We are in the process of starting a new company (our first and hopefully last). In the next week or so, we will be purchasing an existing domain name via Atom.com.

My understanding is that I need to select a domain register to host the domain.

Any advice on what registrar to select.....or to avoid?

I think I plan on using Squarespace for website design, but through some online research, I think its advised to keep your domain registrar and website design separate. Correct me if I'm totally off here.

It makes it simpler when connecting the domain, but it is not a hard thing to do. Cloudflare is a good option as mentioned. Any of the major companies will work for you. Just make sure that you have a good email and card on file. I have seen way to many businesses lose a domain because they "forgot" about it.

Mine are registered via AWS, so the annual $15 domain fee is included in monthly billing. It is possible to transfer domains both in and out.

I use Porkbun. .Coms are about $12 a year. And that's the renewal rate, not the introductory rate. Whois privacy and DNSSEC is free.

I like porkbun as well. I've also used Namecheap (no complaints) and a few others. I've just found porkbun to be really great. Squarespace was a pain to transfer, if I recall correctly and I would generally find somebody who is primarily a registrar but honestly any will probably do.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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I like porkbun as well. I've also used Namecheap (no complaints) and a few others. I've just found porkbun to be really great. Squarespace was a pain to transfer, if I recall correctly and I would generally find somebody who is primarily a registrar but honestly any will probably do.

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I've used, porkbun, namecheap, and cloudflare. All work great, the difference for me is if I need some random thing with API integration for when I'm lazy. Squarespace sucks, 6 of mine got migrated from google domains and I've been slowly transferring them off as I get time.

I've used Namecheap for about 5 years now and no complaints. Also did one domain through Fastmail and that was seamless and pretty cheap.

IrishAg said:

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JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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I like porkbun as well. I've also used Namecheap (no complaints) and a few others. I've just found porkbun to be really great. Squarespace was a pain to transfer, if I recall correctly and I would generally find somebody who is primarily a registrar but honestly any will probably do.

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I've used, porkbun, namecheap, and cloudflare. All work great, the difference for me is if I need some random thing with API integration for when I'm lazy. Squarespace sucks, 6 of mine got migrated from google domains and I've been slowly transferring them off as I get time.

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Are you saying Squarespace sucks for website design/development or as a domain registrar? My understanding is that Squarespace is excellent for website design (also Wix), but its generally better to keep website design and domain registrar separate.

I am severely lacking in IT knowledge. Just need to get the website domain purchased and transferred to a registrar and then I'll bring in someone to help me with website design/development.

I don't intend to use Squarespace as a domain registrar

I'm talking only domain registrar. Google has a very nice, simple to use setup and then they did the classic Google thing and decided they didn't want to do it anymore and sold everything off to Squarespace. So we had forced migrations, where the somehow lost control of one of my domains and the portal is extremely clunky and lacks any real options for api integration for things like cert renewals. I've never used them for web hosting so I can't comment to that.

I used to use google domains until they stopped then went to Cloudflare. I preferred google domains but it doesn't exist anymore.

Same here, it was such a nice, clean, and straightforward portal. But alas….google doing Google things

Another vote for namecheap.

Stay away from godaddy. They caused all kinds of issues for my dad's online storefront because they locked us out of it and made more issues when it turned out they had no customer service to address the issue.

They also bought the .org and .com domains of a website for a charity I started because some do-gooder on the board bought the .us version. They offered to sell it to us for $10k but since we refused it just sits there parked with a "this domain for sale" landing page and has for years.

Godaddy is a terrible company and I will never do business with them.

I have some sites and a domain or two with them because they bought MediaTemple and you're spot on.

Their entire platform is designed for upsell, and if you know what you're doing and just want to access things directly it's an absolute headache.

Will be off them ASAP.

Any of these offer free email forwarding? Nothing complicated, just forwarding anything that ends in my domain name to a different address. My current registrar used to offer this but doesn't anymore, and my extremely low budget website doesn't require anything fancy (or costly!)

Most do. Cloudflare makes it easy if you move the DNS to them. Namecheap also offers it. I'm sure others do but those are the only ones I've used specifically.

Pinochet said:

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Most do. Cloudflare makes it easy if you move the DNS to them. Namecheap also offers it. I'm sure others do but those are the only ones I've used specifically.

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Thanks!

It should be easy in and easy out.