As domain names are becoming something more and more people are buying since everyone wants to start a website or blog, NameCheap has been there to pick up a lot of domain business over the last couple years offering decent customer service, fair pricing, lots of coupons, and taken stands against SOPA.
NameCheap Review
Here is my NameCheap Review using NameCheap as a domain name registrar. Hopefully you will find this NameCheap Review useful if you are thinking of registering or transferring any domains to NameCheap.
Disclaimer: I have included affiliate links in this NameCheap Review. However nobody can “buy” my opinions on this blog and this review reflects my honest opinions about NameCheap and their service as a domain name registrar. If you find this review valuable I'd appreciate it if you considered using these affiliate links as keeping this blog up takes time, effort, and money.
User Interface
I have seen a lot of people on the large admin, webmaster, and hosting forums say they really like the NameCheap user interface and backend for managing domainnames. Honestly, I am not a big fan of the NameCheap user interface. I think the typeface is a little too small for my liking and it's not like I am an old person. (At least I hope not.) I am a guy in my 20's but font that is too small nobody likes. Isn't that web design 101? Usually what I deal with this by hitting [CTRL +] a few times to zoom in.
Additionally the user interface takes getting used too and it does not have the most intuitive layout in my opinion. If I haven't used the made nameserver changes or been in NameCheaps backend in awhile I tend to comeback and be a little lost on what is going on. I am used to it now though and don't think about it too much.
Fortunately NameCheap does have good Youtube tutorial videos in their support section showing how to manage and complete tasks in the backend. The videos have good documentation as well in their knowledgeable base and you can ask questions using Disqus. I think this is a smart idea and probably one of the reasons people confuse think NamCheap has a good user interface.
Buying Domains
Buying domains through NameCheap is pretty easy and fast. You can easily lookup and register a domain name and transferring into NameCheap is fairly straightforward. (If you know how to transfer domains from domain name registrars.) They don't go for too many upsells but you will see them.
The shopping cart is easily laid out and one nice feature is that you can “Save” a domain. This keeps the domain in your shopping cart but doesn't mean you are purchasing it right then. Later you can come back and move any domains in the “Saved” section into the shopping car to buy.
DNS Propagation
DNS propagation I have found for NameCheap usually takes around 30 minutes. Sometimes your nameservers can update faster and I have had it happen in about 5-7 minutes. However, I wouldn't necessarily bet that it will only take 5 minutes. The 30 minute timeframe is what I have found to be an average time for nameservers to propagate.
NameCheap does allow you to do Bulk DNS updates which is convenient if you are switching hosts or moving to a different domain parking company. Making bulk DNS updates is easy as you select the domains you want to update and click “Edit Selected” in the backend and put in your new nameservers.
Domain Pricing
NameCheap‘s pricing is quite confusing but I am going to try to break it down into simple and an easy-to-understand explanation.
COM – Domain Registration $10.69 (includes Free Whois privacy) – Domain Renewal $10.69 (does not include free privacy)
With Coupons – Registration/Renewal – $9.61 a year
NET/ORG – Domain Registration $11.48 (includes Free Whois privacy) – Domain Renewal $11.48 (does not include free privacy)
With Coupons – Domain Registration/Renewal – $10.16 a year
NameCheap releases monthly coupons every month which they encourage customers to use when buying, transferring, or renewing domain names. To keep updated with NameCheap's coupons you can check NameCheap Coupons which is a site run by NameCheap. They also have special registration and transfer deals which I take advantage of a lot. You can follow them on social media networks or checkout this epic Namepros thread for the latest domain deals. Obviously go to the last page to find the most recent NameCheap coupons.
FYI NameCheap charges your the 18 cents Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Numbers (ICANN) fee on COM and NET domains but any other top level domain, such as ORG, is excluded. Since most people own COM domains the ICANN fee is a bit annoying, Most registrars do not include it in their domain prices either though. The prices shown reflect the ICANN charge.
Whois Privacy – NameCheap's Whois Privacy is free only for the first year of domain registration or transfer. After that you will have to pay for NameCheap's Whois Guard subscriptions if you don't want your info to appear in the Whois database. Regular pricing for a Whois Guard subscription, what NameCheap Whois privacy service, is $2.88 a year but if you use the coupon code – WGSPECIAL – it will only cost you 99 cents a year. If you need to order multiple Whois Guard subscriptions for different domains you can use that coupon code to order multiple Whois Guard subscriptions at the same time.
