Looking for the best domain registrar to register your website name?
Domain registrars hold great importance because they help you lock your online business/presence name.
There are a dime a dozen places where you can buy your domain names, and they come with a variety of pricing, services offered and hidden costs.
Therefore, you should consider a set criteria to choose the perfect domain vendor for your website.
In this article, I’ll list 7 best registrars that you can buy your domains from.
Ready?
Before we dive into the registrar list, let us first discuss a few important things related to domain registrars.
What is a Domain Registrar?
A domain registrar
according to Wikipedia, is an organization or commercial entity that manages the reservation of Internet domain names.
A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry and/or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry.
The management is done in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries.
Why Choosing The Best Domain Registrar is Important?
Since we buy domains to represent our online presence from a domain registrar, choosing the perfect one is a lot more important.
One wrong choice and you can end up paying more for the whole registration period or even have to settle for fewer features.
Given below are some features that you must consider in your domain registrar:
Reliability
Not all registrars have the same trust factor. Choosing a cheap domain registrar might end you up with unprofessional services.
Hosting Support
A domain is of no worth until it is hosted somewhere to have its own website.
Without hosting no one can access your domain/website and you cannot add anything to it either.
So, it is preferable to choose a domain registrar that sells hosting too. This saves you the hassle of going through different accounts.
Disk Space
As we talked about hosting your website, different registrars have different plans for hosting space.
Some give you unlimited hosting space so that you can upload any amount of data/media while others restrict you to a bare minimum.
Subdomain Support
Sometimes, you see sites that have different sections for different types of content.
While your domain can be the homepage for your site, but you might want to have different sections like a forum or a membership space on a subdomain like forum.yourwebsite.com or members.yourwebsite.com.
Subdomain Support
A secure server certified website is one that uses an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to make your website more safe for online transactions or similar activities.
SSL is not required when you are simply blogging but can be a very important thing if you’re going to be selling or exchanging private information with your readers.
While SSL is not usually free having a domain registrar (or hosting) that provides it for free is great.
Other Factors
Other factors like customer service, pricing, control panel, ability to set up subdomains, etc. are what you should consider while choosing your domain registrar.
A good domain name registrar has to be one that has all the standard features, offers a good hosting plan and has a responsive customer service within an affordable price.
With that said, here are 7 Best domain name registrars that you can use to buy your next domain.
Godaddy is been synonymous with domains and hosting.
They are one of the biggest names in the domain industry and e-commerce industry with a market share of over 30%.
With Godaddy, you can get started with just $2.99.
The interface of Godaddy is pretty nice when it comes to selecting a domain name.
Godaddy offers almost all the TLDs including country specific domain extensions and provides other online services like hosting, website builder, SSL certificates.
In a nutshell, Godaddy is the best place to buy domain name. Period!
- One of the leading domain registrars
- Offers hosting and website builder in one go
- Offers other e-services like logo designs and website design
- The pricing and customer service is decent if not the best.
- Offers almost every known TLD and domain extension
- Uncluttered Domain dashboard & easy setup of domain settings
- Provides hosting (which is good if you’re new and not techy, but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone blogging for business)
- Pricing is high. Privacy protection comes at extra charges
- Hosting and other services are limited.
- Upsells are so pushy and intrusive that if you’re not alert enough, you’ll often end up buying domain extensions and other things that are not needed at all.
When you’re looking to register your domains what better can it be than registering it with Google.
Google domains is by far the most professional domain registering body that I have come across.
Unlike other domain registrars, Google domains’ interface is clean, minimal like the Google.com homepage and doesn’t jam you with loads of upsells/cross-sells and hidden banners.
Google domains doesn’t have hosting facilities. It is strictly a domain registrar.
You can, however, integrate Google domains with G Suite (formerly Google apps) for an additional $5 per month to get custom emails and online storage and team management solutions.
- Register any top level domain
- Up to 100 subdomains per domain
- Up to 100 email aliases to that can point your business emails (hello@yourstore.com) to your preferred or existing emails (like you@gmail.com).
- Very minimal and professional, easy-to-use interface.
- Privacy protection free of cost.
- Has a huge list of domain extensions to choose from.
- Costly as compared to other domain registrars.
- Doesn’t offer hosting facilities without which a domain is simply a name. If you want a hosting, you probably have to buy it from other providers.
- Doesn’t offer country specific domains with privacy protection.
Namecheap is another industry standard for domain name registrations and is a better alternative to Godaddy.
Namecheap also offers hosting and SSL solutions at affordable budget plans.
Namecheap has a great checkout interface without cluttering your path with upsells.
Domains from Namecheap come with free whois privacy.
- Cheaper domain plans
- Provides hosting and SSL at lower prices
- Superfast Customer care
- Privacy protection is free.
- Free email forwarding to your existing email.
- The interface is clean and user-friendly
- Very trusted name and easy domain management system
- Provides hosting and SSL that are as per customer reviews, better than Godaddy.
- Onboarding and customer service is seamlessly easy.
