Back in the old days, when small organizations got their Internet access, email hosting and website hosting services from a single provider, registering a domain name was fairly straightforward: your ISP did it for you, and made any changes that were necessary.

Today, our needs have become more sophisticated. For example:

• We might choose to get our email services from Google, and to host our website with a web design consultant (like ONE/Northwest!).
  
• We might want to run our email through a spam-filtering service like Electric Embers' NPOShield.
  
• We might want to redirect subdomains "e.g. lists.ourdomain.org" to an email list broadcasting provider like WhatCounts, or to an online donation service provider.

All of these scenarios rare much easier if our domain name registrations and DNS records are not tied directly to our hosting provider, but are instead managed by an independent domain registrar who offers solid DNS management services.

ONE/Northwest has had good experiences with:

• GKG.net: GKG provides basic domain registration and DNS hosting services. Domain registration is $7.95/year per domain. Their services are straightforward, and no-frills, and their management tools are fairly straightforward. We've had generally good experiences with their customer service. GKG offers very limited email hosting services.

We've heard good things about:

• NameCheap.com As their name suggests, NameCheap is a low-cost, few-frills domain registrar. Their level of service and pricing seems very comparable to GKG.
• 1and1.com Another low-cost provider.
  
• Dreamhost.com Dreamhost is more of a full-service web, email and domain hosting provider. But they offer a very attractive free hosting package to nonprofits, and offer domain registration for $9.99/year so even if you don't use their web hosting services, it's still a pretty good deal.
  

What we recommend

If you're registering a new domain

Use a registrar such as GKG, NameCheap or Dreamhost.

If your current domain registration is expiring

Renew it with your current registrar, unless you are in the midst of changing web and email providers.

If you are considering a change of email or web hosting providers

Consider transferring your domain to a new registrar such as GKG, NameCheap or Dreamhost. It will make your upcoming email/web hosting provider change much smoother. You may need assistance from someone who is comfortable with domain registration and DNS configuration processes to guide you.

Be aware that most domain registrars will try to sell you expensive, unnecessary add-on services like web hosting, private domain registration, etc. etc.  In general, you should avoid these offers.  In most cases, superior services are available elsewhere for less.

ONE/Northwest Website Consulting Clients

Once you register your domain, ONE/Northwest will provide DNS hosting services to you as part of your regular website hosting fees.  This means that you only need basic domain registration services from your domain registrar.