The laws of free enterprise can do good things, especially the law that says when two companies offer the same service at wildly different prices, something has to give. Like many who run blogs and web sites, I manage several, and have several domain names on standby. When I took over the
Money and Minds blog, the domain name was managed by GoDaddy. Looking at renewal options, I saw that it was only going to cost me $9.99 to add an extra year. It seemed awfully low compared to Network Solutions where I had my other domains since the 1990s. I decided to check, and found that adding one year to my domain name managed by Network Solutions would have cost me $34.99.
If there were only a few dollars difference, I wouldn't have bothered changing providers, but being close to renewal on another domain, I decided to transfer that one over. After arranging the transfer on GoDaddy, I called up a customer service representative at Network Solutions. Once he found out I was going to make a switch, he immediately offered to extend my registration not by $34.99 a year, but by $8.75 a year. Unfortunately for him, I'd already paid my money to GoDaddy, so that transfer was going to go through. Smelling an opportunity, I asked if the same $8.75 deal was good for all of my other domains. His answer was yes. He was more than happy to extend my registrations of all my domains at that lower price.
I don't know why Network Solutions insists on charging more than three times the amount GoDaddy does for the very same service, and only offering a competitive rate when they are about to lose a customer. I do know that if they offered me this deal, they might offer you the same. If you are a Network Solutions customer, ring them up and mention that you want to transfer your domain management elsewhere. If you don't use Network Solutions, and a renewal would cost you more than $8.75 a year, either ask for a discount or go shopping for a better value.
