Hi guys,

At the moment I've got 4x .com domains and 10x .co.uk domains, dotted around 1&1, UK2, 123-Reg along with various hosting packages at these. I'm consolidating all my hosting over to a VPS with Layershift and would like to get all the domains centralised somewhere (and not with Layershift...just in case).

A shortlist from the first page or two of Google seems to give these as the big players...

• 1&1
• UKReg
• 123-reg
• Daily
• Heart Internet

Price-wise 123-reg is the most expensive and Heart are the cheapest, but we're talking about £10 difference annually for my bunch of domains - not enough for it to be an major factor.

More important is a decent / reliable registrar with a sensible control panel really.

Any thoughts or recommendations? Am I over-thinking this? :emote_fre

I'd recommend Register1.net
The control panel could be much better, but it does the job, and I have way more personal domains than you do

I keep everything with enom who seam pretty decent myself

Enom are good but nor cheap for .uk (though I have only used them as a domain reseller, not as a normal end user)
Register1.net is who I would use in your situation.

Going on he OP's mentioning of COM, I would suggest eNom, register1.net use Tucows which you could also consider, in the UK you have Othello, but I do not know if they are using their accreditation yet, certainly doing a whois on their domain shows eNom, so might be worth poking Rob and asking.

HeartInternet also use eNom as well, both UKreg.com and 123reg use TuCows.

eNom to be fair is a pretty safe bet IMO, unless you specifically want a UK based registrar, you didnt mention if you want ICANN accredited registrar either?

I use Goscomb for our domains, never had a problem with them and I know they are a solid company who aren't going to disappear overnight!

GoDaddy and Namecheap?

Originally Posted by CrispyUK

More important is a decent / reliable registrar with a sensible control panel really.

1und1 are the only ICANN accredited registrar on your list if having that overall "protection" of someone subject to regulation and reporting is important.

Although domains by-and-large just work - the real difference between companies boils down to their support when a problem does arise, and the ease of moving domains should you ever want/need to.

IMHO in that respect 1und1 fail, being difficult to leave, and poor support.

If you dont mind their high prices on .uk I can recomend eNom - we've used them for 7 years now, without any major issues, and are only moving away as we're an accredited registrar ourselves.

NetEarthOne are another ICANN registrar, and get good reviews, their main guy Chris is very dedicated and always around if there if there is an issue.

I'm sure you'd be safe with any of the these three.

Enom, NetEarth and Othello.

It's about how things are dealt with when something goes wrong or there is a problem.

Registron are good.

In terms of support, NetEarthONe are worth your quid. You could also check out ResellerClub - Top 10 ICANN registrar so I trust them and I like their infrastructure (Control Panels et la)

To be honest, there's not much when it comes to choosing a home for just domains - support and pricing are key.

Cheers for all the replies guys

eNom seem pretty expensive when dealing with them direct as an end-user. I'd also prefer someone UK-based so I'm billed in GBP and not at the direct mercy of exchange rates and bank fees

Will have a looksie through the options...

Drop a post in the "requests for products and services" section here and you'll get plenty of people with access to eNom's ETP pricing who are happy to provide reliable, affordable domain registration services for you at a decent prices

i agree with raydar. resellerclub is cheaper than the guys uve listed cuz VATs not applicable to them. But yeah..you will be billed in GBP but you will be at the mercy of bank fees with them

Originally Posted by othelloRob

IMHO in that respect 1und1 fail, being difficult to leave, and poor support.

Agree that on the rare occasions I've needed support (and that hasn't been with domain related issues generally) they're not great, but I've moved a number of domains away from them recently and found it pretty straightforward. There are some steps to go through but surely that's par for the course. It's all automated and I've found the final bit where they ask you to fax the registrant signature isn't actually required. Speed depends on the TLD: same day for .uk, same week for .com, but that's not entirely in their hands.

People seem to enjoy knocking them, and with some justification in relation to support, but as a domain registrar I've been quite happy with them for several years now. They are cheap, and their control panel, although not aimed at experts, is far more professionally designed than the others I've tried (frankly Register1 and 123-reg's interfaces leave a lot to be desired - particularly when you're administering a number of domains, ease of use and polish do make a difference).