My Experience With Indiatimes Domain Service [TDIS]

Seeing new blogs coming up everyday the writer inside me started nagging me to start my own blog. After giving it a lot of thought I finally started my journey with blogger.com. But having a blogspot.com attached to my url didn’t give that feeling of ownership. So just after a week I started looking for a custom domain. After doing a lot of research I came across a post by Rahul 8 Tips For Finding Good Domain Name. Using that as a buying guide I finally bought my first domain name from GoDaddy and started my blog KnowledgeHub. Believe me guys having your own domain name gives you an immense satisfaction and also motivates you to write regularly.

Cheap_domain_name
Cheap_domain_name

Last week I decided to add another blog to my network. Having helped my friends in buying and setting up their domains made me feel like a pro in the field of domain market, and thus I let my guard down. A big mistake.

After a lot of research, I finalized the domain I wanted. But just before hitting the buy button at GoDaddy, a “smart idea” struck me and I started looking for other cheap domain registrars. My (bad) luck, I came across Indiatimes. They were offering ‘dot in’ extension domains at half the price I was paying at GoDaddy. HALF THE PRICE !! Boy that’s lot of money !!  Without thinking further I logged out of GoDaddy and registered the domain with IndiaTimes. “HaHa, I’m a smart customer”, I told myself. A dumb statement.

Trouble started when I opened the dashboard to change dns settings, as required by blogspot. Guess what- no dns settings there !! 1 mail and 2 calls later I realized that they do not provide the Cname and A record entries access to customers, but they’ll “do the needful from their end, if I provide them the details”. Why can’t they give us the total dns control like GoDaddy ? :x. Well you can’t ask for everything at such cheap price , I tried to reason with myself. And at least they are making the changes so that’s fine.

But their next mail told me that nothing is fine. They required Google Unique String ‘which is needed for domain verification’ ! Now what’s that ! A quick call to their customer support team told me that I can get the unique string by googling about it. Boss, if someone can get their unique string just by googling it, then how can it be “unique” ? But with nothing else to do, I tried that as well. Google told me what it is, but no matter what search query I used I couldn’t find a way to get the unique string for the domain I bought. Baffled, I mailed them again, telling them that I was never asked for this string when I changed dns settings in GoDaddy, to which they replied that they will get back to me soon. I’m still to hear from them.

Its been five days since I bought the domain name and I’m yet to get the dns settings done :(. I am now considering to move my domain to GoDaddy, but after adding the transfer fees, the effective cost would come out to be more than what I would have initially paid. Looks like I wasn’t such a smart customer after all.

Lessons Learnt

1) Before buying a domain do complete research about the registrar. Ask experienced people about their opinion of different registrars.

2) Check if your registrar gives you total dns control or not.

Planning to buy a domain name ?

Before you go ahead, I recommend you to read these articles on Devils Workshop:

You can buy your domain from GoDaddy. I have bought 3 domain names from them till now and have faced no issues. A suggestion though: You might want to change the renewal process from Auto to Manual, otherwise your credit card will be charged at the time of renewal without your consent. Or better still, use virtual credit card.

24 Comments

Avi Singh February 20, 2010

Indiatimes Domain Service [TDIS}, I hear this first time…..
I am using Godaddy and m happy….
Checked your blog…I am also using Green blogger template for blogspot users..Check my edited template.

NPXP March 26, 2010

Godaddy for me as well. The rest are just not competitive enough in my views..

Anshul February 21, 2010

Good for you Avi as its not worth hearing about.. I also recommend godaddy to everyone.. got in this trap unluckily.. bt then you learn frm ur mistakes..
I checked ur blog.. u have made some good changes in the theme..

Aditya February 21, 2010

Hey Anshul,
I have one my blog registered with Indiatimes. As at that time I did not have a credit card to buy one from GoDaddy. I have had just one trouble and that too while moving that blog to another registrar. As far as I remember, there is nothing like unique string for changing DNS, at least I dont see it in the control panel.

themepremium March 8, 2010

Aditya you can try namecheap or Godaddy and pay by Paypal…
You can transfer money to your bank account and ask them to credit money into your paypal account 🙂

Simran February 21, 2010

You should have done research before buying the domain name. I’m using namecheap for all my domains.

themepremium March 8, 2010

Simran any particular reason for using namecheap over Godaddy? 🙂

Simran March 8, 2010

The main reason for buying through namecheap is that they accept payments from paypal account even if your paypal account is not linked with a credit card and the same is not possible in GoDaddy.

