Okay, Let's Talk About DOMAIN NAMES

[cdnNick]

I could see winnipeg.ca being available 10 years ago. ottawa.ca was created: 2002-05-07. That would have been a nice score.

Makes you wonder how many City are available.

[teknoluv]

10ish.
Winnipeg is VERY behind on things.

I could see winnipeg.ca being available 10 years ago. ottawa.ca was created: 2002-05-07. That would have been a nice score.

Makes you wonder how many City are available.

LOL! Okay, winnipeg.ca was NOT available 10 years ago. And just because ottawa.ca was "created" in 2002 does NOT mean it was available before that either.

The TRUTH is, .CA domains were only "opened up" in late 2000/early 2001. Before that, individuals were NOT allowed to even register second level .CA domains (as in .on.ca), and municipal governments only used e.g. richmondhill.on.ca (and NOT richmondhill.ca).

PLEASE, this thread is created to share USEFUL information about domain names. Misinformation and anachronistic bragging are not exactly helpful.

[baz5]

Misinformation and anachronistic bragging are not exactly helpful.

Neither is trying to be the know it all. Usually bragging is when you HAVE something. Me not having the winnipeg domain, can't really be considered bragging. Also, me saying "10ish" is around 10 years, not 10 years to the day.

[rockthecasbah]

So since prices are increasing the 1st of October, I'm planning to get on my renewal of my domain and transfer it to a new registrar.

It's a .net so I'm wondering if Moniker is the cheapest for .net transfers? It's $6.04/year and that's cheaper than namescheap, but apparently, or at least in August, transfers of .nets were just $5! Anywhere else that still offers it at that price range? I mean $1 is no big deal but I may want to secure it for a couple more years....

[baz5]

I just use godaddy, they seem to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, I don't mind paying a couple bucks more.

[sockette1]

At $5 for registering/renewing your domain name, I'd say that's at darn good price and if you can 'lock' it in at that price for a few more years - I'd do that to! - Good price.

[teknoluv]

Neither is trying to be the know it all. Usually bragging is when you HAVE something. Me not having the winnipeg domain, can't really be considered bragging. Also, me saying "10ish" is around 10 years, not 10 years to the day.

Then allow me to spell it out clearer: there is simply NO WAY you could register winnipeg.ca EVER, be it 5, 10 or 15 years ago, and for $35, $50 or $100. In other word, you never had that chance EVEN when you bothered "to pay $35/year for it".

Like I said, before 2000, only federally incorporated entities were allowed to register second level .CA such as rfd.ca; provincially incorporated businesses were only allowed to register third level .CA (e.g. rfd.on.ca) while individuals or sole proprietors were bound to fourth level .CA (e.g. rfd.toronto.on.ca).

With the "opening up" in 2001, individuals are allowed to register second level .ca. HOWEVER, ALL city and town names have been reserved in advance; i.e. nobody can register them except those municipal governments. So winnipeg.ca was NEVER available for registration to the rest of us.

[teknoluv]

So since prices are increasing the 1st of October, I'm planning to get on my renewal of my domain and transfer it to a new registrar.

It's a .net so I'm wondering if Moniker is the cheapest for .net transfers? It's $6.04/year and that's cheaper than namescheap, but apparently, or at least in August, transfers of .nets were just $5! Anywhere else that still offers it at that price range? I mean $1 is no big deal but I may want to secure it for a couple more years....

With registry cost rising from US$3.85 to US$4.23 (for .NET), I doubt if any registrar could afford to offer $5 per name year, except perhaps for promo/loss leader. The profit margin is just too thin.

But anyway, I would never recommend going after PRICES for those with just a couple of domains. The negligible difference is simply not worth the hassle. And just a word of caution, Moniker may not be your everyman registrar; they have a tighter than usual "security" system that makes transfer (away) ... "difficult".

[cdnNick]

With registry cost rising from US$3.85 to US$4.23 (for .NET), I doubt if any registrar could afford to offer $5 per name year, except perhaps for promo/loss leader. The profit margin is just too thin.

I agree with that, I would put godaddy into the loss leader for the domain industry.

I use my enom reseller account for everything but .info and .ca, godaddy is cheaper with their coupons that are always floating around.

[rockthecasbah]

With registry cost rising from US$3.85 to US$4.23 (for .NET), I doubt if any registrar could afford to offer $5 per name year, except perhaps for promo/loss leader. The profit margin is just too thin.

