Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Padawan
When your domain name comes up for renewal do you have to do it through your existing agent or can you shop around for the best deal at the time?
|
You can pretty much shop around for the best deal you like, in theory - bascially all you need to do is sign up with another registrar, and then transfer your name across from one to the other - usually when you transfer you'll then be asked to pay for another years registration (or however many years you want).
However, like I say, this is 'in theory' - the problem is that some registrars use various dirty tricks to stop you doing that - i.e. some of them will charge you a fee to transfer your name (you usually find this is the case in some (not all) of the really cheap offers) - so in effect you end up paying for the same amount as it would cost to register it for another year, if not more, with your old company, , you then have to pay again with your new company to register it with them.
Some of them will make it so difficult for you to transfer a domain name from one company to another - that it ends up taking a lot more time than you had originally planned - so you'll often find that you end up having to pay another years fee with your current one, because they've dragged their feet for so long, your name is about to expire - once you've done that magically your transfer request gets approved - and you're then free to pay for another years registration with another agent.
This happened to me recently, I had a domain name with namecheap, that was coming up for renewal, and I wanted to transfer it to my own company, it took nearly a month for it be approved, and in the end I had to pay for another years registration to 'reactive' my domain name with namecheap, because it had taken so long that my name had gone past the renewal date.
Does that all make sense?