- Be aware that ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization that oversees domain registration, requires $0.20 fee per domain
per year for certain Top Level Domains. Domain Registrars do not normally include this fee in their price lists and it therefore will be levied on checkout. ICANN
fees apply to .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .jobs, .mobi and .name.
- When purchasing a domain name that is on sale, be sure to check the registrars regular price. Registrars often have great sales on a particular TLD (top level domain)
in order to entice you to purchase the domain through them. This great price will generally only apply to the first year of the domain registration. Upon renewal
you will be paying the registrars regular price which is often much higher.
- Go with a name you know and trust: It's worth paying a few more bucks a year to go with an established registrar rather than a fly-by-night.
- Be aware of domain tasters/stealers: Domain tasting is the practice of using the five-day grace period that ICANN gives registrants to cancel (and thus be refunded) a purchased domain, to 'test' out the
monetization ability of the domain. Although perhaps unsavory, this is a completely legal practice. This practice is also sometimes referred to as 'domain kiting'.
- Even worse is the practice of some less reputable domain registrars who may 'steal' a domain name from you as you attempt to register it. Here's basically what happens:
you make a query for the availability of a domain and the result shows that its available. You say to yourself that you will come back to the site later in the day to register it. Upon returning you see that
the domain name has been registered -- and when you type the domain name into your browser you see a page full of ads (and perhaps a message indicating that you can purchase this domain at such and such a price.).
What is very likely happening here is the intentional registration of the domain name by this shady registrar (of course there exist the small possibility that someone else had registered the domain by coincidence).
While this practice is also not illegal it is quite unethical in our opinion. That is why we recommend you only query and register domain names at well known registrars and not some fly-by-night you have never heard of.
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