Register Domain Names One Year At A Time!
I first heard about this money saving news from a press release
that wound up in my inbox. I haven't heard it posted anywhere
else so I decided to do a little digging on my own, and do what
I can to spread the good news.
Effective January 15, 2000, the restriction of registering
domain names for two years at a time has been lifted. You can
now register domain names from one to ten years, in one year
increments, up to a maximum of ten years. The following text is
taken directly from the ICANN NSI-Registrar License and
Agreement, located at:
http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-rla-04nov99.htm
2.3. New Architectural Features. NSI will use its best
commercial efforts to develop and implement two additional
modifications to the Licensed Product by January 15, 2000 as
follows:
2.3.1. NSI will issue an upgrade to the Licensed Product that
will enable a Registrar to accept initial domain name
registrations or renewals of a minimum of one year in length, or
in multiples of one year increments.
2.3.2. NSI will issue an upgrade to the Licensed Product that
will enable registrars to accept the addition of one additional
year to a registrant's "current" registration period when a
registrant changes from one registrar to another.
In no event shall the total unexpired term of a registration
exceed ten (10) years.
So there you have it folks, right from ICANN themselves. If you
have a lot of domain names - like me - you may want to keep them
reserved one a year at a time, to keep your costs down. Or, if
you have a company name not likely to be sold in the future, you
can register it for 10 years at a big savings off of the regular
price.
After digging and digging around, at several ICANN accredited
registrars, I was hard pressed to find even one that allowed
anything but the old two year registrations. I did finally find
one Canadian company that does one to ten year registrations
(partnered with Melbourne IT an ICANN accredited registrar). The
fact that they have a shopping cart to allow multiple
registrations and a real time database is just the icing on the
cake.
https://secure.kudosnet.com/domain/k2/r.dmc/
With 21 domain names to register, I'm happy to say that I saved
over $600 US by being able to register them for a single year,
instead of two, and I submitted them all with a single mouse
click.