What bugs me most is the rent seeking on some of the tlds... dynamic pricing which is higher for simple English words. And what happens if your domain gets popular, are they going to just jack up your rent from $25/yr to $500/yr or more?
I have a few domains that I've been sitting on with every intention of getting to, but tbh, I'm about ready to just drop half of them (of around 35 or so), just because the annual costs just to keep it are getting to be too much.
> And what happens if your domain gets popular, are they going to just jack up your rent from $25/yr to $500/yr or more?
As long as your domain is in the standard fee class, aka non-premium, they can't target it for a price increase if it's a gTLD. They have to raise the price of all standard domains at the same time.
Everyone will tell you they can't reclassify a domain from standard to premium, but that's not technically correct. They can change the classification to whatever they want, but they have to charge you standard renewal fees if the domain had a standard classification when you registered it, as long as you haven't let it expire.
I created a website that has some info about domain reclassification.
Great, I have a question for you if you can be bothered.
I recently "bought" a .com domain. It's not a popular English word, it's a small number of letters that match some truncation of my names. No competition, nobody wants it. Anyway, I looked at a handful of registrars and got the cheapest. But then I was a bit concerned. Why are they the cheapest, are they cutting corners somehow? The difference was substancial. GoDaddy was one of the most expensive ones are $23/yr and I bought it from dynadot for something like $6/yr. Why such a huge difference?
It's almost impossible to judge based on the pricing alone. Paying top dollar doesn't guarantee anything extra and low prices don't always mean low quality service.
$6.99 looks like a first year discount at dynadot with renewals at $10.88 USD.
> Why such a huge difference?
A lot of registrants don't know what the wholesale pricing looks like and the difference between $10 or $25 / year for a business isn't a factor. The risk that comes along with transferring to a cheaper registrar isn't worth it to save $15 / year.
What bugs me most is the rent seeking on some of the tlds... dynamic pricing which is higher for simple English words. And what happens if your domain gets popular, are they going to just jack up your rent from $25/yr to $500/yr or more?
I have a few domains that I've been sitting on with every intention of getting to, but tbh, I'm about ready to just drop half of them (of around 35 or so), just because the annual costs just to keep it are getting to be too much.
> And what happens if your domain gets popular, are they going to just jack up your rent from $25/yr to $500/yr or more?
As long as your domain is in the standard fee class, aka non-premium, they can't target it for a price increase if it's a gTLD. They have to raise the price of all standard domains at the same time.
Everyone will tell you they can't reclassify a domain from standard to premium, but that's not technically correct. They can change the classification to whatever they want, but they have to charge you standard renewal fees if the domain had a standard classification when you registered it, as long as you haven't let it expire.
I created a website that has some info about domain reclassification.
https://tldrisk.com/beyond-basics/reclassification/
Great, I have a question for you if you can be bothered.
I recently "bought" a .com domain. It's not a popular English word, it's a small number of letters that match some truncation of my names. No competition, nobody wants it. Anyway, I looked at a handful of registrars and got the cheapest. But then I was a bit concerned. Why are they the cheapest, are they cutting corners somehow? The difference was substancial. GoDaddy was one of the most expensive ones are $23/yr and I bought it from dynadot for something like $6/yr. Why such a huge difference?
I'm reading [1] now thanks for sharing
[1] https://tldrisk.com/beyond-basics/price-protections/#icanns-...
It's almost impossible to judge based on the pricing alone. Paying top dollar doesn't guarantee anything extra and low prices don't always mean low quality service.
$6.99 looks like a first year discount at dynadot with renewals at $10.88 USD.
> Why such a huge difference?
A lot of registrants don't know what the wholesale pricing looks like and the difference between $10 or $25 / year for a business isn't a factor. The risk that comes along with transferring to a cheaper registrar isn't worth it to save $15 / year.
Sill waiting for a .web TLD.