$350 later: MediaTemple + Moniker + Marcaria

[PaxBritannia]

Recently, I set up all 9 domains and hosting, costing $350 in total. It was a team effort between MediaTemple (hosting), moniker (generic domains), and marcaria (country domains). Currently, everything gone really well, and there's nothing bad to day.

Moniker
I was planning to have most of my generic domains (.com, .net, .org, etc.) registered at Moniker due to their security external record (they have a few cases of lossing domains internally), and their ease of internal transfer. They are a bit costly, but I decided that it would be worth it.

As expected, the 8 generic domains at Moniker cleared immediately, and were already pointing to Media Temple within seconds. Their interface is a bit complex, but for any computer literate person, it should be extremely intuitive. It was easy to use, and searching for domains was a breeze. Total cost: around $54: 6 domains @ around $9 each a year.

Mediatemple
MediaTemple prefers if you have the domains pointing at them before you register. So I did this step next. The account creation page took around 10 seconds. After that, although the control panel pages were ready, the site still wasn't online. After a few more minutes (around 4), the site was live. I added all 7 other domains to the account easily. For their notorious grid service, they have a custom control panel, so I took some time to explore it. All in all, extremely easy too use, and the interface is extremely clean and 'Web 2.0'. The only downside is lack of Filemanager functionality (upload, download, and rename only), however FTP will fix this easily. What is commendable is the ease of adding subdomain, editing zone files, and ease of email user and spam management. Total cost: $200: $20 a month, pay 10 months a year - get 2 free. ($16.67/m)

Marcaria
Marcaria was a bit slower, but still fast. Their site is the least 'Web 2.0' looking of all of them. They have a large range of domains, and for the ones which require a local adress, provide a free representation service. The domains aren't especially cheap, but it get the job done. Their 100% positive reviews justify the purchase, but only time will tell if it was worth it. Due to domain registration requirements and the need to provide documentation, the domains haven't cleared yet, however, this is expected. Total cost: $130: 2 Domains @ around $65 each a year

I'll post more info later in the year regarding any reliability and service issues when it happens.

pax.

[Torniquet]

2 domains @ $65 each??

wtf? lol

[PaxBritannia]

They aren't your average ones. They're country code TLDs. I needed them for my clients, and you can't really argue with them.

Lets have some fun: try and find the cheapest registar for .pr, .tt, .ki, .nf, .com.et, and .na? Or you could just skip to .na get a quote for a year?

I checked the prices first before I registered. I justified paying a 20% premium because of their service quality record.

pax.

[Chris]

Some domains can be real expensive. .pr domains go for a good 1000 Euros. If there aren't that many registrants and the registrar needs to pay a good 50,000 Euros to have access to the registry + costs for the domain names they need to make money some how.

[Jackolantern]

-blink-

Wow...I always thought country-specific TLD were cheaper than .com. I guess the specific countries may levy some kind of fees to offer them? I dunno how that stuff works. Why are they so expensive?

[PaxBritannia]

They have to host their own DNS severs, pay for management, etc. They would want to reserve a ccTLD, for commercial reasons, but most just stay there.

Some are smart and choose one which has market value and commercialise it. .TV, .ME, .AT, .IN are all being commercialised and because they have actually done the infrastructure and automation of the signup processes, are cheaper.

Some rarely get registrations and so, haven't set up the infrastructure. The govt. tech dept. to manually do it. Because of this, some just forget about it entirely and outsource management and host the DNS in another country.

pax.

[Jackolantern]

Ahhh, that makes sense. I guess I just take TLDs for granted, like the service is a natural thing that just grows out of the ground lol.