Re-designed web site is simple. Competitors should take note.
I had to make one of my infrequent visits to Register.com today to unlock a backordered domain for transfer. When I arrived at the home page I was greeted by a simple, yet bold home page:
In a business where many companies believe “more is better”, Register.com is going for simplicity. You can’t miss the domain search box as it’s not shoved in between 50 promotions. The phone number is right there above the fold. The background is white, like it should be.
I’m not sure when the new home page went live (sometime in the past three months), but it’s a welcome improvement. Sadly, once you login to your account you are faced with the old design.
Other registrars should take note. I’ve complained about GoDaddy’s home page before. It got better with a recent redesign, but I still think it’s trying to do too much. It has 4 clickable menu options and 7 drop down boxes across two top navigation bars. GoDaddy could easily cut out the links to GoDaddy.tv and BobParsons.tv to simplify the navigation. And GoDaddy’s home page is currently showing at least 10 clickable special offers on its home page. That’s enough to make anyone go dizzy.
Do you still have to call them to get the authorization code? That should be illegal if you ask me.
When I win a domain at register.com I immediately transfer out. You don’t have to wait the 60 days since it’s really just an account change.
Register.com and nsi both suck and should be ashamed of themselves. They have NEVER supported the domain industry in any way. If I am wrong, I would love to have someone post ONE GOOD THING about either registrar.
Whew, that felt great. Thanks for letting me vent.
The company who redesigned Register’s website was HUGE (www.hugeinc.com). They do amazing work. Very simple, user-focused and super clean.
Site does look good, at $35 a .com it should be something special. Maybe the site should be gold instead…hmmmm
Rob – yep. I had to log in to unlock it, and then pick up the phone and spend 5 minutes to get it unlocked. I felt bad for the sales guy, who had to convince me to stay.
Patrick – that’s why they don’t cater to domainers 🙂
Right. Shady business practice preying on the people who don’t even understand what an authorization code is.
Register.com’s job is to keep their customers stupid and dependent on them and too scared to transfer out.
Shameful.
as an ex employee it is appalling that they spent millions on this redesign and this is all they could produce.
Their business practices have always resorted to tricking or trapping the customer rather than providing a functional online experience (contact and DNS changes that actually work – simple stuff)
they prey on the uneducated small business owner who doesnt know better.
they have no technology of their own they are a pure sales and marketing company. Not one product that they sell (other than domains) is owned by them they are mere resellers.
it is a glorofied affiliate marketing web site.
Sounds like a good summary to me.
Sad but true.
Is/was Mark Cuban involved?
I like the new look but their prices are outrageous. $35 for a .com? How they manage to stay in business with those prices is beyond me.
I don’t know about Register.com, but NetSol did autorenew their Louisiana-based clients’ domain names during Katrina out of their own pocket. Does that count? 🙂
You guys are pathetic. Register.com has helped thousands of people come to a better understanding of the Internet. When you pay the $35 you get the support you need. If you don’t need it, go somewhere else. And they don’t stop you from going. As for calling in to get your auth code that’s simple. There are companies out there scamming people into believe they are just renewing their domain and Register.com prefers to educate the customer. As for “ex rcom’er, most likely someone who had to leave the company if you get my drift.
Register.com could be a little more painful—but not much more painful for the 10% of American men who have some form of colorblindness. Put three American white guys in a room and there is a 22% chance that one or more of us will find Register.com’s new website too painful to use.
Light blue (?) letters on a white background are hard to see, even for guys with only mild red-green colorblindness. Dark blue font on a light blue background is equally bad and displays a lack of QA and design proficiency for usability. Merely taking a screen shot and gray scaling it isn’t going to show how to make a site more usable.
The 2008 award winner for un-usability is of course the new BulkRegister website. With red (?) font on a black background the site is practically unusable.
In reply to a help-desk-request, BR said they considered usability for colorblind people to be a feature that they would consider at some point in the future.
Strange that for me their site has reverted back to the old site …could be they are having technical problems with the new site and had to roll things back??
Jason – that is odd. Old logo and everything.
Here’s a statement from Register.com:
Thank you for the great comments about our new website design. We’re really proud of our simple, clean new look and we think it really shows the focus of our brand which is all about helping small businesses be successful on the web.
Right now we’re in the testing phase for the new Register.com website. We’re being very diligent and have already implemented several usability fixes to make sure the new site performs well and there is no break in service for our customers. Once we complete this testing and tweaking – which that is part of any new website launch – we will open the site to full traffic.
Hi, I am a blog theme & layout designer. I visited new register.com site. It’s really fabulous and easy to navigate. Another such domain name registrar site is Best28.com which has recently re-designed its viewer-interface with bold fonts and easy language for novice blogger. I think Network Solutions, Godaddy should learn something from this. Even Aplus.net got much better.
hi, was trying to transfer my domain out of register.com. their $35/year is dear, and it’s annoying having to call them in order to get an Auth Code… and I’m not staying in US…
Rob said they took 5 minutes.. for the Auth Code, and the sales guy will try to convince u to stay… OMG, this is not good!!