Price, Security are Main Selection Criteria for Domain Name Registrars

Austin, Texas – February 7, 2006 – A survey of domain name owners shows that domain name registrars must have low prices and strong security features to attract customers.

The 2006 Domain Name Wire Survey, to be published in its entirety later this month by www.DomainNameWire.com, asked domain name owners to rate the importance of five factors when selecting a domain name registrar. A registrar is a company that allows individuals to register a domain name. According to the survey results, the ranked importance of these five factors is:

1. Price
2. Security
3. Account management tools
4. Ease of transferring/pushing domains to other accounts
5. Value-added services (e.g. webhosting)

Domain registration fees have plummeted in recent years. Low-cost domain registrars such as industry leader GoDaddy have pushed domain name registration prices to under $10 per year. Some domain registrars are offering domain registration services below cost in order to cross sell other services such as web hosting.

Security refers to avoiding “domain name theft”, whereby ownership of a domain is transferred away from the rightful owner without permission. Domain theft is increasing as the value of domain names soars.

“Domain theft is rampant,” said Domain Name Wire editor Andrew Allemann. “Major domain name investors understand the importance of choosing a registrar with advanced security features.”

According to Allemann, registrars have recently implemented so-called domain locking features to prevent unauthorized transfers. But there are no standards for how these features are implemented.

A number of domain name owners blame a change in the transfer policy by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for an increase in fraudulent domain transfer requests. Among survey participants owning 1,000 or more domains 64% said they prefer the old transfer policy, whereby positive response was required to transfer a domain, to the new policy, whereby transfers automatically proceed unless cancelled by the domain owner.

The 2006 Domain Name Wire survey asked over 500 domain name owners, investors, and service providers in 81 countries their opinion on a number of issues facing the industry. The domain name industry has recently been pushed into the spotlight after articles in The Wall Street Journal and Business 2.0 highlighted the growing value of domains.

The complete survey will be released later this month, but preliminary results are available at http://www.domainnamewire.com/survey.

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