Anshul February 21, 2010

@ Aditya
That’s the point Aditya..there is no unique string mentioned anywhere in the control panel. There is one domain authorization code though, and I think they are referring to this as “google unique string”. I mailed them asking if this is what they require, but I haven’t heard from them till now.

@ Simran
I agree buddy. I generally do a lot of research before buying domain, except this one time, which I am repenting now. But on a positive note you gain experience from your mistakes 🙂

Richie S. February 21, 2010

Agree with @Simran,
Namecheap rules, Godaddy although has great offers et al, their interface sucks big time.

Simran February 21, 2010

@ Richie

I always bought domain names from namecheap only and I’m completely satisfied with it.

Tushar March 1, 2010

Hey Anshul,
Sad to read that Indiatimes are that bad in Domains.
I have always wondered why a Print & Television Media Company finds it a necessity to start selling Domain Names & Web Space. Too much . .

By the way,
As far I know – Yes you can get Google’s unique string. But for that you need

1. A Web space attached to the domain name you wish to verify
2. You need a Google account for http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

You can verify your site from there. They have a good details to how to do that.

I am using Net4.in services since several years. And they’re good.

Hope this helps

Anshul March 1, 2010

Thanks for the info Tushar. However, I finally got it done 3 days back :). And I agree with your thoughts on Print Media Company selling Domain names.. though it is good to expand both horizontally and vertically but before entering the market, a company should at least understand how other market players work.

Suhas March 2, 2010

NameCheap = KING!

Anyways, if you just want to set the CNAME records. Register with 000webhost.com …. configure the DNS nameservers on ur indiatimes account (I hope you can do that). After the propogation (2-3 days) .. You can change the CNAME records on the 000webhost control panel.

Anshul March 2, 2010

Thanks for that piece of information. However the issue is now resolved so won’t need to do that now. But yeah its good to know workarounds for such problems..

Hemant Pawar March 9, 2010

Hey Anshul can you post another article on How to set DNS records with Indiatimes Server!!!??…I also bought my domain from Indiatimes because I don’t have credit Card 🙁 …and I want to set CNAME, MX records without using any 3rd party website…

Bisomber March 5, 2010

@Anshul,
U love GoDaddy na ! U cannot able to transfer ur domain to other registrar until it is 60 days old. Ya, there is an interesting feature in GoDaddy, i.e, OffSite DNS. U can manage the DNS off ur domain at godaddy control panel completely free of cost, no matter u bought the domain from any where. Just logon onto the godaddy @ https://dcc.godaddy.com/default.aspx?activeview=offsitedns&sa= . Then add ur domain (add off-ste DNS) and change the name server to mns01.domaincontrol.com and mns02.domaincontrol.com at ur current (Indiatimes) registrar. Voila, It works!!!!!!!!!

Anshul March 8, 2010

Thanks Bisomber.. this will really be helpful. I’ll try this method for sure.

Hemant Pawar March 6, 2010

Have a look at this page : http://domain.indiatimes.com/WebSol/shopping/domainTransferHome.sh

the are saying that…
We offer ?

* Domain Parked Pages
* Domain Locking
* DNS Services like A, MX, AAAA, CNAME Records
* Privacy Protection
* Easy to Use Domain Control Panel and many more services. And don’t forget, we also provide some of the best prices in the Market.

Anshul March 8, 2010

That’s what lured me Hemant..

Sourish | How To Start A Blog March 8, 2010

I have done trade with indiatimes . They are good at time and bad on the other . remember , its “India” Times . so the service is according to the name. I always buy from web stuff from name[dot]com . with all those features you have mentioned in this post .

I hope you are not paid for review from IT 😉 Just a guess , dont take otherwise

regards ,
Sourish

Anshul March 8, 2010

Wish IndiaTimes was kind enough to pay me for a negative review 😛

Shrinidhi December 15, 2010

Thanks a lot man.. you dont know how much this helped. I was fed up with the inidiatimes support folks. I never was able to get through to their support executive. It always said “all executives were busy assisting other customers”. When I mailed them, I never got a reply. indiatimes sucks..!!!

Saurav January 28, 2011

Indiatimes Sucks…