- Hey guys, my name is Christian Taylor.
Welcome back to Craylor Made where I like to talk about
all things, branding, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
So if you're looking to buy your first domain name
and get your business or brand online,
you've probably got a lot of questions.
Today I'll be answering your most common questions
about domain names, so let's get right into it.
So I get this question all the time.
Christian, should I buy my domain name
with Wix or Squarespace or my web host?
Fill in the blank.
Should I buy my domain name with X
because that's who I'm using for my website builder
or that's who my web host is?
Should I buy it there?
Or should I buy my domain from somewhere like Namecheap
or Porkbun and connect it to Wix or Squarespace?
The short answer is,
if you want the most convenient and easy setup process,
just get your domain from Wix, Squarespace,
or whoever your website builder or web host is.
If you want the most flexibility and cheapest prices,
go with a company who specializes in domains
like Namecheap or Porkbun.
Builders like Wix or Squarespace
tend to charge inflated rates for domain names,
usually around $20 a year for a.com domain.
It's not gonna break the bank.
So if you aren't a penny pincher,
it may be worth the extra cost for the added convenience.
If you see yourself switching away from Wix or Squarespace
to a solution like WordPress in the near future,
I wouldn't recommend buying your domain
from Wix, Squarespace or equivalent.
While you can point your Wix or Squarespace domain
to another platform, it's not the most intuitive process.
And you end up overpaying for your domain name
and having an inferior management panel in the end.
It is possible to transfer a domain between providers
so you could transfer it out from Squarespace to Namecheap,
but this is not the most fun or easy process.
I prefer to keep all three elements
of my website separated for the best experience.
For example, I use Namecheap for domains,
Cloudways for web hosting,
and wordpress.org for my website builder.
That way I can really focus
on finding the best company within each category
and link them together for an amazing experience.
But hey, if you just want a convenient all in one package
and you just wanna pay Wix or Squarespace
to just give you a website,
there's nothing wrong with that.
Next, what upsells, if any, should you buy?
When you're buying a domain name,
you'll probably be offered add-ons like Whois
or privacy protection, web hosting,
SSL certificates, and email hosting.
Now, let's break these down.
Typically with any domain registrar
that's ethical with pricing, Whois protection will be free.
If you're offered the option to pay
for Whois protection separately, I'd first reconsider
if you really wanna use that domain registrar
because I personally think charging extra
just to not list a customer's personal info
and a public database is ridiculous.
But if you're set on using that domain company,
you have a few options.
You can't say, I don't care about my privacy,
just list my info and move on.
You could pay for the privacy protection
or you could use a site
like anonymize.com to hack the system.
This free service allows you to put their address and info
in place of your personal information
when you register your domain name.
So when your personal info is listed in the public database,
it's actually the personal info of anonymize.com
Aka some random office address and not your address.
Now, when it comes to web hosting,
you can choose to buy web hosting from your domain provider
or you can go with a separate web host.
Again, it all comes down to convenience.
If you do wanna keep your domain, web hosting
and email hosting all under one roof,
I would definitely recommend Namecheap.
I find they offer the most compelling all in one solution.
Now, do not buy an SSL certificate.
Just don't do it.
You don't need it.
Even if you want the lock icon
and you want your site to be secured, which it should be,
you don't need to pay for an SSL certificate.
I have a whole video you can watch on that topic here.
Keeping things moving, here's another common question I get.
You go to look at your domain name
and the name is available.
But instead of seeing the normal rate
of $12 a year or whatever that registrar charges,
you see some absurd rate
like $4,000 a year or $8,000 for the first year.
There could be several things happening here,
but the long and the short is that
you're not gonna get out of paying an inflated rate
for that domain name, regardless of where you go.
So you'd be better off picking a different domain name
unless you have deep pockets.
The domain could already be owned and listed
for sale or lease by either a private individual,
a company that resells domains, or it could be marked
as a premium domain in the domain registry.
So the wholesale price
for any domain registrar is heavily inflated.
Since the domain industry operates on a sanctioned monopoly,
all domain registrars have to lease domain names
from the same company.
And that company has the power to charge more
for a particular domain name
if they think it's of higher value.
This is where the term premium domain comes from.
Oftentimes it's nobody's fault.
It's not like Namecheap or GoDaddy or Porkbun
wants to charge you 4,000 for a domain,
but they all have to rent domains
from the same company, which is VeriSign for .com.
And if VeriSign says, hey, you know what?
That's a pretty snazzy domain name,
we think it's worth a lot more
than the regular average domain name,
there's really not many options.
Just find a different domain name.
Now, if you register a domain
and later decide you want to sell it,
Sedo and NamePros are some places you can do that.
I've never sold a domain name before,
and I definitely don't have experience
in the domain flipping industry,
but I do sometimes get asked how you can sell a domain name.
So Sedo and NamePros are two places to look at.
Also, if you've got questions
that I didn't answer in this video,
you can always drop a comment below
or go over to the NamePro site.
It's a form site dedicated to domain name enthusiasts.
Yes, that's actually a thing.
So they'd be able to answer any curious questions you have
about getting started and getting your first domain name.
Well, there you have it.
These are the most frequently asked questions
I get about domain names.
What are your questions about domains?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments down below.
And if you like this video
do be sure to hit that subscribe button and click the bell
so you don't miss when I release new videos.
With that said, I will catch you guys next time.