Yearly plug for Gandi.net

After getting an email reminder, I just renewed my domain name for another year. As I did so, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to put up a quick blog post about how much I love my registrar, Gandi.net. I really, really do. I’ll say up front, among cheap registrars they’re not the cheapest — especially for we Americans, who bear the brunt of the poor exchange rate. Gandi is a French company, and their costs are given in euros (12, to be exact). After VAT, my cost came to about $18.54 for a year’s stake.

This is not bad, though, when one considers what one’s getting. There is the unquantifiable benefit, for instance, of getting this in your mailbox:

Cher client,Vous recevez ce message car vous êtes contact de facturation des domaines listés ci-dessous (voir tout en bas du message, après la partie anglaise). …

(La partie anglaise, of course, comes second, yet is perfectly translated).

What I’m most fond of, though, is how rarely I hear from Gandi at all. This site is the epitome of “file-and-forget” service. Their flawless performance shows in the fact that I have probably visited them six times in the past twelve months. The site’s recently gone through a redesign, but even now with its Web 2.0-certified colors, it doesn’t hide the key information I’m looking for. I also appreciate the site’s dual modes, willing either to walk you through your first domain registration and setup, or step out of the way and present all (all) the technical options you might need. This carries through to the domain itself — unlike some others, Gandi doesn’t insist on acting as the steward of your domain, but rather sticks whatever information you give it on whois. It will, however, offer a private email address if you don’t want to list yours publicly.

Basically, Gandi is a great, no-nonsense domain registrar. I hope they continue to grow, as I intend to be a longtime customer!