSL certificate from them. But So, like, a couple of years ago, I moved. I was like, alright, I have domain names of probably 7 or 8 different registrars.
Scott Tolinski
you know, it was fine at the time, whatever, but they put a Fresh coat of paint on it. And and sometimes there's, like, really bad UI
Wes Bos
I bought a a year, You get 2 gigs of memory, it's one of those cool people.
Scott Tolinski
given that it has not like, it got a a slight product coat of paint on it. But they were one where Grey sucks. It it everything about it sucks now. And, like,
Wes Bos
Opened up as a registrar.
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. Nice UI for I guess you would say brand fixing
Scott Tolinski
And then I debugged are, able to meet that accreditation
Scott Tolinski
So I I'm in the process of moving my stuff off of there. And the only reason why I have domains there at all. It's because I had too many to start with there, and I just haven't taken the moving a domain is obnoxious. It's an obnoxious process. Yeah. I a couple of years ago. So I just went on Name .com and logged in. In the the A lot of DNS, like fancy and more complex DNS features
Scott Tolinski
and I was like, oh, yeah.
Scott Tolinski
2011. And I'm I'm not necessarily feeling that same way anymore, where, like, your domain could very well end up becoming your
Scott Tolinski
UI progress bar on their site and was on their chat with them and being like, hey, your
Scott Tolinski
It felt very 1990 in terms of everything.
Scott Tolinski
Process is failing because of a a error in your JavaScript code. I'm seeing the error. It's a jQuery error, and here's the error. And they were just like,
Scott Tolinski
domain registrar for a little while. And I've since basically been moving everything to Cloudflare. We can talk about Cloudflare next, But name .com is one of those ones. They're they're like a Colorado based company. You know, they had a nice UI in 2011,
Scott Tolinski
your
Namecheap has fast support
Wes Bos
So, like So,
Wes Bos
They are offering you should check it out. Spaceship.com.
Wes Bos
that's suspiciously cheap.
Wes Bos
Mhmm. And then cool dot I o was 35 Squarespace Wix.
Scott Tolinski
and I I probably wouldn't even consider them for a second, and shake hands with those people and It'd be approved as, like, a reseller for those specific domain names. Yeah. And some of them, like, I think it was I don't know if it's One of one of them recently that I really wanted was, like, owned by Dish Network. Like, some of them are just owned by
Wes Bos
3 just over $3 a month?
Wes Bos
And I asked him, hey, can you run note on these things? He said, yeah. So just it's important to understand the difference between a .net or something like that. But 3 times the price. So some of them are like Your domain name will be locked from being transferred. So if you unlock it, you get what's called a move code. And basically, just go to your next registrar
Wes Bos
Wix and Shopify competitor, Exactly.
Scott Tolinski
Oh, wow. I'm getting an access denied. I bet it's because of my VPN. That's probably because you're trash talking them.
Scott Tolinski
or
Scott Tolinski
The hosting bit from their domain product. Because on the back end, it it's probably using the same tech to manage their domains
Scott Tolinski
GoDaddy
Wes Bos
Often, you you should shop around for them. Or in my case, I just usually go to Cloudflare and you know that they're not gonna which is crazy. But because I registered boss dotaf edit the DNS of syntax.fm? What a domain name goes to
Wes Bos
You get 20 gigs SSD, So even the renewal be adding your values into it. Or, like, if you wanted people to register Not that where you could register domain names from them, but you could move them. Now you can register domain names.
Scott Tolinski
And I want my name. Oh, so that's
Wes Bos
It was, like, $6.60.
Wes Bos
5 years from now? One of the big things they have an API that you can use to manage your domain name. So if you're running like a multi tenant app, something And then, allow you to, hopefully, some of you guys upgrade to other ones. So What's important? What's not important? How much should you be spending? funny ones to you that are never very good. So I've been a big fan of Something that I you want that I had to keep logging in and updating my credit card. And, like,
Scott Tolinski
Daddy. But, like, honestly, I don't necessarily feel like they're that different of a company, Yeah. Interesting. One thing to mention is that you use the domain cool with several o's as the dot I o, And I thought that was pretty cool of you. Yeah. I was just trying to find, like,
Wes Bos
300,000
Wes Bos
But essentially, it's you buy a domain name there. You can get your hosting.
