DNS Providers that Don't Suck

[Jim Katen]

Zoneedit sucks moosefeet.

I'm looking for a new DNS provider. Who's dependable, with little or no downtime, and decent customer service.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Bain]

I'm curious. Why do you need a DNS provider? Do you have multiple web sites?

[Jim Morrison]

GoDaddy.com has been great for me, and for Charlie & me. I don't know about their customer service, because I don't think either of us has ever used it.

[John Kogel]

I use Netfirms. It is as good as Godaddy, maybe better, without the catchy name. []

[Marc]

I can't compare them because I've had but one in 7 years. Register.com

Marc

[Bain]

I should wait for Jim to check in, but I think what he's talking about is a service that allows him to share info across multiple domains and IP addresses. I use namecheap to register my domain name, for less than ten bucks a year. But there's really no need to use any customer service department.

As for domain providers, I've used Homestead, which is owned by Intuit, for a couple of years, and they're wonderful. I've had to call a couple of times--for html issues and Windows 7 compatibility issues--and the techs are terrific. They're based in VA, and English is their first language (No offense, but I've never had any luck with people in Bangalore).

[Nolan Kienitz]

I've used Go-Daddy for the past 10-years for all number of things.

Great folks, great service.

[Jim Katen]

I should wait for Jim to check in, but I think what he's talking about is a service that allows him to share info across multiple domains and IP addresses. I use namecheap to register my domain name, for less than ten bucks a year. But there's really no need to use any customer service department.

Nothing that complicated. Our current partnership is hosted with GoDaddy and they've been fine. My old individual business domain no longer has any web site associated with it, but it still has an email address. I use Zoneedit to forward that address. A surprising amount of business still comes in from that address even though it's been, essentially, dormant for years.

As Zoneedit seems to be not up to the task of forwarding a single email address, I'm looking for someone else. I was ready to just switch it to GoDaddy, but I wanted to see what everyone else had to say about reliability.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Bain]

I should wait for Jim to check in, but I think what he's talking about is a service that allows him to share info across multiple domains and IP addresses. I use namecheap to register my domain name, for less than ten bucks a year. But there's really no need to use any customer service department.

Nothing that complicated. Our current partnership is hosted with GoDaddy and they've been fine. My old individual business domain no longer has any web site associated with it, but it still has an email address. I use Zoneedit to forward that address. A surprising amount of business still comes in from that address even though it's been, essentially, dormant for years.

As Zoneedit seems to be not up to the task of forwarding a single email address, I'm looking for someone else. I was ready to just switch it to GoDaddy, but I wanted to see what everyone else had to say about reliability.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

I don't have any experience that would help you. I do have an idea that might work, though. If you set up a gmail account, you can have mail from other addresses forwarded to that account. The really handy feature with gmail, however, is if you respond to an e-mail sent to another provider, gmail routs the response FROM that provider and the original message sender thinks you responded from the address she contacted you with. Alternatively, you can receive e-mails from other addresses, and simply have the response come from gmail, which alerts the other person that you have a new address.

[Marc]

I don't have any experience that would help you. I do have an idea that might work, though. If you set up a gmail account, you can have mail from other addresses forwarded to that account. The really handy feature with gmail, however, is if you respond to an e-mail sent to another provider, gmail routs the response FROM that provider and the original message sender thinks you responded from the address she contacted you with. Alternatively, you can receive e-mails from other addresses, and simply have the response come from gmail, which alerts the other person that you have a new address.

Is that how some people are able to hijack (steal) another person's Email address? Twice recently, I've received Email from people that I know that asked for 'emergency funds'. It turned out that their Email address had been hi-jacked by a thief.

Marc

[Bain]

I don't have any experience that would help you. I do have an idea that might work, though. If you set up a gmail account, you can have mail from other addresses forwarded to that account. The really handy feature with gmail, however, is if you respond to an e-mail sent to another provider, gmail routs the response FROM that provider and the original message sender thinks you responded from the address she contacted you with. Alternatively, you can receive e-mails from other addresses, and simply have the response come from gmail, which alerts the other person that you have a new address.

