I haven’t done any blogging recently. There’s a reason. What little time I have away from the day job has been spent trying to save my domains.

I have quite a few domains by now. - Although I didn’t do much in the way of site building until 2005, I registered my first domain in 2003 - nearly 4 years ago.

And, for the first couple of years or so, I registered most of my domains with Registerfly.com. Their interface was great for a newbie. People on the forums said they were reliable. I had no problems with them - until around a year ago, that is.

Domain renewals started to fail. I had to try and retry to get them renewed. But, eventually, each domain was renewed. I didn’t transfer my domains away, because Registerfly stated that the problem was a temporary one, caused by their transition from a domain reseller to an ICANN accredited registrar. That sounded like a reasonable explanation. I did start registering new domains with other registrars, but their interface didn’t seem as smooth as Registerfly. So I hung in there, renewing my domains with Registerfly, because I still liked their interface.

Then, quite recently, a forum member lost over 100 domains, worth $4,000 a month in income, because Registerfly had failed to renew them. This was pretty alarming, so I decided to transfer my Registerfly domains. This has proven to be quite a saga.

To transfer a domain, you need to have:

• the domain unlocked,
• your email address on the Whois,
• and the authorization (EPP) code for that domain

In trying to transfer my domains, I have had problems with getting any and all of these three functions to work.

• Some domains could not be unlocked. Some said they were unlocked when that was not the case. I could not transfer the locked domains
• Some domains showed Registerfly as the owner, and had Registerfly’s email address. I could not update the Whois information on most of these domains. I could not transfer domains that did not have my email address in the Whois.
• Some domains did not show any authorization code, or showed an authorization code (RRP) that was clearly an error. I could not transfer domains without a correct authorization code.
• Some things seemed to change almost at random. Whois would show as my email one day, Registerfly the next, or the other way around. Some days an authorization code would show, and then it would disappear again.
• There was no reply to my support requests

After nearly two months of spending time, daily, trying to resolve the situation, I still have 10 domains that I haven’t been able to transfer, including the domain that is tied to my hosting (losing that could put the rest of my sites offline for a while).

I’m not prepared to pay to renew a domain with Registerfly that does not show my Whois info - that feels like paying for someone else’s domain. Plus, people have reported paying for their domain renewals with Registerfly, and still losing them (and in some cases losing their entire online business as well). I’m beginning to think I will lose some of my domains. Many other people will have the same problem.

One site that has been helpful during this time is Registerflies. This is a site started by a disgruntled Registerfly customer who lost his Registerfly domains. According to this site, there were many complaints to ICANN over the last 12 months or so, before ICANN finally took some kind of action by warning Registerfly to pick up their game. Meanwhile, there has been no official avenue of redress for people who have lost their domains, through no fault of their own.

Some thoughts about the whole, sorry Registerfly saga:

1) Your domains are NOT well protected. There is no strong regulatory body with ‘teeth’ that will jump in and look after you you if you lose a domain through the error or malice of your registrar. ICANN does not see itself in that role. If you rely on your domains for your income, you are vulnerable, and could lose your domains and your income if your registrar goes bad.

2) Its probably wise to distribute your domains amongst several registrars with good reputations. And when doing this, make sure that domains of a given type (eg age, niche) are also distributed fairly evenly, so that you don’t take too large a hit if one of your registrars goes bad. Don’t have all of your oldest and most valuable domains with one registrar, like I did.

1) Its at times like this that you really know whether you want to be involved in the business of domain ownership. It would be tempting to walk away. If you hang in there, its probably because that’s where you want to be, for the long haul.

3) If you’re in it for the long haul, it would be a good idea to sign up (free) at Registerflies and track what they’re doing. They’re now branching out to become a pressure group to advocate for better security for domain owners. Lets hope they make some progress.