Lessons on Domain Names
Well, to be honest, it may be more correct to say, lessons on false economy perhaps.
You see, for our current web projects we needed a few domain names. I have always purchased domain names through Godaddy, but lately I've been less impressed with them. Their support is very basic and they have made some programming glitches and didn't seem to want to be told about them. Anyway, 'nuff said, hey? My aim here isn't to bucket Godaddy. Indeed, I have come to appreciate them more.
On a forum I visit occasionally I read a post that recommended Aplus.net for domain names at reduced prices. So, as I just happened to be looking for some, I went there and purchased 5 domain names. Four were dot com and one was dot info. The info domain only cost 99 cents and the com domains were only $4.95 or $5.95 each (I actually can't remember exactly and I can't easily access my account from here to look it up, but they were cheap).
That's all well and good I suppose, but as I didn't want to use Aplus.net for hosting I parked the domains with them for free. My problem has arisn in trying to redelegate the domains to new name servers and to stop the free parking. I enetered my account and used the form to achieve the change. After entering the new details I clicked on 'save' and after a moment or two received a message saying I had been successful. On checking my account details, sure enough, the records showed the updated name servers. Fine, I thought.
Days later, even though the details look to be correct, they aren't. Nothing has changed. My domains still resolve to the free parking servers.
I searched the massive Aplus.net support knowledgebase but couln't find what I needed. (Just as an aside, there has to be a point when those so-called knowledgebases get just too darned overgrown to be useful, especially packed onto a page with small print and little white space. Grrrr..) Then I sent an email. Nothing. Then I used the onlne live chat. Yes, that worked and a friendly enough support person got to the bottom of the problem, but couldn't actually fix it - he had to log a job for the system administrator. However, I was assured I could forget about this now because it would soon be fixed.
Eventually, and we're talking 12 to 14 and up to 24 hours or so between each of these "support" interactions, I received a reply to my email. Yes, they knew what the problem was and would get the system administrator to fix it and he would get back to me as soon as it was fixed. Now I thought we had already covered this ground, but whatever, let's just get it done.
Guess what. That was 24 hours ago. My domains still point to the free parking pages. There is no way I can do anything about this, I just have to wait it out. I haven't heard another peep out of the email support guy, so presumably he still hasn't raised the problem with the system administrator. My gosh that system administrator is either very busy or very lazy! ... enough already.
So, I have learned that saving a few dollars on the domain name purchases was definitely not a good deal. The technical performance and support from Aplus.net is truely appalling. As soon as the compulsory 60 days from registration date passes I will embark on the challenge of moving all those domains away from Aplus to a real registrar.
So, when it comes to sorting out domains there's a lesson here. There is also a message about hosting companies of course, and it's pretty clear. Avoid Aplus.net - they have oodles of 'support' for a reason. Unfortunately, they haven't proven particularly effective.
You see, for our current web projects we needed a few domain names. I have always purchased domain names through Godaddy, but lately I've been less impressed with them. Their support is very basic and they have made some programming glitches and didn't seem to want to be told about them. Anyway, 'nuff said, hey? My aim here isn't to bucket Godaddy. Indeed, I have come to appreciate them more.
On a forum I visit occasionally I read a post that recommended Aplus.net for domain names at reduced prices. So, as I just happened to be looking for some, I went there and purchased 5 domain names. Four were dot com and one was dot info. The info domain only cost 99 cents and the com domains were only $4.95 or $5.95 each (I actually can't remember exactly and I can't easily access my account from here to look it up, but they were cheap).
That's all well and good I suppose, but as I didn't want to use Aplus.net for hosting I parked the domains with them for free. My problem has arisn in trying to redelegate the domains to new name servers and to stop the free parking. I enetered my account and used the form to achieve the change. After entering the new details I clicked on 'save' and after a moment or two received a message saying I had been successful. On checking my account details, sure enough, the records showed the updated name servers. Fine, I thought.
Days later, even though the details look to be correct, they aren't. Nothing has changed. My domains still resolve to the free parking servers.
I searched the massive Aplus.net support knowledgebase but couln't find what I needed. (Just as an aside, there has to be a point when those so-called knowledgebases get just too darned overgrown to be useful, especially packed onto a page with small print and little white space. Grrrr..) Then I sent an email. Nothing. Then I used the onlne live chat. Yes, that worked and a friendly enough support person got to the bottom of the problem, but couldn't actually fix it - he had to log a job for the system administrator. However, I was assured I could forget about this now because it would soon be fixed.
Eventually, and we're talking 12 to 14 and up to 24 hours or so between each of these "support" interactions, I received a reply to my email. Yes, they knew what the problem was and would get the system administrator to fix it and he would get back to me as soon as it was fixed. Now I thought we had already covered this ground, but whatever, let's just get it done.
Guess what. That was 24 hours ago. My domains still point to the free parking pages. There is no way I can do anything about this, I just have to wait it out. I haven't heard another peep out of the email support guy, so presumably he still hasn't raised the problem with the system administrator. My gosh that system administrator is either very busy or very lazy! ... enough already.
So, I have learned that saving a few dollars on the domain name purchases was definitely not a good deal. The technical performance and support from Aplus.net is truely appalling. As soon as the compulsory 60 days from registration date passes I will embark on the challenge of moving all those domains away from Aplus to a real registrar.
So, when it comes to sorting out domains there's a lesson here. There is also a message about hosting companies of course, and it's pretty clear. Avoid Aplus.net - they have oodles of 'support' for a reason. Unfortunately, they haven't proven particularly effective.
posted by Dr Peter Tylee at
11:49 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home