Hello fellow Lemmings! I hope this is the right place to ask this. I don’t understand how web domains work. Let’s say I want to buy the domain “abcdefghi.net”. I can go to a domain provider like haruba or godaddy and just buy it. but how can they, a private, sell me these domains? I’m not talking about the hosting, but just the domain. where do they register this domain I’m buying? isn’t it possible to register it myself instead of paying these services to do it for me?
Also, be very careful about who ultimately owns the domain name that you’re buying.
I know of someone who “bought” a domain for a ridiculous price and it turned out that they didn’t actually own it. The company registered it in their own name so that he wasn’t able to transfer it to another registrar and had to continue to pay the high fees if he wanted to keep the domain.
Well shady.
Isn’t that parking? I don’t think this would be legal in many places given there wasn’t a completely egregarious contact he missed or something similar.
You say that, but lots of people used to fall for it.
Yeah. I am wary of anyone who offers registrations drastically cheaper than the cost. The usual gotcha I’ve seen is that after the first year, the renewal fees are astronomical end they charge unusually high fees for transfers. I guess ownership shenanigans can happen too.