Change is a Comin’

by Lesley Posted on January 22, 2010

We’re excited to announce that on Tuesday, February 9th our sister companies DomainSite.com and Name.net will have a brand new look! We will be upgrading the entire environment of these two sites to match Name.com.

What does this mean for Name.com customers? Well…not much. ;)

But for customers on DomainSite.com and Name.net, this means significant upgrades to the domain management tools and options, as well as a slew of other features to help improve the overall experience. The really exciting thing is this is just the first step in a series of upgrades, so there are more cool things to come!

We realize that big changes mean a lot of questions — we encourage you to post any questions, concerns, or feedback in the comments and we will do our best to help you through this transition.

This entry was posted in Development, Domains, Name. Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://twitter.com/tricolorro Patrick

    Okay. My Q is: Why 3 sites?

    • Keith_D

      Do they really need to answer that question?

      Why not three sites?

      This is the internet we are on and you know what they say about all eggs and one basket Patrick?!?!

  • anonymmmmous

    Yeah… why 3 sites?!?!

  • http://pithagora.wordpress.com fjpoblam

    As a domainsite user (I have 6 domains there for myself and clients) I very much appreciate the granular DNS control domainsite offers. I truly hope not to lose this with the switch to name.com's control panel (whatever that may be). …Just my 2¢

    • owenborseth

      The DNS control at name.com will be identical to domainsite. Also, if you do end up finding something at domainsite that you did like that is missing at name.com (not likely) let us know.

  • http://dan.cx/ Daniel15

    Haha, finally xD

    I've been transferring all my domains from DomainSite to Name because of its nicer interface (the DomainSite one is really slow at times, too), and Name.com is often slightly cheaper. DomainSite used to be cheaper ($6.99 for a .com registration), but they raised the prices a while back and now they're about the sane as Name.com. However, Name.com often has coupon codes to make the domains cheaper. I've still got about 10 domains at DomainSite though.

    Re: why they have three sites. As far as I'm aware, the company originally owned just DomainSite.com, and acquired the Name.com and Name.net domains later. I guess they only really marketed Name.com. When I asked about it a while ago, they said:
    “Name and Domainsite are still sister companies. You're right – Domainsite is kind of the ugly stepsister. We have focused our attention on Name.com in many aspects, from branding and marketing through to development. It's hard to maintain multiple brands in such a crowded marketplace. So while we maintain Domainsite with good service we aren't currently putting effort into branding or marketing.”
    (source: http://getsatisfaction.com/namecom/topics/name_… )

  • http://www.geeked.info edrabbit

    Maybe I'm in the minority, but I really like the super streamlined interface of Domainsite.com. Hopefully this won't be too lost in the switch to a new look.

    p.s. Make an iphone app for registering domains when I'm away from a computer!

  • fuck off

    fuck off spammer. I am not a customer of yours so stop sending your shit to me.

    • namedotcom

      Hi, we are very sorry about that. You had a past relationship with us, so your email was still in our system. This email was CAN-SPAM compliant and you can unsubscribe at the bottom of the email. You can also contact me at lesley[at]name.com with your account name and we will close your account. Sorry for any inconvenience.

  • Keith_D

    Interesting move

    Will we be able to just login as usual without having to ask for a new password (for us that don't write it down just in case).

    Also any chance of an affiliate program at any point? Or is there one I don't know about?

    MrFlicks (HostTed.net)

    • namedotcom

      Hi Keith,

      Are you talking about the browser auto-completing your password?

      Your username and password won't change at all, but if you use auto-complete it is totally browser dependent on whether or not it will function after the switch. You should be able to retrieve saved passwords in your browser if it turns out it doesn't work for you. We also have a simple lost password tool that you can use if this happens.

  • David

    One long time problem I'd love to see solved is the ability to actually register names…lol. I have domains scattered over other registrars simply because domainsite reports an error, or that the domains are already (incorrectly) taken, or just fails to complete the registration. I know you're aware of this because of the emails we've traded, but since other registrars manage to not have this problem for the countries they list, it would be really great if domainsite also were able to solve this.

    Other than this, I've been with domainsite for a few years, have over 100 domains there, and like the simplicity and speed of the site.

  • diptanshu

    :-)

    I was planning to submit a new design for domain.com. I've registered on name.com too but don't use it. I basically like the 'simplistic' format of domainsite. Anyway, it's all good.

    Best wishes to us all :)

  • arobd

    Thanks, Greats!
    Do you have any plan to support DNS for the domains those are NOT registered with doaminsite.com or name.com
    For example, I am from Bangladesh. The registrar of .bd does not support DNS. I have some .bd domains, need to host DNS only.
    NameCheap.com supports DNS for external registrar. Got my point?

    • owenborseth

      This is something we have talked about doing in the past. Maybe this will pop it back up on our radar. I'll mention it in our next dev meeting.

  • aspirex

    I have a DomainSite account. If someone buys a domain I own and wants to mange the domain in his Name.com account, are there additional charges to transfer the domain from DomainSite to Name.com?

    • http://dan.cx/ Daniel15

      It'd be classified as a normal domain transfer, as while DomainSite and Name are owned by the same company, they're considered separate registrars, so transfers between them are considered the same as transfers from any other company.

