OK, the title is a bit harsh. NameSilo has long been awesome, and remains somewhat awesome. But – NameSilo has started down the slippery slope of obnoxious up-selling. It’s bad. Nowhere even close to as bad as GoDaddy (can anything be that bad?), but bad, and once started down that slippery slope, where will it end?
I registered a domain name today using my long-time go-to registrar NameSilo. I expected my usual superb experience, free of obnoxious up-selling nonsense. Nope.
I get two obnoxious, pre-selected up-sales. The first is Https (SSL) for $0.80 per month. I click the little question mark and learn that Https “Adds validity and security to your website. It is also a requirement by Google for site rankings.” The fist sentence is kinda true – though “validity” seems a stretch. The second is an outright lie. Https may slightly increase my site rankings, but is in no way a “requirement”. 80 cents a month may not seem like much, but any half-decent hosting provider these days offers Let’s Encrypt or other SSL certificate for free.
The next is “Premium” DNS for $9 per month. $9 per month! Again I click the little question mark and learn – well, nothing really – “Reduced risk of lost revenue due to DDoS attack Faster website loading time with DNS caching Extra layer of security from hackers.” I have no idea what that means. Does it mean DNSSEC? That would at least be helpful, but it doesn’t say that so probably not. Any any half-decent hosting provider these days offers solid DNS for free. If I want premium, super-fast, super-secure DNS including DNSSEC – and I do – Cloudflare offers it for free.
So, by default the cost of my monthly domain registration increases from an extremely reasonable $8.99 to more than double – an outrageous $18.79 with absolutely no added value.
It gets worse. I un-select both obnoxious up-sales. And …
I get snarky, pretentious, condescending, insulting veiled threats. “No, I’m fine without protecting” and “No, I’m fine with any loading speed”. No! I’m fine with not paying for something I can easily get for free. NameSilo seems to be saying that unless I give in to their extortion they will deliberately ensure my site is slow and insecure.
NameSilo had been awesome, providing me tremendously great service for a long time. I am not quite ready to run screaming from NameSilo even over this grievously insufferable misstep. Not just yet anyway. They have earned a chance to reconsider and reform. I’ve emailed them. If I have to move on, Cloudflare’s awesome new registrar service is waiting patiently in the batter’s box.