But anyway, I would never recommend going after PRICES for those with just a couple of domains. The negligible difference is simply not worth the hassle. And just a word of caution, Moniker may not be your everyman registrar; they have a tighter than usual "security" system that makes transfer (away) ... "difficult".

Thanks for the head's up. I wasn't familiar with Moniker (just saw it mentioned on WHT) so I looked into it. Their site seems less user-friendly than other registrars I've used. I think I will just pay more and go with godaddy or namescheap then.

[ullyeus]

LOL! Okay, winnipeg.ca was NOT available 10 years ago. And just because ottawa.ca was "created" in 2002 does NOT mean it was available before that either.

The TRUTH is, .CA domains were only "opened up" in late 2000/early 2001. Before that, individuals were NOT allowed to even register second level .CA domains (as in .on.ca), and municipal governments only used e.g. richmondhill.on.ca (and NOT richmondhill.ca).

PLEASE, this thread is created to share USEFUL information about domain names. Misinformation and anachronistic bragging are not exactly helpful.

Neither is trying to be the know it all. Usually bragging is when you HAVE something. Me not having the winnipeg domain, can't really be considered bragging. Also, me saying "10ish" is around 10 years, not 10 years to the day.

Then allow me to spell it out clearer: there is simply NO WAY you could register winnipeg.ca EVER, be it 5, 10 or 15 years ago, and for $35, $50 or $100. In other word, you never had that chance EVEN when you bothered "to pay $35/year for it".

Like I said, before 2000, only federally incorporated entities were allowed to register second level .CA such as rfd.ca; provincially incorporated businesses were only allowed to register third level .CA (e.g. rfd.on.ca) while individuals or sole proprietors were bound to fourth level .CA (e.g. rfd.toronto.on.ca).

With the "opening up" in 2001, individuals are allowed to register second level .ca. HOWEVER, ALL city and town names have been reserved in advance; i.e. nobody can register them except those municipal governments. So winnipeg.ca was NEVER available for registration to the rest of us.

Nailed exactly what I was going to say, and according to that time baz5 was in his basement at 16 making 6 figures and getting free help from lawyers. fyi: I was offered winterpeg.ca recently

****

[the_joker]

Interesting. I didn't know about the increase in October ... not that I'm following much about domains.

BTW, I was able, some time ago, to snatch a couple of .CA celebrity names (amy-winehouse.ca, angelina-jolie.ca, avril-lavigne.ca, chris-brown.ca, jessica-alba.ca, kimkardashian.ca, lilwayne.ca, miley-cyrus.ca, tila-tequila.ca, vanessa-hudgens.ca). Do they have any value? Anyone interested?

[ali123]

Interesting. I didn't know about the increase in October ... not that I'm following much about domains.

BTW, I was able, some time ago, to snatch a couple of .CA celebrity names (amy-winehouse.ca, angelina-jolie.ca, avril-lavigne.ca, chris-brown.ca, jessica-alba.ca, kimkardashian.ca, lilwayne.ca, miley-cyrus.ca, tila-tequila.ca, vanessa-hudgens.ca). Do they have any value? Anyone interested?

You might have trademark issues, although I doubt they would care for a .ca domain

[rockthecasbah]

Well I just transfered my domain to internet.bs because 1) I had a giftcard that had $6.59 USD left on it and I wanted to just use it up, so I was a mere 0.30 cents short for namecheap and 2) it was $4.99 USD and 3) someone on WHT recommended it. There's not too much feedback on the web about the company and it does say that it makes transferring FROM internet.bs easy. Why not.

It's ridiculously cheap. If I feel iffy about it, I'll transfer my domain from there in 90 days.

[teknoluv]

Just a heads up for the folks on the street (who mostly own a couple of domains at the most): REGISTRY costs for most gTLD (incl. .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, but NOT .BIZ) will increase AGAIN starting October 1 (i.e. tomorrow).

REGISTRY announcements were made all the way back as early as March, but most REGISTRARS only made theirs days ago (in September). So if you want to know how much "markup" your registrars are making, here's the price list (in US$):

.COM - $6.86 (Oct 1)
.NET - $4.23 (Oct 1)
.ORG - $6.75 (Nov 9)
.INFO - $6.75 (Nov 1)
.BIZ - $6.42 (remains unchanged)

Yes, the increase is negligible in absolute terms unless you have hundreds of names (but then you should have known about this well in advance), but in the spirit of RFD, renew at least your .COM or .NET domains today and save a few cents per name year.