Recommendations

As an extremely satisfied customer, SoftwareDevelopment.CA recommends the following domain name service providers for their continued excellence, as demonstrated by their ability to lower fees and increase their service offerings:

• Netfirms.CA - register/renew/transfer your .CA domains for $9.95 CDN + GST (per year)
• MyDomain.COM - register/renew/transfer your .COM/.ORG/.NET/.BIZ/.INFO/.US domains for $8.50 US (per year); FREE domain management services (domain name parking, URL redirection, email forwarding, host names, IP pointing, MX records, CNAMES); no ads or banners; premium packages available for webmail and hosting services
• DynDNS.ORG - FREE dynamic and static DNS services; clients available for Windows, Linux, MacOS, BSD, UNIX, Java, and Amiga; premium packages available for advertisement-free URL redirection, managing your own domain, secondary name servers, mail forwarding, mail relaying (to a non-standard port), and backup mail servers

Last updated: October 20, 2005

Criteria

The following criteria were considered when selecting domain name service providers:

• Cost (including taxes and credit card surcharges) and the presence of exit fees (i.e., to discourage registrar transfers).
• Functionality, such as web-based management, auto-renewal, security (e.g., transfer lock), privacy (e.g., spam protection), and name server availability (i.e., uptime)
• Service, most notably request/response turnaround time, but also service notifications and frequency of unsolicited email from the provider

Choosing a Domain Name

There are three ways to choose a domain name:

1. You create a new domain name.
2. You buy an existing domain name.
3. You secure an expired domain name.

Creating a Domain Name. This is, by far, your best option. While many claim that a lot of domain names are already taken, there are also variations using non-dictionary words, word combinations, and choice of TLD (Top Level Domain). If your organization has a branding strategy, then you may already have a trademark protecting its use as a domain name.

Buying a Domain Name. From a financial standpoint, this practice is ill-advised because the market value of a domain name is difficult to assess, and following the ".dot bomb", many companies have significantly devalued (or written-off altogether) these acquisitions. And from an ethical perspective, SoftwareDevelopment.CA urges you to not support domain name squatters, especially those who either engage in outright trademark infringement, or reside in countries with weak intellectual property rights (and enforcement).

Expired Domain Names. Every day, hundreds (if not thousands) of domain names become available, where the owner/registrant has opted to not renew. And like circling vultures, there exist service providers which offer a pre-registration service on soon-to-expire domain names. Here are two reasons to avoid these domain names:

• Failed businesses. Even after a business ceases, its associated web-site content may continue to linger on the 'Net, residing in innumerable search engine caches (such as Google and the Internet Archive Wayback Machine).
• Trademark infringement. Consult ICANN.ORG (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names) or CIRA.CA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) for domain name dispute policies, and the trademark databases at the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) and CIPO (Canadian Intellectual Property Office).