The good, the bad and the ugly – NameSilo

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“The good, the bad and the ugly” An opportunity for readers to discuss what they like and don’t like about a particular company in the domain space.

Each post will deal with just one company, readers are encouraged to share their positive and negative experiences. Suggestions for improvement are also encouraged.

One of the goals of the column is that company representatives will see how their customers think of them. This can lead to a conversation on fixing problems.

What is not allowed:

  • Personal attacks on individuals at the chosen company
  • Promoting a competitor
  • Posting domains for sale

The company in the spotlight today is NameSilo

Founded: 2009
Image result for NameSilo founded

About Raymond Hackney

Raymond is a writer, domain trader and consultant based in Pennsylvania. Raymond is the founder of 3Character.com and TLDInvestors.com.

Comments

  1. barney pedrino says

    whats not to like about this company reg price is as cheap as godaddy discount club in dot com reg and cheaper in the rest of the major tlds .net .info .org all this with free privacy

  2. hey says

    Regular price isn’t as cheap as Godaddy… You have to buy 50 at a time each time to get the decent price which is still about 10 cents higher than Godaddy if you’re on the VIP program. So you purchase your credits in blocks and use the credits, but it’s still a little more than Godaddy. There is a lot to like about them, but the pricing is deceptive.

    Also you can’t register domains with a preset dns setting. If you set up a preset profile for whois contact you can’t specify a separate dns for that whois profile. You have to register your domains and then go back and find them all and adjust the whois separately.

    Website runs super fast though. way faster than Godaddys and less buggy than Godaddys

    • NameSilo says

      Thanks for the feedback. We aim to make our pricing as transparent as possible, but, as with most things, there is always room for improvement. We believe that our Discount Program stacks up pretty well to the pricing from Godaddy’s Discount Club when the annual fee to be a part of their Discount Club is factored in. Since our prices are already close to cost (after factoring in payment processing fees), the only way we can offer lower prices is to limit the amount of transaction fees we pay which is why we have a $50 minimum deposit to enroll in and use our Discount Program. We have also been having internal discussions regarding ways to offer even lower pricing based upon a few factors such as method of payment. We hope to have more information on this before long.

      Regarding preset DNS, we are looking at adding the ability to apply any user-configured DNS templates during registration (via our web site or API). Hopefully this is also something we announce before long.

    • NameSilo says

      Thanks! Yes, our design has gotten pretty old on us 🙂

      We will probably be implementing a new design for the “front-end” of the web site late this year or early next. However, most of the feedback we get regarding our administrative interfaces is very positive since they are powerful and easy to use, so we have no plans to change those.

      Thanks again

  4. Nick says

    pro: Upfront low bulk pricing
    pro: Best interface for what I use it for
    pro: low marketplace fees
    pro: fast support

    con: none from me so far

  5. Marius says

    Namesilo is currently pretty much the best registrar out there imo …

    Fast website, great simple interface, great pricing for everything including renewals, free privacy if needed, low marketplace fees, fast escrow, lots of tools for domainers and most important of all … they listen to suggestions and improve their services all the time. Their rep on NP responds to any question within 24 hours or less and that’s cool.

    Another cool thing I like is that they don’t try to sell you anything else apart from what you actually want to buy… in contrast at GD with every click you make you need to uncheck a damn box for all kind of crappy offers.

    Support is non existent (in a good way) as I never needed anything support-related and never contacted them in the last 2-3 years since I started to use their platform.

    • NameSilo says

      Thanks for the great feedback and positive comments! We are very proud of our free tools for Domainers and most of the work we do to upgrade our systems is with Domainers in mind. Our goal is to stay out of the way wherever possible and to ensure our systems simply work and provide the functionality and flexibility options that an audience as diverse as Domainers requires. We have a few Marketplace-related enhancements we are currently working on based upon recent NP feedback as well as direct emails to our support team. We are also looking at introducing options for offering even lower commission possibilities and should have more details on these topics in the upcoming weeks.