    • owenborseth

      If you transfer the domain into the Name.com customer's account that domain will be manageable by that user. You may notice a new “registrar” field when you click on a domain at Name.com, this indicates which registrar the domain is at. It can be at Name.com, DomainSite, or Name.net and be manageable through either of the three sites.

      If you want to actually transfer the domain from one registrar to the other (registrar transfer), that would incur a fee due to registry transfer fees that we are responsible for.

    • namedotcom

      Hi aspirex,

      You will have the ability to do an account transfer of a domain from a Domainsite account to a Name.com account (and vice versa) at no charge. However, the domain would not be renewed as it would with a payed transfer between registrars.

  • anonymous

    What attracted me to domainsite.com in the first place was the uncluttered easy to use interface. Unlike godaddy.com where I've had to jump through a cluster f**k of screens, offers and BS just to renew a domain. Domainsite.com has been my favorite and only registrar for a long time and I hope to keep it that way. Thanks!

    • owenborseth

      Name.com is fairly clean but as of late the homepage, in my opinion, has been getting more and more cluttered. We have plans to fix that.

  • John

    I have been a domainsite.com customer for several years, and I also have a name.com account. I prefer the domainsite.com interface and prefer to register domains there. It's not as sleek as name.com but I still prefer it. I think this is a mistake to upgrade domainsite.

    • owenborseth

      I see your point. The problem is that it is becoming impossible to maintain two code bases and the DomainSite code base has been stagnant for quite some time now. If there were particular things you liked at DomainSite that Name.com does not have, please let us know.

  • kria

    I've had a few domains at domainsite since forever. I quite like the current interface, but as long as the functionality is kept I suppose a face lift is in order.
    My biggest problem with domainsite is that you resolve all unknown hosts to a parking page. I know I can set my own wildcard to override but I don't want any wildcard.
    If you don't understand why, read the following:
    http://www.iab.org/documents/docs/2003-09-20-dn…

    Pleas stop hijacking my domains!

    • owenborseth

      This is how we pay for offering free DNS. We do offer the wildcards to get around the parking page. Wildcards work great for A records pointing to websites and actually help you get your own traffic when people mistype your sub domain (www vs wwww vs ww..).

      • Anshul

        I too have this problem. Parking domains is fine… Parking subdomains of existing domains is just bad form. Any way we can pay extra to not have our non-existing subdomains really not exist. Godaddy, enom and pretty much every other registrar does that. At least allow people to opt out of subdomain parking.

  • Warr

    does this mean that there are going to be price hikes?

  • http://boicu.org/ Stefan

    It`s great … I`ll have a great present for my birthday from you witch is on 9th of febr .. great work DS I really love your services

  • Dan

    I have accounts using the same email addy at both name.com and domainsite.com.
    Will this cause problems? Will the accounts be merged or give problems when doing a password recovery?

    • http://dan.cx/ Daniel15

      As far as I can tell, the two sites are staying separate, not being merged. They're only upgrading DomainSite's interface to match that of Name.com, nothing else. :)

    • namedotcom

      Hi Dan,

      That will not cause a problem, you will continue to have individual accounts at each registrar. Password recovery will function as expected for both accounts. You will also have the option to do an account transfer of your domains into one single account (at either registrar) so that you can manage your names without logging into multiple accounts/registrars.

      I hope that helps clear things up.

    • owenborseth

      They will be merged. If there are collisions where a username is in use between both sites and the accounts belong to different people / companies, the Name.com account will take precedence and the DomainSite account owner will be notified of a changed username. We will work with customers who's usernames are changed but there are very few of them.

  • http://www.techbusy.org/ abhi

    So you own Domainsite. It looks old site. Even the copyright year is way too old. Happy to see the change.

  • Norbert Bollow

    Well, I like the uncluttered, very readable interface of DomainSite.com

    The name.com main page (I haven't looked any deeper) gives me a rather uncomfortable impression; from my perspective, there's too much colorful stuff there screaming for my attention.

    In addition, some parts of the textual content of name.com are not readable for me (I'm using firefox on Ubuntu jaunty); I'll be happy to
    email a screenshot if you like.

    • namedotcom

      Hi Norbert,

      We appreciate your feedback and we agree that there is a lot going on on the Name.com main page. We have some improvements planned for that, so stay tuned. :)

      A screenshot of the unreadable text would be great, you can send it to lesley[at]name.com. Many thanks.

    • owenborseth

      We will be working on the cluttered home page very very soon.

  • David

    Very good value for money!

  • http://www.liewcf.com LiewCF

    Great! I was thinking to move from domainsite.com to name.com last week!
    I often has difficulty to load domainsite.com website.. long, slow loading time..

  • ED

    I use a Mac and I use Fetch to upload my files its really easy to just drag and drop my files to update without going through one file at a time . Will this upgrade effect me or the way I load my files…..ED

    • namedotcom

      Hi Ed,

      Are you referring to how you manage your files on your web hosting? If so, this change will not affect your web hosting at all.

  • Anshul

    I too have this problem. Parking domains is fine… Parking subdomains of existing domains is just bad form. Any way we can pay extra to not have our non-existing subdomains really not exist. Godaddy, enom and pretty much every other registrar does that. At least allow people to opt out of subdomain parking.