Survey: Price, Security Most Important When Choosing Domain Registrar
Monday, February 8th, 2010
A look at selling points for domain name registrars.
Price and security are the most important characteristics customers consider when choosing a domain name registrar, according to a survey of over 500 people in the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey.
171 respondents selected the security of their domain names at the registrar as the most important factor, while 153 said price was the primary concern. However, when the weighted average of all factors shows that price is the top concern.
The third most important factor was customer service, with account management tools coming in at number four. The ease of transferring domain names between accounts, which is important when selling domain names, ranked fifth.
Of relative little importance is what the domain name registrar does with its domain names when they expire. Some registrars auction off expired domain names, others keep the domains themselves, while still others have a hybrid model. The availability of value added services such as web hosting and domain privacy were also of relatively little importance. However, these value added services are where registrars make most of their profits.
Weighted results:
1. Price
2. Security
3. Customer service
4. Account management tools
5. Domain push/transfer
6. Expired domain handling
7. Value added services
When you consider the opinion of only owners of 1,000 or more domain names, security is clearly the most important factor, with 52% of people selecting security as most important. Account management tools also weigh more heavily for registrants with more than 1,000 domain names to manage.
See more survey results at DomainNameWire.com/survey.
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Great Job Andrew
I can also say Price goes hand in hand with security. We have witnessed, in the past, the collapse of RegisterFly.com who offered domain names for less than $7.00 and ended in insolvency. ICANN should require all major registrars to submit a proof of their financial stability. Can you imaagine the mayhem on the Internet if one of the top five registrars went out of business? There is no time for another Lehman Brothers or AIG.
Quote -
“ICANN should require all major registrars to submit a proof of their financial stability.”
#1. All registrar applicants show financial capability when they apply for a new registrar (or ownership change).
#2. Icann has gotten tough regarding Icann payments. If a registrar has financial problems, it will show quickly because of the quarterly Icann payments. Plus, I assume Verisign informs Icann when a registrar is a slow pay with the Verisign monthly bill.
#3. Icann has no interest or capability to monitor and micro-manage the daily internal operations of a 1,000 registrars.
#4. All registrars have to go through a renewal process every 5(?) years. And, Icann have canceled some registrars during the renewal process.
#5. The majority of the registrars make most of their revenue from other operations than selling/renewing domains.
Most registrars make very little from new/renewed domains.
Registrars main source of PROFIT.
Godaddy – TDNAM – Hosting – SSL
Enom – Namejet – DemandMedia
Fab. – ppc
Moniker – Snapnames – DomainSponsor
Netsol – Namejet – hosting
Name – ppc – selling domains
Reseller – ppc
Namescout – catching/re-auctioning domains
DirectNIC – ppc/Parked
Tucows – Namejet – ppc – other operations
Dotster – selling expired domains
Nameview – Hitfarm
The above registrars probably contain/manage/control 95% of all domains.