Whats the consensus on using a seperate company for domains.

[RainMotorsports]

Ever since the company I had my domain with went out of business I have had my domains on 1&1. If your not familiar with them theyre a pretty horrible company. I however have never had an issue with them except a few years ago when I tried to cancel a package they renewed my contract anyways and tried to stick it to me.

I am looking to move to a dedicated server sometime this year but until then I was contemplating finding a good company/registrar to put my domains on and probably to leave them there.

Pointing the domain to a dedicated server is all fine and dandy but what about when I am still on a shared host or decide not to get a dedicated rack? My original domain was actually redirected to a shared free host but I feel like if it ever came back to that there probably are drawbacks?

I like the seamless nature I have now, but am looking to get out of 1&1 before they have the chance to screw me. Don't want to end up with a url redirect mess if I am not using a rack server with its own IP. Any help/info?

 

[DarkStarr]

eh I just use co.cc for all my sites. Unfortunately there's a limit of 2 for free but it does well for me, I just have it redirect to my site and that's it. Only downside is the address ends up like this: www.YOURADDRESS.co.cc instead of .com but not a huge deal.

 

[Rob Williams]

1&1 should be avoided at all costs. Total shit company. They managed to rip me off on an invoice once also, and I only had a single domain with them.

That said, I am not sure who to recommend. I go with Neosurge as I've been a long-time customer, but their focus is more on VPS, not domain sales. As long as the provider you are with lets you change nameserver information whenever you need to, you really shouldn't have any problems.

 

[RainMotorsports]

Neosurge looks alright and I might use their VPS plan as a temporary stop on my way to a dedicated rack but not so sure about them as a home for my domains.

Anyone wanna help me pick through a couple? Im pulling from the list of places the go daddy protestors were recommending. Dreamhost has the same prices as 1and1 seems like a good enough place. Namecheap has been around forever but then I read the nightmare stories about people losing their domains over ownership and cc info? Hover I ran into when seeing what Tucows was up to these days.

This actually brings me into something I am confused about. Youd think after all these years of messing with LAMP servers id know how DNS works... i dont. Not so worried about pointing the domain at a name server thats one thing. How does email actually work out with the domain? I had made a new account for the last domain I wanted to keep from 1and1 after the time they tried screwing me. Paid 8.99 a year for the domain and email which worked out fine. Eventually I needed something more so I threw a shared package onto it.

At this point I have email for all of my domains all under the same control panel. Real simple integration. I would think it to be better to actually keep my email off server using one of Hovers solutions that way I take the server down for whatever email isnt affected. Thoughts on that? Hover seems too expensive for what you get but theyre also run "by people I would trust on reputation". Yeah wanted to be careful with my words on that.

Private whois is a must have feature on a couple of my domains but other than those not an issue.

 

[RainMotorsports]

One final question would be regarding the whois contacts. Is it best to have the whois match the bank information rather than the current residence on my license.

 

[Rob Williams]

Dreamhost seems alright. I've been helping a friend who just got a site there and their admin panel seems to be rather robust in terms of features (in fact, it's almost a bit complicated compared to what I'm used to). At this point seeing what I've seen though, it looks like a good option.

Regarding e-mail, I admit I am not positive on what you are asking to do, but it sounds like you might need to edit the DNS information values in order to point the mail in the right direction (changing the CNAME entry).

Regarding WHOIS: I am almost positive that the information there is to be your home or business address, name and phone number. Essentially if someone tried to steal your domain, the authorities would rely on this information to get to the bottom of things, so if inaccurate information is there, you will be in for a rough experience.