Yahoo is offering domain registration for $1.99 -- It seems OK to register domains here and in case you develop the site or start earning from that you can transfer to somewhere else or simply keep there. Is there any reason for not registering domain names with yahoo?
Transfer is easy but your are giving a "premium" account to access your email and all Yahoo services. Over time, if you do not cancel that account you will be charged twice, once by the new registrar service at the transfer moment, and once by Yahoo chargin the renewal even if you have moved away your domain.
The thing to do with the Yahoo domains is register a bunch of domains when you first sign up since you only get that deal for your first year (or some other timeframe, I don't recall exactly). At $2 a year it's worth it to get 5-year registrations for all of them. You'll want to transfer the domains away before that time expires because the renewal is both automatic and more expensive. I've done this with about a dozen domains. Some of them are still sitting at Yahoo and some have been transferred.
^Does that mean that when you register the domain at Yahoo for $2, you can register it for, say, 5 years @ $2 per year?
No. You can register the domain name today at X price, but the provider can charge you Y price when it's time to renew. If you object to that, you always have the option to transfer away before the domain name expires.
yahoo will charge you even if you have transferred??? sorry i'm a noobie, but that doesn't seem right to me.
Yahoo makes it difficult for you to cancel your account, so you really need to follow the procedure to cancel billing and then do the transfer to ensure you are not billed twice. The Renewal is $9.95/year http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/domains/authcode/authcode-04.html There is no fees to transfer the account although they will not proactively stop billing you until you cancel the account.
Thanks, then I can choose to register for 5 years instead of registering at other registrars at $10 for a year. If I transfer away from Yahoo, do I still need to pay Yahoo so I can transfer to another registrar?
You only get 1 domain at $1.99. If you register a second it will say $1.99 on the order but they will charge $9.99 to your credit card. If you pay for 5 years at Yahoo ($1.99) and want to transfer then you pay the new registrar for 1 year at their rate (ie $10) and get your registration extended for another year (so 6 years total at $1.99x5 + $10x1)
Like Toby said, you usually need to pay the registrar that is receiving the domain for a year of renewal. There may be registrars that give free transfers, but I don't know of any.
I've basically heard that Yahoo is much like 1and1 in that you get what you pay for and they're more hassle than they're worth. Still, it's the big Y so I'm sure they have thousands upon thousands of customers who are happy and have never used anyone else.