Wes Bos
was Like $0.30 cheaper than Cloudflare, which is who cares? But a hell of a lot.
Wes Bos
Fifty MySQL databases, and then you go up to their most expensive plan,
Scott Tolinski
And,
Scott Tolinski
pushing out. But you're right. Why is this a separate product? Is it just to differentiate
Scott Tolinski
where Yeah. They were all over Twitter. It'd be like, no. We've changed.
Wes Bos
So the the CEO of Namecheap their bread and butter. They get somebody in there, they get their email hooked up, And they're in there for life because TypeScript dot gay is available and TypeScript dot Africa they certainly could do. It's kind of scary how big Where to register domain names in the past. And DNS? Personally, I think they are Let's search for Scott.
Wes Bos
5 subdomains versus when I registered with it, and it is really frustrating. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna move everything to Cloudflare because
Wes Bos
files. Well, that's not enough to npm install anything.
Wes Bos
Namecheap.
Scott Tolinski
They GoDaddy also has fake chat, so don't go to GoDaddy. Yeah. Number 2 on the list was GoDaddy. And you know what? suggested it without acquiring it. So thank you for that because the company that's in charge of basically the entire DNS system and ensuring that, like, domain names are unique. Yeah. But also, like, which TLDs get added, which top level domains even exist, and who gets access to them. So ICANN is the The big boss here. A couple of years ago, whenever they opened up the ability, like, you know how we have anything Who is sitting there and being like, yeah, that is it. That makes a lot of sense. Let's do it. Like that to me is such a bad idea. I wonder if it was just them like,
Wes Bos
except for GoDaddy.
Wes Bos
everywhere.
Wes Bos
To somebody else and Yeah. Then it gets real expensive.
Wes Bos
that I could run through All of them? Because sometimes you put in I put a dot I o in, and it was said it was $68 or subdomains, One core, 1 gig of memory,
Scott Tolinski
really deemed as the The slimiest of the slime balls. But then at some point, they were really trying hard to do some major brand.
Wes Bos
What's the other big one? What's the one that Google has sold it to? Squarespace.
Wes Bos
what, a couple bucks a month? And then there's some backroom Hey. Yeah.
Wes Bos
they're obviously taking a hit somewhere. So that's another thing to think of. Okay,
Wes Bos
unlimited databases, up to 4 cores of CPU.
Wes Bos
There's a reason why they're suspiciously cheap because they're
Wes Bos
everywhere
How to transfer domains
Scott Tolinski
But you you pay like $30 a month and then you get a whole bunch of Extra features. And, you know, at the time when I use them, which was, you know, 10 years ago or so, they did things that nobody else was doing. Now I have no idea what that Looks like today, but I found them to be like a really interesting service. Yeah. This does look really nice. So they have an API. Like, Here's the the one time the one time savings that you get. Because I I do I I don't mind a sale on the 1st year if you make it obvious that it's, You know, multiple
Scott Tolinski
and, like, stuff before that you couldn't do elsewhere. And they were like the first ones for me that did Automatic SSLs and, like, weird alias,
Wes Bos
You could And I was like, oh, man. So, like, we worked out. I paid her good money for it. And then
Wes Bos
So finding domain names.
Wes Bos
move it random ass companies. Yeah. Like, Google owned dot
Wes Bos
And then when you're ready to cut over, you switch your name servers,
Scott Tolinski
I am are because of the way our redirects and SSL had worked with Apex Domains, it was impossible for me to move to
Wes Bos
could make use case of that. But the way it works is you unlock your domain name. So by default,
Scott Tolinski
A redirect
Scott Tolinski
h t t p s. There was like a weird thing. And they were the only ones that did it for some weird reason. So, we had to use DNS simple for a little while until,
Scott Tolinski
I think it was like
Wes Bos
I I said, hey. Like, we're going to give you the domain name, but don't change the name servers. Like, let us, me and Scott, still control the The DNS for syntax. So that way we don't have to go through some, like, process to They show you the ones that are for sale Moving DNS is where you could possibly have I'm there.
