Domain Name Registration Question - Own or Rent???

[Ducati]

I've heard that some of the discount places don't actually let you own it, but they rent it out to you when you register a domain name through them...so in the end, when you want to transfer your domain to another host, you have to pay a hefty fee. Is this true????

Is Namecheap.com and Cyberwings.com like this???? I would like to have my name registered and hosted at cyberwings cause their hosting rates are extremely low.

 

[Daniel]

The terminology is a bit off, first off for domain names wherever you get them you always are renting them. You only own them for a time period, and if you don't renew them, aka pay the rent again, you lose them. Even if microsoft decided not to renew and pay for microsoft.com again it would hit the public market, granted there would be helter skelter with trademarks andwhatnot but still its only renting.

As for "discount places" like you said, they generally work the same way, many times though they are just a reseller for someone else, cyberwings for example isn't a real registrar, they just resell for a real registrar.

I've used quite a few, found godaddy.com to be quick and cheap, if you get the name server info from your host you can just do the registration yourself.

hope that helps clear it up some.
Daniel

 

[wjsulliv]

daniel is correct, no owning, just renting.

Godaddy was really easy.

How complex might it be for me to change to a different registrar when my time at godaddy is up?

 

[Daniel]

It shouldn't be very complex, I've changed a few domains from different registrars. Why do you want to switch from godaddy?

 

[fr]

Namezero is a place that would own the domain, but just let you use it until you really really want it.

 

[wjsulliv]

I don't really want to switch. I still have 2+ years left. I just wanted to know how complicated that might be.