Domain name registration (123-reg.co.uk)

Member Name: julwhite

Product:	123-reg.co.uk
Date:	06/04/08 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, efficient, good value

Disadvantages: Poor customer service when things go wrong

123-reg.co.uk are a domain name registration company, so you can register and maintain domains from around the world, whether you want a .com or a co.uk address.

I've used the site now for six years, and I must confess it continually seems to be owned by a new company, I've received invoices from Webfusion, Host Europe and the site is now run by a company called GX Networks. Overall however, I've always been happy with the service offered.

The price to register the domain names varies depending exactly what suffix you want, so you might want a co.uk, an.org, and so on. You can choose how long you want to register, and the process is simple, and because it's automated, it's very fast. There's also a handy feature which suggests domain names in case the one you had hoped to get has already been taken.

Paying for the domain names that you want is easy enough, you can choose to pay on account by putting money up-front, or you can pay by debit or credit card, or they now accept Paypal if you want to maybe use money you've received from eBay for example. So in terms of payment choices, it's one of the largest selections.

I've never had a problem with the automated re-registration service, where domain names can be registered again when they expire by taking the money from the stored credit card. The site also warns you when a domain needs expiring, so you gets lots of notice. They will also e-mail you as well to ensure you remember.

There is a control panel you get, which lists all of the domains which you have, and you can then control the DNS settings, tags, e-mail settings, forwarding, etc, all from this control panel. It's a very logical system and again all automated, so usually the requests are handled very promptly.

This is however where the problems set in. This site is a big player in the domain name market and they claim over one million customers. This means that if you need a personal service, I've found it's nearly impossible to get it.

The only problem I've come across personally is when I needed to chance the tags of some of my web-sites, as I was changing who hosted them. I submitted the requests via the control panel, and the changes were made in seconds. I could check the progress by going to www.nominet.org.uk, who are the domain name authority in the UK. So this process was smooth, but one of the tags on one domain name didn't change.

I waited a few days to see if anything happened, and then decided to send an e-mail to their customer services team. I received an automated e-mail back trying to refer me to the help-site and saying if this answer wasn't sufficient, to e-mail them again. Which I did. I got no answer, and I tried again a week later and met the same problem.

There is a help-line you can call, but it's quite expensive and you can be put on hold for some time. It is though very frustrating when there are no responses to e-mails, because in many ways your web-site is just left in limbo, no-one can access it until the changes are made. In my case, the change finally took place two weeks after, but they never sent me an e-mail to explain what had happened.

Browsing though some of the reviews on this site, and from experience, it's clear that others have had the same problem. As soon as there is an issue, it can take a long time for them to sort it out, which as others have found, is very frustrating.

Incidentally, if you ever have the same problem I did, wanting to change a domain name, but finding the domain name registrant isn't doing it, then Nominet themselves can make the change for you. Unfortunately there is a 15 pound charge for this, hence why I kept asking 123reg to do it in my case!

However, overall, my experiences bar this one problem above, have been very good. The prices are very reasonable, the service has worked fine, it's reminded me to register domains that I might have otherwise forgot, and so overall, I'd give the service four out of five stars. If they could give the personal touch for when things go wrong, it'd be a five star rating!

Summary: Just needs the personal touch for when the automated systems don't work