Wes Bos
You can move a domain name at any time. You usually have to pay for 1 year, but that 1 year just gets tacked on to whatever you have. So if you have 9 months left at a different registrar
Scott Tolinski
that don't that whatever that,
Wes Bos
to it was like a woman from Denmark or something.
Scott Tolinski
DNS records, stuff that you couldn't do anywhere else. Like, for instance, I I ran into a situation where Okay. That makes sense. They also own
Wes Bos
baby. Don't switch your DNS just yet that you have both of those exactly the same. And when you do a cutover,
Wes Bos
and you move to a new one, Cloudflare
Scott Tolinski
Yeah. Which we do. Yeah. Have you ever so there's also I want my name, which you have listed as like a finder, but they also do registry there. And then, DNS simple is kind of like an oddball one because DNS simple, their whole thing is that we give you for a full archive of all of our shows.
Wes Bos
and is verified or whatnot,
Scott Tolinski
level up tod's h t t p s to ww.leveluptutorials features and Pricing is important on top of all of that,
Wes Bos
domain name is in some weird app. And, like, What are the chances that they have, like, full when a website needs to look up or not necessarily a website, when anything needs to figure out
Wes Bos
Some service, and they're like, woah, we can add a domain name for you, but then your But Cloudflare is saying we're going to do domains at cost,
Wes Bos
take advantage of these, like, It's kind of good because we're not offering
Wes Bos
you and he's like, hey. You guys check out spaceship Do they have a fake chat where you click the chat button?
Wes Bos
is that moving a domain name, you do not need to wait until it renews.
Wes Bos
You're going to be at a year 9 months on top of there, so don't don't wait. And, also, some like, I know a lot of people There's so many other products that you pay for, so Getcha on that type of thing.
Wes Bos
I know Shopify does that. Like, I wonder how big of
Wes Bos
You register it with them, and they're going to ask you for that code. You paste that code in the box,
Wes Bos
is
Scott Tolinski
I don't know, caching that happens for Yeah. Permanent redirects went away. So I I moved off them since then. The reason that's kind of weird is because you're they're like a subscription based service, so you can't even go and hunt to see how much their domains I would imagine their standard prices. I've never purchased a domain out out through them.
Scott Tolinski
from That whole process works of how do you become a storefront selling
Overview of top registrars
Scott Tolinski
Nothing that gives Name .com. I just I just you know, I got I got charged for privacy. Who is Stefan there? In the you know, it's 2023. I don't need that in my life right now. So Mhmm.
Scott Tolinski
Name .com, I would probably migrate. I'm gonna migrate some of mine.
Scott Tolinski
Head on over to syntax.fm That seems suspiciously cheap. I'd never, never seen this before, that Twitter mentioned before. Yeah. So it's interesting to know if this is something they're gearing up to start, like, really
Scott Tolinski
And don't forget to subscribe in your podcast player
Scott Tolinski
or drop a review if you like this show.
Wes Bos
Peace.
Best registrar recommendations
Scott Tolinski
I Have Estelinski .dev there. I have Scott with three t's .dev.
Scott Tolinski
having the dot dev domains was like a big reason why
Wes Bos
like, offering it at a cheaper rate For TypeScript.
Wes Bos
25.80.
Scott Tolinski
my domains over there are .dev really is what it comes down to. So you you have to basically show that you have the technical expertise and financial stability
Scott Tolinski
it was it was interesting to me that there is not, like, there's not some, like, magic carpet,
Scott Tolinski
answer out there. There's not like something that we've never heard of that somehow better than everything else that, you know, just towers above the competition.
Wes Bos
They're probably, but unfortunately, some of them say, oh, you have to use, like, And probably another They're a Canadian based company.
Scott Tolinski
That,
Scott Tolinski
it's gonna be just a onetime sale or, like, a onetime sale price. And then what does hold on. Let's let's search for
Wes Bos
so this is a
Wes Bos
spaceship.com
Wes Bos
Net. The dotaf domain name is not as funny when you're shelling out $200 a year. Yeah. LOL. Af.
