I experience fewer headaches at SnapNames than I used to, but it’s still not as easy as winning expired domains at other services.
I’ve bought a lot more domain names on SnapNames over the past six months after taking a long break. I took a break because of the “pain and suffering” you experience when you win a domain name there.
When you win a domain on GoDaddy Auctions, it goes into your GoDaddy account. When you win at DropCatch, it goes into your NameBright account. But when you win a SnapNames, who knows where it will end up?
For a while, even when the domain would be placed into a Network Solutions account, SnapNames created new Network Solutions accounts for me. It seemed to randomly insert the wins into one of four or five accounts. So, I had all these accounts and would have to log into them to find the domains.
I’m not sure what changed, but now all of my Network Solutions wins go into a single account, which saves me a lot of headaches.
To be sure, there are still many issues. I was reminded of this when I won a domain name at SnapNames this week that was at Crazy Domains. Crazy Domains is part of the same company as SnapNames, but I’ve never had a domain there.
I got errors when changing the domain’s nameservers to Afternic. I connected with chat support, and they said it appeared to be an invalid nameserver. I told them that wasn’t the case, and they escalated the issue to their domains team. Later that day, I received an email saying the problem had been resolved and that the domain was now pointing to the Afternic nameservers.
Except, it doesn’t. It still points to the old nameservers; now, the previous owner’s site is resolving!
Getting your wins at random registrars is painful, and I try to avoid any domains not at Network Solutions or Register.com when I can.
Granted, even when a domain is inserted in your Network Solutions or Register.com account, there is some pain and suffering:
- You get an email verification for every domain you register, and you have to click this for your domain to be active in the DNS
- These registrars don’t let you add the Afternic ownership verification nameserver
- It’s a tedious process to transfer out
I’ll finish this rant with a couple of nice things about SnapNames.
First, it’s nice that all of my Network Solutions wins land in one account.
Second, you can instantly opt into the Afternic network. Even GoDaddy requires you to wait 60 days.
(By the way, if you’re using NameJet instead of SnapNames, you’re wasting money. SnapNames doesn’t charge credit card fees. Update: NameJet recently stopped charging credit card fees.)
Bruce J Tedeschi says
Can I sell on snap names even if I have them at another registrar?
Andrew Allemann says
You used to be able to, but it’s been a long time since I’ve tried to sell there.
For what it’s worth, when I bid on domains, I only bid on ones without reserves, too.
Bruce J Tedeschi says
I’m selling about 400 names. Been in it since 1998 and I’m burnt out on it. Thought snap names may give me an edge to liquidate some.
Andrew Allemann says
sav.com lets you auction domains that are registered elsewhere. They have to start at $1 with no reserve, though
Some dude says
Bruce I am burned out by being clean shaven and I want a sexy beard like you my friend. No homo but your beard is boss bro
Bruce Tedeschi says
Thanks some dude… that fifty years of having a beard and never shaving it off.
mario says
netsol keeps giving bad auth codes, and support has no answers either, sucks
MikeUK says
I recall Network Solutions well. They are absolute nightmare and close to being shysters. In end I had to make complaint to ICANN to force them to eventually give me auth code. Complete and utter A holes.
Andrew Allemann says
One more thing I forgot to mention about the pain and suffering of using SnapNames that I was reminded of this morning after receiving 5 spam calls: NetSol doesn’t use Whois privacy, so people harvest this data.