5 years ago, I registered a domain name through Network Solutions (NetSol). At the time it was paid for a 5 year term.

As I became aware of its impending expiration, I decided to price shop. I saw that NetSol was asking $34.99 a year (!) to renew it. That is almost 4x as much as my favorite registrar (godaddy) asks. They only charge $8.99 a year.

I decided to transfer the domain over to godaddy as they also include a year renewal of the name with any transfer. Not a bad deal.

Roadblock #1

Turns out that NetSol won't allow you to transfer a domain that is within a set period of time of expiring. This is even if its weeks away.

Now more determined to take the domain name to another registrar, I renewed it for the minimal time required and then initiated a domain name transfer.

Roadblock #2

In the process I had to request through NetSol to unlock the domain name. When you try to unlock it, it is not an automatic process. Instead you request the unlock and then they send you an email.

Sending an email warning you of an attempt to unlock a domain name is a great idea. Their execution of it leaves something to be desired. The email from NetSol informed me of the unlock request (which is great) but then issues a lot of warnings which come close to being scare tactics. But the real catch is that if you are intending to unlock it because you are going to transfer your domain name, they request you call them so that they can talk you out of it.

The insist a domain name "transfer specialist" will work with you to avoid transferring the domain name.

In other words they want to haggle with you now that you had already been forced to pay their hiked up reregistration fee in order to keep your business.

Roadblock #3

I contacted them and confirmed that (a) yes, I really do wish to unlock the domain and (b) I am all set with any special deals they want to offer me after the fact.

After all of this back and forth, I finally heard back from them today. The transfer had been "granted". This is almost 2 weeks after initiating the transfer.

Absolutely absurd.

I've transferred other domains within minutes of requesting it. Network Solutions puts multiple roadblocks in your path and then takes their sweet time once they know they lost your business.

The only consolation for me is that is my last dealings with them.

Registrar #2 - Registerfly.com

I see this domain registration service being recommended quite a bit, but I'll be honest. I haven't been too impressed with the interactions that I have seen involving them.

Registerfly certainly seems to make it easy and inexpensive to get a domain name. That's great and how it should be.

The problems that I have seen occur when you try to do anything with those domains after they are registered.

I assisted someone recently with getting a new Membergate membership website set up.

They needed to change their name server information with their domain name so that it was now pointed at the new site.

The changes were made through registerfly but after several days, they never took hold.

Repeated contacts with Registerfly revealed that they outsource some of their domain name registration services and were only acting as the middle man. They promised to correct the problem.

Within a day or two the name servers were finally changed.

They changed them to the wrong information. They pointed the site somewhere other than where it was supposed to, so back to square one.

After more back and forths, they finally straighted it out. It took about a week. That is about 6 and half days longer than it should have.

The more I have issues with other domain name registrars, the more I appreciate the service I get from GoDaddy.com

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