  6. NameSilo says

    Hi Everyone. I am with NameSilo and I wanted to thank thedomains.com for opening this discussion. We are very proud of our service offering and we are also very interested to get feedback as continual improvement is at the heart of our business process and methodology. I am mostly adding my comment here so I can subscribe our main support account to this thread in hopes that we can provide responses, if necessary, in a timely manner.

    Thanks again and looking forward to further conversation.

  7. Kevin Fink says

    Namesilo has been one of my “registrars of choice” after I started diversifying where I keep my portfolio. I’ve had ZERO problems and each time I have contacted support about a non-issue (maybe a question or curiosity about something), I have been met with professionalism and candor. They will remain one of my favorite registrars and I look forward to seeing where they take their business.

  8. William says

    Been using Namesilo.com for years….

    – Great Prices / Transparency
    – Great Support
    – Ergonomic UI

    Awesome service 🙂

  9. Ihsan Infiyaz says

    Been with NameSilo.com for sometime now. And I have to say, that I’ve nothing to complain about. One of the reasons I search for domains on NameSilo.com is because they’ve this wonderful interface that let’s you see multiple domains at once. Like domain.com, domain.org, domain.net, etc, as well as, domain2.com, domain2.org, and it goes on as many domains as you like, all amazingly laid out.

    Yes the interface seems outdated. But keep it. It works. It’s not overcrowded, it’s not overloading the user, it’s just straightforward, simple, and let’s me as the user, be in total control.

    As a web-developer at CloudFactorii.com, this is where I suggest my clients purchase their domains.

  10. AKW says

    I just moved a domain from somewhere else to NameSilo and start trying it.

    One reason I left the old registrar where I had used for over 10 years was that they were recently acquired and started rolling out new Control Panel interface. Its old CP was very basic but informative where I could almost do all nameserver settings on the same page, highly efficient. The new CP now has very modern look but the response is slower and it’s just not effective, demanding many more clicks and page jumps(hence waiting) to complete my task. I can’t say for everyone but those using dns services are mostly administrator users and should have #1 concern about the efficiency of operation rather than the visual appearance. The most favorable interface for me is that I can make as many input as possible on the same page without jumping here and there.

    So far on NameSilo I’m pretty satisfied with its function and the website speed. I opt to keep the interface simple, clean and compact, with minimum visual effect. Your more “traditional” interface is just fine, and even good for me as administrator.

    • NameSilo says

      Thanks, we appreciate the feedback. Yes, our design definitely emphasizes functionality over design bells and whistles. Most of our customers appreciate this, but our design could still probably stand some updating 🙂

  11. JTB3 says

    Hey NameSilo,
    I’ve really loved your service over the years. There are just a couple of things I’d love to see offered:
    1) Low-cost email account add-on feature.
    2) Support for .EU domains (and other newTLDs)

    Any plans to offer either of these?

    • NameSilo says

      Hello @JTB3 and thanks for your comments. We unfortunately do not have plans for either request at this time. We do offer free email forwarding (https://www.namesilo.com/Support/Email-Forwarding), but not POP/IMAP/SMTP. We try to avoid offering services that would increase our costs which would be likely to spill over to needing to charge more for our core domain service offerings. Also, there are several good free options for these email services (some of which we discuss at https://www.namesilo.com/Support/What-Email-Service-is-right-for-me%3F). For .eu, we had looked closely at on-boarding with EURID, but there are several unique requirements for doing so. Each registry has its own “quirks”, but those imposed by EURID are quite voluminous. Still, as many other customers have also requested support for .eu domains, this is still something very much under consideration. Unlike most other registrars, we never resell TLDs through middlemen. Most registrars use third-parties to register TLDs which drives up cost and also can cause problems in offering timely and useful customer support. We therefore choose to integrate directly ourselves with each registry which is more time-consuming, but the only way to stick to our desire to always offer the best in pricing and support.