Earlier today, I’ve received an email from Godaddy informing that my domains are expiring and they ask me to renew them, however, that’s not the most important notice in the email. Godaddy stated that starting January 15 2012, the prices for .COM and .NET domains will be increased and recommend us to register/renew now to save some money.
I did a few research to confirm the information and won’t become a victim of a Godaddy’s renewal trick. And the fact is Godaddy will really increase prices for their domains next year. Actually the announcement was made a few months ago by Verisign, the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services on the Internet. The registry prices for .NET domain names will increase from $4.65 to $5.11 while the fee for .COM domain names will increase from $7.34 to $7.85.
This is not the first time we’ve seen the increase in the registry fees. Since the contract between Verisign and ICANN was signed 6 years ago, the price for .COM domain has risen by $1.86. If you haven’t heard about the agreement, Verisign has the right to increase prices of .COM domain by 7% and .NET domain by 10% annually. This time, Verisign explained that they had to raised the fee because Internet usage growth and increasing DDOS attacks have increased demands on the Internet infrastructure provider. Therefore, they need to get more money to maintain the operational security, accuracy and stability.
The change effectively means that some popular domain registrars such as GoDaddy or Namecheap will be charged more. However, they absolutely don’t accept that and will pass the increased fee to consumers although they’ve already got higher retail prices. The new price for a .COM domain on Godaddy is expected to be $7.99.
This won’t affect you if you have just a few .NET or .COM domains, but I’ve seen some people own more than 1,000 domains, so if they renew them within the next 2 months, they could save more than $500. If you are wondering if you could receive $1 .COM domains deals in the future, the answer is yes. Domain registrars like Godaddy still have to pay high fee to Verisign but they could earn money from other services like web hosting, email hosting, private whois, etc.
I’ve renewed most of my domains which will be expired next year, what about you? Will the increased price be a big problem for you?
samrat kafle @ Blogging Talks says
Hmm sure i am also going to renew it who knows what happens next year :)
TumuTanzi says
It does not matter for me, since I have only one domain.
Smarty says
I’m going to renew some of my domains right before the price rise. I was just waiting for the best time. Looks like the time is beginning of January :)
rick says
I used to use Verisign / Netsol for my domains – back when they were $135 each. Of which $75 was a “government fee.” The so called fee was a scam. When push came to shove, instead of being forced to refund the money – they got to keep it. Almost $100 million.
I never used them again. Crooks, the lot of them.