In a past article on ICANN’s new domain name transfer policy, we mentioned 101domain as one of a few other service providers. After that article our readers asked us to know more about their total set of services. What attracted us to 101domain is their insightful blog on technical matters around domains, SSL, and corporate brand services. The articles on their blog demonstrate carefulness around the technical aspects of matters like email reputation management. We suggest using their blog first and foremost as a resource to learn more about the nuts and bolts of domain management (and it’s free to use!).
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The Necessity of a Managed Service
We have separately discussed the need for e-commerce for traditional brick-and-mortar shops. Unfortunately, operating a self-hosting website is neither easy nor cheap. Our website has different guides for people needing help with the technical aspects of their domain, hosting, and/or email. Our suggested solutions are usually to combine services from various web service providers. But, maintaining a business website in that way often becomes difficult. A good number of readers want a one-stop-solution provider who delivers quality managed services for domains, SSL, hosting and more. There are only a few companies who have complete infrastructure, including manpower, to provide service in that way. 101domain as a corporate domain registrar is one of them.
The user reviews and remarks available all over the Internet about 101domain are hugely positive. The average rating is a 4 to 4.5 out of 5, which is definitely a good score for a long-standing company. We encourage you to read the reviews of 101domain on sites like TrustPilot.
Domain Services
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Usually we say to use any reputable domain registrar that provides their services at a cheap rate. Domain registrars charge the official fees plus their own profit margins – some more bloated than others. Sometimes transferring domains from one registrar to another has an extra cost, but the main complexity with domains arise when a domain owner does not renew their domain beforehand and has to pay a restoration fee. Some domain registrars charge more than others, while 101domain charges a fair price somewhere in the middle. People on forums such as Reddit often have good things to say about 101Domain. Many users seek domains other than dot COM and dot NET domains. We cannot see any gTLD domain extension which is not available via 101domain – dot SURGERY, dot DOCTOR, dot CEO, dot ENGINEER; they even have domains catering to adult and casino niches. Users should be cautious of who they register their domains with to avoid problems. Not all domain registrars offer advanced security features such as DNSSEC. The pricing at 101domain is fair in light of the high quality service they provide. In addition, they offer private registration and other security services for every business need.
DNS Service
101domain has an excellent DNS service. However, for optimal geo-redundancy, one may wish to add 101domain’s DNS service powered by Cloudflare. Most of the 3rd party DNS services are not managed, which means the users need to be sufficiently advanced in their knowledge in order to ensure the
security of their email and domain. On many occasions, we have discussed DNSSEC, DNS CAA, and SPF records. A managed DNS service like Cloudflare keeps a user from needing to labor over the technical tidbits. Why is DNS so important? For one thing, it prevents your marketing emails from being marked as spam, and hackers from sending emails abusing your domain name.
Email Service
We never recommend self-hosted emails. Again, most third-party services such as Google Apps do not require self-management in order to properly configure. There are however, minor technical tweaks like we discussed in our article on postmaster email of Google Apps. 101domain has a managed email service starting at only one dollar per month, and they also offer Google G-Suite starting at six dollars a month. And because all required tweaks will be done by experienced engineers at 101domain, all you have to do is raise a support ticket request.
SSL Certificate
Although Let’s Encrypt is an open-source free SSL/TLS issuing service, any serious website needs a paid DV SSL certificate at minimum. A medium to a large business may need EV SSL (which requires paperwork to prove the identity of business) to assure the desktop visitors about the business name. Also, they provide free SSL with some of their hosting packages. Needless to say, properly installing an SSL certificate is not traditionally an easy task. Fortunately, 101domain took the work out of managing SSL, and they automated the process so that when you purchase an SSL certificate it will appear on your site instantly. We believe that using a managed service helps users easily achieve SSL security online.
Hosting Services & CDN
101domain provides managed hosting services with DDoS protection. Dedicated servers are always the best for optimized performance. Managed dedicated servers with 32GB RAM at $250/month is not costly when the cost of management, monitoring, Plesk panel, anti-DDoS protection services are offered as well. They also provide a range of additional services including shared hosting, cloud hosting.
Their customers need not know any technical details in order to install and use a WordPress-like system. A managed hosting service is quite important for the WordPress-like PHP-MySQL web software that keeps websites up and running 24/7. The WordPress MySQL database with unmanaged hosting may fail to restart and always demand manual checking every few hours. Using a managed hosting like which 101domain offers, helps users avoid these disasters. You will not be required to think of taking backup or installing WordPress on your own, it will all be done for you with a single click in a matter of minutes. 101domain provides DNS services via Cloudflare’s global CDN. Separate CDN services are not required when one is using Cloudflare.
Corporate Brand Services
101domain brand protection services have two parts; (1) domain related services (which any person may need to use); and (2) security services. Throughout this article, we actually discussed some of their security services such as DNSSEC and private registration. The rest are included as standard, such as two-factor authentication. There are various matters around domains such as disputes which require technical knowledge in ICANN and country code domain dispute policies and procedures. It is not in every business’ budget to pay a lawyer for these services. The 101domain brand enforcement team has expertise in these matters and is more affordable.
Conclusion
We cannot see any reason not to use 101domain for a comprehensive one-stop service. Any comprehensive managed service costs more than unmanaged services. Unmanaged servers and other services are great for technically-minded people self-managing 1-2 websites. But, when the matter is serious business then your websites need enterprise-grade management.
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