The advert says
2.95 UKPounds a year for ".co.uk" or ".me.uk"
8.89 UKPounds a year for ".com" and ".net"
Seems extremely cheap.
What's the catch?
That's what the registrars charge to register the domain names.
And that $1.99 is breathtaking. Again, what's the catch?
See below.
Are they genuine & proper registrations?
http://www.webdingers.com. Been up and usable for a while (a few
years). I guess it's "genuine & proper".
Do they jack the price up after a year?
For new users, they change hosting price all the time. I still pay
what I've been paying all along.
Are there some mandatory extras which are not so cheap?
Does the IP number - domain name go to all the root servers?
Huh? They host my site. I really don't care how many servers it's
spread over.
Do they work so slowly that you have to pay for speed?
Try my site. Download a large file from
<
http://www.webdingers.com/filelinks.html>
I've been with GoDaddy for years, so I can give you something more
than guesses and speculation.
They charge you about nothing (over the cost of the registrar's fee)
for domain registration. (No one has any control over that - everyone
but governments, who do their own registration, pays the registrar.)
Sometimes, as a loss-leader (to get you familiar with them) they'll
register a name for you for LESS than the registrar's fee (I guess
they eat the difference as an advertising cost).
The offer - but it's not mandatory (I know - I use only one of the
offered services and I've never even gotten an email offering me
others) - a whole list of services that you may want to make use of.
Just look around the site. Extra email addresses, your own server
(assuming that you use them as your host), more disk space, more usage
(GB/month-type usage), etc. In short, they offer just about as much
as anyone else does. But it's an offer, you still get what you pay
for if you don't use any of the offered services.
Getting a domain name buys you nothing but a yearly fee (from the
registrar) if you don't put it somewhere. GoDaddy has some very cheap
hosting plans. I'm still paying US$5.95/month for what would cost
about 5 times that much now. They never raised my price when they
raised prices for new users. I get the same space I contracted for
years ago, the same speed, the same up time, and the same
they-don't-make-me-feel-like-an-idiot-even-when-I-are-wun tech
support. (And I've been doing this stuff since before the internet
began, so I shouldn't need much help.)
Bottom line - and remember, I don't get a nickel for saying this, it's
just nice to have a service I almost never have to even think about -
is that I've been with them for a number of years, run a couple of
BBSs, a few database-based programs and my pages go up and down like
stock prices, and I'm still with them. If I had any complaints I
would have gone elsewhere.