Scott Tolinski
So you're getting hit. Come on. But yeah. Don't don't fall for that. Unless they make it, like, very obvious that it's like, here's the, you know, I did not try their chat, but, again, the price is, 40. Let's see here. I that I have mine spread out amongst, like, 5 different services. So registrar options that we're gonna be talking about in this episode. And I'll be sure to mention which ones I've used and which ones I haven't when we have.
Scott Tolinski
Alright. Well, that should be it for domains here. Yeah. I I thought this was really eye opening. You know,
Scott Tolinski
All
Scott Tolinski
If you're on
Wes Bos
Thumbs down for part of spaceship.
Wes Bos
If it's not available, I'll go to Hover,
Wes Bos
Does Hover say .coms. But, like, I don't know. Like, is the .com gonna be A little bit when I'm ready. And then and then the the renewal comes around, you're like, pay the man, and I don't wanna deal with this right now. That's exactly what they do.
Scott Tolinski
Right. So let's search for it. Can you take the dollar and then move it immediately? Welcome to Syntax. In this Monday, hasty treat, we're gonna be talking about domain registrars.
Scott Tolinski
seems like that, you know, that that will be a big thing for a lot of people because I know that's, like, the big reason why a lot of people went to Google Domains in the first Besides it being a great little interface and all that stuff, but,
GoDaddy has poor UX
Wes Bos
I don't know. I've never heard of Tucows until making the Internet better since 1993. So I learned to code on Tucows.
Wes Bos
a developer don't allow maybe this isn't a registrar. This is a DNS thing is if you want to Friendly company, you know, like, because I guess, like a a cheap Or is this actually what it is? Sometimes these new companies that are suspiciously cheap, a one domain name that was available So I have,
Scott Tolinski
I know. This is one of those ones that I feel like I've been to the site before just to always check, but I've never bought anything from ever in my entire life. So, yeah, just curious if it was, like, one that you've ever used. One that we saw come up quite a bit in the Twitter Reds was pork bun, which Yes. Again, pork bun is not one that I had heard of before, That's fun.
Wes Bos
They've been great. They have a really nice back end. They allow you to have a single account and switch between businesses.
Wes Bos
Next one is Gandhi. Gandhi is a very popular option because they offer literally
Wes Bos
What was 2Cows or what is 2Cows? on a domain name, but it's pretty standard now that it comes with free Privacy. I wouldn't even Think twice about a registrar that doesn't offer free domain name privacy.
Scott Tolinski
It's like the one with, like, the, the Cloudflare or Hover or Porkbun or whatever, you know, the Namecheap, those are all probably gonna be fine for you. If you're on,
Wes Bos
I've known about them. I've never used them, but I've heard of them for me make sure I still own it before.
Wes Bos
You know that font that's like go to Godaddy.com and look at the font right now. I can't. It's like the and their prices 6 on Gandhi and
Wes Bos
yours is still going to be
Scott Tolinski
data company. What's it called? Oh, it's spelled t u c o w s. Yeah. I was looking for, like,
Wes Bos
because and studio.
Scott Tolinski
but the whole Google Domains thing. And, they were very active on Twitter. A lot of people, you know, really praising pork bun,
Wes Bos
I've never found a dome. Gandhi is usually where you go when you can't find a red star that supports the TLD, You had to, like, be like, oh, is this a good is this a good price or not? Or are they just, like, going to renew it at a ridiculous amount Yeah. A lot of the ones I looked into are not a lot of them, but they will say, oh, it's $20 I used to really love it, but I find that they they're going hard 53
Wes Bos
in Canada. And I've always been a big fan. Hover is the only company on this list that will pick up the phone, Decent. The Af domain name is really expensive, but that's not there.
Wes Bos
Their emails are really good. So I got an email from them saying, hey, there's some sketchy stuff that could happen. Like, if you get hacked and somebody moves your domain name, You know, then it's very hard to get that back. So I just rattled through a list of some of the more popular ones, Can I buy it off of you? And she's like, my son takes your courses. Oh, my gosh.
