Some of the problems I have encountered may appear trivial to some readers. You can say that I am concerned about items that take only a few additional minutes to fix when I encounter problems and this is true if you are working with only a single domain. However, if you multiply this time by 12, 25 or a few hundred or more domains, you will end up with many hours of work to make simple changes like an email address.

Wasting YOUR time to make these simple changes is crazy when many of these problems are due to the registrar's flawed on-line software. If their software was created better and made more efficient, it could take mere minutes to make changes to hundreds of domains!

While saving a few dollars a year for your registration can be quite compelling, these savings can easily become lost if you are paying someone to make changes to your domains.

If you are a registrar or domain reseller reading this series of articles, please go to your own website and verify my results yourself! If your site had problems, you might want to experience firsthand the frustration that your customers encountered each time they attempt to make simple changes to their domain registrations. Any registrar that didn't have functional software running on their sites when I surveyed them for this article, needs to immediately concentrate on getting functional code running on their sites.

While I had hoped that all registrars tested their software on their sites, from the ERRORS I have encountered at several of them, I truly doubt that this testing was that extensive. It seems that some registrars are concentrating only on glitz (with a pretty site) or on how easy software development can be for their own staff. Too few registrars are providing any increased ease of use for the domain registrant consumer. Because I uncovered many ease of use problems, it is my opinion that many registrar developers have not placed themselves in the user's shoes.

Registrars truly need to realize that unlike consumer or commercial software products, that once purchased require a complete repurchase of a competitive program to change, domains need to be refreshed yearly, so domain owners can easily change to a better user interface by simply transferring registrars.

It is my hope that all registrars will attempt to make the domain registration experience as efficient as possible for the domain buyer.

Wooho / RGNames

Copyright © 2004 Rick Smith All rights reserved.