Is that how some people are able to hijack (steal) another person's Email address? Twice recently, I've received Email from people that I know that asked for 'emergency funds'. It turned out that their Email address had been hi-jacked by a thief.

Marc

I dunno, but I suppose we all assume some level of risk when dealing with the ether. One scam I've heard of similar to what you're describing is creating ALMOST identical addresses of someone's friends--obtained from Facebook, for instance--and using them to scam the person. Using TIJ as an example . . . an anonymous person could join, create a profile for JBain, and send you an e-mail. You might think it was from me, and divulge private info.

[bruce816]

I've used Godaddy for about 8 years...maybe longer.

[Steven Hockstein]

I've used Godaddy for about 8 years...maybe longer.

same here

[Erby]

DNS = domain name server

www.namesecure.com was my choice years ago. Never had a reason to change.

G-mail won't work for what Jim needs, though Go daddy and several others will.

Go Daddy is set up for non-techies with lots of assistance.

Jim, I do note that if you have the domain you should at least have a one page website at the domain with your current contact information and new website address. Some people will try to look up the domain from the e-mail address. They do, you'll be telling em where to check for more info. You can do that Cheap and won't lose those people looking for you at the old domain.

[Ben H]

Inmotion. I've never called with anything they haven't had me going in no time flat. Thats included rebuilding a complete MySQL database.

[stubrooks]

Inmotion Hosting here too. Great customer service. Reasonable pricing and different levels of hosting. There are a number of things to consider other than price and popularity including 1) Service speed - Slow or over loaded servers can cause your pages to load very slowly. 2) Service 3) Support of features like blogging, POS, Calendar, scripting,

[stubrooks]

Zoneedit sucks moosefeet.

I'm looking for a new DNS provider. Who's dependable, with little or no downtime, and decent customer service.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

DNS = Domain Name Server, a site that translates http://www.xxx.com into digital address like 72.128.56

Website hosting service is what I believe you are asking about.

[mgbinspect]

Jim,

My web site has been with Verio since I first opened it. mgbpublications.com and the old pitifully failed inspectorsreference.com were with verio too. I can honestly say that since I went with them in 1997, they have never once been down - not once. (I suspect they're one of the original big boys in the industry kinda like the IBM of computers or XEROX of copy machines.) They're facility is here in Reston, VA with a bunch of other IT big boys, kinda like the east coast silicone valley.

Twice, over the years, they've moved my site to new servers, and let me know ahead of time that: while I would never be down, which I never was, I might not have access to the site dashboard for a day or two, which I never felt.

Bottom line: they're impressive. www.verio.com

Well golly, as soon as you hit the link, there it is in big bold print "VERIO: The leading global provider of Web Site Hosting, Domain Name Registration, Hosted Microsoft Exchange, and more." How about that, my suspicion was right. There you go. And, they're rediculously AFFORDABLE. Just as a for instance, the hosting of my site is a whopping $19.95 a month and I hardly scratch the surface of the storage at my disposal (up to 50 pages). My site is pretty modest in size - just a billboard, not a resource.

Good luck!

[Jim Katen]

Thanks everyone. Zoneedit was providing the DNS service as well as web hosting. Or rather, they were supposed to be but weren't.

Every few weeks, they'd drop the ball and everything would go haywire. People who tried to send me information got messages saying that no such domain existed. Zoneedit's sole customer service is email based - no phone support at all. So I'd send them a message and get an automated response that said I was very important to them and they'd respond to my problem within 72 hours. 72 HOURS!?!. After 71 hours, I'd get a message that said, "Hi, I'm XXX and I'll be looking into your problem soon." A day or two later, I'd get a message saying that everything was okey dokey. Then a few weeks later, the whole scenario would repeat itself.

I've moved everything to GoDaddy and it seems to be working just fine.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

- Jim Katen, Oregon