Wes Bos
and The kind of important thing to note is If you want no downtime I get to keep it. And Gandhi, the registrar I have, but it is important for things like do they have to factor auth? Do they have phone support? And it looks like I had bought a bunch of SSL certificates over the years as well.
Scott Tolinski
and it it seems nice. Free who is free SSL, things going on. But other times, like, you know, the process of Buying a SSL certificate, which is something I've had to do through them before.
Scott Tolinski
the same or Less is $34 for cool.
Wes Bos
which is amazing.
Scott Tolinski
Io. So, you know, same as everybody else here, a little bit less. Yeah. Porkbans seems like Mhmm.
Wes Bos
Yeah.
Wes Bos
cell phone carrier in the States. It's not here in Canada. It's hilarious. It's a Canadian company, but they don't offer
Wes Bos
and I'm able to switch between the 2. Their billing is really good.
Scott Tolinski
the dash lines.
Scott Tolinski
the number 2 cows. Ting.
Wes Bos
I don't wanna switch my email. You need a domain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Wes Bos
I Very They're listening.
Wes Bos
The warning tape kind of many times in my WordPress days, I used 101 domain Which you can you can no longer register a dotaf domain name anywhere domain name
Wes Bos
a, like, mobile with the.coms. A couple of bucks here doesn't matter, but the other ones, To all of these registrars.
Scott Tolinski
Email forwarding, all that stuff.
Cloudflare has cheap domains
Wes Bos
It's very, very simple to move over. And I think the thing to know
Wes Bos
At least having your DNS on Cloudflare is really nice if you're doing any of the DDoS What do they renew at? Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Dot online. Oh, yeah. See,
Wes Bos
which is pretty awesome because Because there's this massive Or through something else through Afghanistan where just register it with them and then immediately But kind of on the same domain names. They're expensive. Yeah. That's that's a problem with some of these. It's just like, oh, It's fine to spend $10 a year on you hope and pray Sometimes registrars don't allow you to that was pretty cool that they did that. And also having your domains, The font that says, like, we're healthy and we're better and Zip.
Wes Bos
services.
Wes Bos
which is like, I guess you got guess you got to be careful with big companies like that that control They're offering scroll down to their hosting plans.
Wes Bos
force behind the Internet,
Scott Tolinski
slog? I want my name. It's also $69.
Wes Bos
a good chunk of the actual Internet.
Wes Bos
they have so many other products that will before that got implemented, do you it's not taken, but do you want Max typescript.com, And there was some issue with transferring it. Like, it was locked even though I unlocked it. So
Wes Bos
they're like, okay, well, we're going to eat money on this Like, 1 domain name personally registered and then a bunch registered under my business,
Wes Bos
But they've Never wronged me, at least not yet. And I'm a big fan of all Cloudflare I use Linux. You know, which and now I was able to get it. And, like, it's kind of funny because It's that domain name is no good to anybody unless your name is Kit Kit Boss. Yeah.
Wes Bos
I use quite a few myself, big fan of all their workers and whatnot, so I was happy to move most of my domain names over there. I still have a bunch on Hover, and those are just TLDs that they don't offer at all. What is in general the process This is for you for migrating 1. Is it just doing or you don't it's not immediate. You often have to wait, like, 60 or 90 days. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Transcript
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Monday. Monday. Monday.
Scott Tolinski
key.
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soft skill, web development, the hastiest, the craziest,
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Boss, and Scott
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Open wide dev fans. Get ready to stuff your face with JavaScript, CSS, node modules, barbecue tips, git workflows, breakdancing,
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the tastiest CS web development treats coming in hot. Here is Wes, Barracuda,
Hover has phone support
Scott Tolinski
like in there's a good tier and then there's a medium tier and then there's a bad tier. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't used hover before, but it's one that I've heard as being a good option.
Scott Tolinski
One of them that I have used for quite a bit was named .com, and I I still have quite a bit on namedot because that was my, like, primary,
Wes Bos
I had some we had the syntax.fm
Wes Bos
are, like, registers to offer IO domain names.