While I, and probably others, would prefer if Whois privacy was available for free after the first year of registration I don't think 99 cents is too bad. A lot of domain registrars charge $10+ bucks for privacy which is as much as renewing a domain.
Bottom line, if you want straightforward pricing you should probably consider another domain registrar. If you think you have anything to add about NameCheap's pricing leave a comment below. Please realize I only included COM, NET, and ORG pricing as these are the most popular extensions. You can check NameCheap's pricing for other domain extensions here.
Support
NameCheap has online chat support that is available 24 hours 7 days a week. NameCheap also offers email support as well. NameCheap does not offer phone support.
Honestly for domain names I don't think you will need to contact support too much. The few times I have contacted NameCheap support they have been pretty helpful in resolving my question or issue. There was one time they really annoyed since I wasn't able to use some affiliate earnings I had to purchase a domain and the chat support representative didn't seem to understand what I wanted. Eventually it was worked out but it took a lot of explanation.
NameCheap MarketPlace
For anyone that that is a domain investor or “domainer” I am sure the like the fact that NameCheap has the NameCheap Marketplace. This is NameCheap's inter-registrar market for buying and selling domain names under $1,000 dollars. You can also buy premium domains over $1,000 from other places too.
The NameCheap Marketplace has been quite a useful feature for me. I've used it before and found that it was a easy to sell domains. All you do is pick a price, category, description, and length you want your domain to be available. If your domain is bought NameCheap handles the transfer into the other buyer's account and then they automatically put the money in your account. They take a 10% brokerage fee which is reasonable.
On the flipside if you can't find a good available domain name to buy and you are a NameCheap customer, I think you will find the NameCheap Marketplace useful. If you want to negotiate a price sometimes you can contact a seller directly. Just remember to do your research before you buy since you don't want to end up paying for a spam domain.
One issue I encountered is when I sold a domain name in the NameCheap Marketplace I didn't realize NameCheap's money policies. I sold the domain for $5 since it was near expiration and got $4.50 (this was a domain I was just trying to get rid of before it expired) but that was not enough to pay for a new domain registration. I noticed when checking out that I couldn't use these funds along with PayPal or another form of payment. I talked with NameCheap customer support and they said I need to add money in the account. The minimum you can add is $5 but I wanted to just $1.68 to add to the $4.50 since they were having $6 registration special. I just had to wait until I found another available domain I wanted then add that amount of money into the account before making anther purchase.
Just something to be aware of when collecting affiliate revenue or using the NameCheap Marketplace.
Conclusion
Overall I like the features NameCheap provides such as the Marketeplace, free URL forwarding, and chat support. They also offer a lot of advanced DNS management options which other domain registrars don't of charge for. I think they are a decent domain name registrar and will continue to use them.
I also like NameCheap due to their political initiatives. A lot of time their transfer specials will include donations to support groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), They were strongly against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which would have made it difficult for people to operate at all online and widely publicized their “Move Your Domain Day” to encourage people to transfer away from GoDaddy. This was not only good for business but brilliant marketing as it drew a lot of stories and attention. In addition they had Save the Elephants transfer day when it was revealed that GoDaddy CEO Bob Parson's went on safari to kill elephants. That's why some bloggers call GoDaddy “NoDaddy!”
However, I don't like the confusing pricing and the fact they don't offer free Whois is bothersome. Another thing to be aware of is that NameCheap has been an ICANN accredited registrar since 2006 but all domains you register are controlled under their Enom as NameCheap is an Enom Reseller. Considering they have over 3 million domains under management and have had ICANN accreditation for awhile I am surprised they are still using Enom's services. It seems like they would have started to migrate to their own platform. Hopefully in the future they will start using their own domain management system as I assume that will mean faster DNS propagation and better pricing for customers.
Also I wish NameCheap would update their backend to be more user friendly and have a cleaner look. I have been told they will be making changes in the near future though.
NameCheap does offer a lot of other services such as SSL certificates and web hosting, I could not answer questions about that in this NameCheap Review since I haven't used these services.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed by NameCheap Review and found it informative. If you have any question's about NameCheap please leave a comment below.