[Pocketdoor]

I'm trying to buy / register a domain name for a new business. I've been stumbling around the web and when I type in the www.address its says not secure and I see go daddy says its parked for free. They say its taken but want a brokerage fee to I guess "try" and get it. I know there are tons of Freepers on here with experience in this. So Im asking for a simple how to on getting my domain name for a future website. Thank you.

[Pocketdoor]

In 2004-05 I built 2 simple websites using Yahoo web builder. That was easy, and the last of my web building experience.

[texas booster]

Go to hover.com and buy there.

Very affordable and they will be honest on domain name.

I understand that GoDaddy often squats on names but have not had an issue with Hover.

[stars & stripes forever]

Step by step directions...

https://www.pcworld.com/article/477298/how-to-register-your-own-domain-name.html

[Drago]

I use “https://www.pair.com“...they have been good for me...good customer service. If the .com domain you want is taken, there are other extensions available.

[politicket]

There are certain best practices for choosing a domain name:

1. Use .com normally. You want people to easily find you
2. Keep the domain name as short as possible. Ideally 10 or less characters
3. Keep the name easy to spell. Do not get too creative with variations, or people won't find you
4. Don't pay high prices, unless it's a domain name you desperately need and it's available for sale.

[Angelino97]

I read that with some web registrars -- GoDaddy among them -- if you search for a domain and don't buy it, then come back later, you'll find that it's taken because the registrar bought it. Because if someone searches for it, their computer figures it must have value and so buys it.

Don't know how true this is.

[Angelino97]

If you can't find the .com, there's .org and .net and .biz -- and many others. A .com is nice, but not a must-have.

Sometimes you can buy what you want by varying it a bit, such as by adding a hyphen. If freerepublic.com is taken, you might be able to get free-republic.com or myfreerepublic.com

[palmer]

I've used namecheap for a while now after godaddy kept getting worse and worse. I've never seen namecheap grab a name and park it. But what you might want to do is use a neutral third party whois server to verify whether a name is taken. For example use https://lookup.icann.org/en/lookup to look up verystrangelongdomain.com and you'll get a not found. But look up freerepublic.com and see it was created in 1996. Likely hosted at Linode, although it could just be using Linode DNS

If you get tired of trying names that are already taken you can go to namecheap and do the search and it will suggest untaken alternatives and all kinds of alternatves to dot com. But your best bet is to be creative and try to figure out something that is easy to tell people over the phone (without having to spell it out) and not too long so they don't have to do a lot of typing.

When I look up notsofreerepublic.com I see it is not taken. It's a clumsy name but I can tell people the name on the phone as "not so free republic dot com all one word".

[time4good]

I’ve been using 1and1.com for years. Reasonable prices and packages. Now they are IONOS.com

[Pocketdoor]

More to the story... the business is open and had some conflicting business name in the same state online but 100’s miles away. A couple of lawyers talked to try and hash it out.. and want $$ but I dont think anyone actually checked on the www.domain name. I think its being place held by go daddy.
This is just a super small business. Both are super small.
Go daddy and hover say they can “broker” it.
I think I should just click the “broker it” button with go daddy and see where the chips land. BUT if the other business actually “does” own it, I dont want Go Daddy getting in the middle of it...

[Zack Attack]

If your name is a popular word, it will be more difficult. Don’t be afraid of trying an alternate tld should dotcom not be available.

https://iwantmyname.com/domains

[Chuckster]

I have been using Network Solutions. Domain names, web site hosting, email etc. Click the link and have your domain name in five minutes. I have been doing biz with them for decades. Very satisfied.

[LegendHasIt]

If someone owns the name you want, you are going to have to pay to get it. And if it is for sale with godaddy brokerage, you pretty much have to go through them, unless you can track down the actual owner and convince him (her, them) to de-list it with godaddy and deal with you direct.

However you can negotiate with the GD brokerage. A couple of months ago they were trying to buy one of my (idle, but really good) domain names. I got them to offer 4X their original offer, but it just wasn’t worth enough for the tax problems it would cause me.

I won’t do business with godaddy anyway... Used them for years for hosting several websites, but last year they broke all the contracts we had, so I quit using them.

I highly recommend http://enom.com/ for a registrar if you do end up getting any domain. Not only are they relatively inexpensive, they won’t hold your domain hostage like most hosts will if you register and host the domain with them.. I’ve used enom for 25 years without a hitch.

Good luck

[powerset]

Don’t worry that “when I type in the www.address it says not secure”. All that this means is that the current temporary hosting is not secure, not that the name itself is defective. The reason for this is that it costs a bit more to secure the hosting, and it’s not worth it when there is nothing of real value at that web address. (It’s sort of like a For Sale sign on a car — you don’t bother to insure the sign.)

[minnesota_bound]

Try BlueHost. I had zero issues with them. I had switched over from another company and had the email and website setup in an hour. Their chat support is very good.

bluehost - located in Florida. I see they handle 2,535,922 domains.
https://www.bluehost.com

I have my primary site and 2 Addon subdomain sites. This way I pay for 1 site when I renew. The other two sites people will see the other site names and not the primary name/ other name. It appears I have 3 domains but I pay for 1.
Domain Name Registration 1 year 29 March 2024 $19.99
Domain Privacy + Protection 1 year 29 March 2024 $15.00

How many subdomains can I have Bluehost?
https://www.bluehost.com/blog/domains-by-bluehost
Unlimited Domains
Host as many domains as you want from one Bluehost account, including primary domains, parked domains, add-on domains, and subdomains.Feb 1, 2019

What Is A Subdomain And How Does It Work? How To Create A Subdomain
https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/subdomains
_______________________________

Do a search separate from a registrar. Type in the name you want to see if others have it. Next go to say “bluehost” and register it.
https://whois.domaintools.com

I tried GoDaddy and as others have stated they try to get you to sign up for other features and make it confusing and I might add only really support Microsoft Outlook and not pop3 email accounts. I had my email go thru GoDaddy and it was very very slow. It would time out. I went thru several sessions of their support and found out they prefer Outlook so I suspected they deliberately mess with pop3 accounts.

[SPDSHDW]

I use namecheap.com and have for over 10 years.

10 bucks a year for a .US domain.
godaddy is expensive. insanely so.

.com will be more expensive, and more likely to be taken.

you can use www.abusinessname.us as opposed to abusinessname.com, as long as there is no copyrights on the domain. plenty of other Top levels domains to select from besides these two. I only know .US because it can be used for business as long as its domiciled in USA.

[SuperLuminal]

Lots of sources...
Just Google it...

[Gideon7]

I’ve been using directnic.com for my domains for over 20 years. Reliable, simple, cheap.

[Pocketdoor]

thanks for the help..... I went ahead and click the GoDaddy set up... and im at this stage in emails...

Welcome to the GoDaddy Domain Broker Service - my name is Justin Day and I’m here to help you successfully negotiate the domain name, **myname**.COM, at the best price.

The GoDaddy Domain Broker Service is a “white glove” service where we will do everything necessary from start to finish, so that at the end of this process, *myname*.COM may be acquired safely and securely in your GoDaddy account.

The way the service works is that we reach out to the current owner of the domain name with varying offer amounts, through multiple channels trying to compel them to enter into a negotiation over the 30-day term of the Domain Broker Service process. I am going to get started on your claim and will be back in touch as soon as I have any updates for you or if I need any additional information. In the meantime, my contact information is listed in my email signature, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

I feel like im getting screwed. :(

[fedupjohn]

I use Arvixe.com