- Auto renewal of domains can be glitchy.
Like Godaddy and Namecheap, Name.com is also an ICANN accredited domain registrar which helps you to register, renew or transfer domains quickly.
They also provide hosting and other services like SSL and website builder and G suite integration.
- Domain registration is a breeze. They have clear options to look out for upcoming extensions and expiring domains that can help you in grabbing your preferred domains.
- Provides hosting, free SSL, and separate email services without needing you to create a website.
- The interface is clean and doesn’t clutter upsells Has almost every option to get online without needing to look anywhere else. Free whois privacy
- Hosting service is basic, and you could get a better hosting with free domain from services like Bluehost with half the price.
- Customer support average. Phone service isn’t available on weekends and no live chat which is unacceptable.
Namesilo is another popular domain registrar which is one of the cheapest and also the most transparent as far as pricing is concerned.
Namesilo offers cheaper domain registrations rates and doesn’t have renewal up charges which is a dealmaker when you are registering domains for long-term.
- No hidden fees: Namesilo is transparent in pricing and has no hidden charges, upsell pushes and minimum purchase amount for their customers.
- Easy integrations: Namecheap offers easy integrations of popular services like blogger.com, G suite which is great for non-techy customers.
- Professional domain flipping: In case you’re looking for domain trading and flipping Namesilo has a wide variety of domain investor tools which help you track and trade up to 1000s of domains at a time.
- FREE domain parking: Have premium domains? Namesilo allows you to showcase sellable domains with their own custom landing page without any extra cost.
- No renewal up charges which is great for long-term use.
- Domain trading facilities
- Lifetime free whois privacy.
- They accept Bitcoin payment if you’d like that.
- There is no hosting facility in case you’d want to host your domain/website.
Register.com is another domain registration firm that helps you register domains at cheap prices.
With Register.com you can buy domains with any extensions like .xyz, .guru amongst others.
They do have a hosting support for those of you who want to have hosting and domains at one hand.
Register.com does offer a responsible customer support via phone which is essential when you are doing an online business.
- Wide range of domains to choose Hosting support for website builders WordPress Site setup projects for cheaper prices.
- Domains are really cheap. You get the first year at only $0.99
- Switching of DNS is easy as I found in my research
- Wide variety of hosting solutions to choose from
- Great customer care
- Hosting does not match the quality of dedicated hosting providers like Bluehost (read below).
If you’re looking for a reputed domain register that has a good number of customer service, I guess 1and1 is the one you need.
1and1 has been around since 1988 with good customer reviews.
1and1 lets you get started with .com domains for as low as $0.99/year.
You surely have to pay more for renewal charges, but they align with other domain registrars listed here.
1and1 also offers wide variety of hosting including managed hosting.
- Unlimited hosting plus free domain for the first year at only $1/year.
- Good customer service with phone support.
- Email and e-commerce services for the less tech-savvy buyers.
- SSL integration for cheap prices.
- Very cheap to get started
- Been around for a long time with good customer reviews
- Hosting is free for the first year which is a USB for any registrar.
- I would again say, hosting from domain services are not worth it when compared to dedicated hosting providers
- 1and1 doesn’t have cPanel and works on a custom backend. This is great if you’re new to hosting, but if you have experience in hosting with cPanel, you’ll find it irritating.
FREE Domain Name from Bluehost
The complete website solution
If you’re looking to buy domain names chances are you want to setup a website and get online. This is where you need a hosting.
If you’re wondering what’s the difference...
A domain name is your website address which users will type to reach your website/blog.
But as you know a website contains text articles, images, multimedia files and all those things. Where do you store them?
That’s where you need a hosting.
Hosting acts as a space to locate your media files and website as a whole in one place. This is why you need a hosting after you buy a domain.
Most of the above domain name registrars have their own hosting services but to be honest, they are all basic and geared towards simple hobby websites or a 1-2 page business websites.
Hosting from domain registrars often have less bandwidth and are limited in resources.
It is always recommended that you buy hosting from reputed hosting providers who are solely in that business.
It is one of the cheapest yet industry standards when it comes to providing hosting.
In fact, they offer you a free domain name (for lifetime) if you get hosting from them which is an icing on the cake.
Why should you choose Bluehost?
Bluehost is a reputed web hosting company powering over 2 million websites and is used by top bloggers including me. (for my niche sites.)
They have great customer service, and the pricing is best for beginners.
Here are some quick reasons why you should buy domains + hosting from Bluehost:
-
Free domain name for life
-
Best hosting services
-
In-budget pricing
-
1-click WordPress install
-
Good customer support
Wrapping up:
To sum up the list of top best domain registrars for domain purchase, I’ve listed the ones that are the best as per my research and personal experience.
If you’re buying a domain for the first time, I suggest going with
Godaddy or
Namesilo since they have the best interface and onboarding experience plus are budget friendly.
However, if you want to set up a website and
start blogging you should choose
Bluehost which means you get a free domain name with your hosting account.
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