WHOIS Protection

[Useless]

Who provides the least expensive WHOIS protection? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Gonzodave]

I use Namecheap. Whois protection is free for the first year with all new domain registrations and transfers to them. Then after that it's around $3.80 a year per domain for whois plus the domain cost which is pretty cheap anyway. They are cheapest that I've found so far - and a good registrar to go with it! Their prices have been steady for the three years that I've been with them and I have whois protect on all of my domains - 300+

They're definitely my recommendation!

[Useless]

Excellent. Thank you. I think I'm currently paying just as much for whois protection as I am for a domain, and that builds up. I have NameCheap account, so I should probably look at pushing some names back them.

[Cleo]

This is why I use my luna base on the dark side of the moon as my biz address.

[SheepGuy]

I just live in a small box called Unit 276, the landlord there only charges me $13 a month and I pay cash.

[faxxaff]

The cheapest whois protector I have seen is Moniker with 2 bucks a pop. However, I have heard many times, people complain about this not working all the time. In some cases you need to watch out for your real name being registered first before protection overwrites your data. Then whois history could reveal ownership.

Best way to protect your whois is starting up an anonymous entity and use it's name and address for domains. This could be an offshore company or a managed LLC in the US.

[terry]

I hated paying so much for whois so I opened a post office box and use that. I use the name of one of my sites, and its a write-off. Its also way cheaper and so far I havent had any problems.

[Nymph]

Originally Posted by terry

I hated paying so much for whois so I opened a post office box and use that. I use the name of one of my sites, and its a write-off. Its also way cheaper and so far I havent had any problems.

I do the same thing, no problems so far.

[malcarada]

The only Domain registrar that I know of offering permanent free privacy whois protection is InternetBS.net

[u-Bob]

1. If you own a couple hundred domains, most registrars will give you the whoisprivacy for free... or at least at a huge discount. Talk to your account manager.

2. $3.80 is enormously expensive for whoisprivacy. Again, talk to your account manager.

3. Be careful with Namecheap... Personally, I use them... got about 150 domains there, but I would never keep anything mission critical there (for the same reasons I wouldn't keep anything important at Godaddy).
- Prices are decent, but not great.
- Whois privacy doesn't always work (especially if you register a lot of domains at the same time... sometimes their system misses one). In the past it took about about 24hrs before it kicked in. They've fixed that now...
- Email forwarding (on whoisguard) is very flaky.
- They have a history of suspending controversial but legal domains after a single complaint.

4. to those using PO boxes: It depends why you need the whoisprivacy. If you need it to hide your identity, a PO box will do nicely. If you need it for SEO reasons, then a PO Box is useless.

5. Registrars with free privacy: Fabulous, Webair, Gandi.
REgistrars with cheap privacy: Moniker, Name (Name.com whois privacy is very flaky).

[SheepGuy]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

4. to those using PO boxes: It depends why you need the whoisprivacy. If you need it to hide your identity, a PO box will do nicely. If you need it for SEO reasons, then a PO Box is useless.

Why would anyone possibly use a PO Box for SEO reasons?

[Toby]

Originally Posted by SheepGuy

Why would anyone possibly use a PO Box for SEO reasons?

Some believe that Google discredits back links from sites owned by the same entity (IP range, physical address, etc.)

IMO, it's just voodoo SEO



Another point re: WHOIS privacy. Changing existing domains to private will not fully hide the identity of the owner. Anyone with an account at a WHOIS service that provides registration history lookups will still see the old non-private information.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Toby

Some believe that Google discredits back links from sites owned by the same entity (IP range, physical address, etc.).
IMO, it's just voodoo SEO.

I understand that Google has one algorithm whose only
function is to laugh at attempts to hide things from Google.
I believe it has an icon that looks something like this...

[Evil Chris]

name.com offers whois privacy for $1.99 on new domains and renewals.
It says that it is a "special" (regular price a whopping $7.99) but it's been there forever and I've never paid more than $1.99 for it.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by SheepGuy

Why would anyone possibly use a PO Box for SEO reasons?

SEO is all about patterns. Managing the information that is available about your sites.

We already know that Google uses tons of info (links, social media activity, keywords, keyword density, outgoing links,....). Some of the information Google is gathering or would be able to gather if they wanted to, may seem a bit far fetched. Some will just ignore it because they see no evidence that the information even matters.

Fact is: It's impossible for an SEO to know what exactly is making his sites rank. All we can do is make educated guesses. To do this we need to put ourselves in the place of the Google techs. We are the attackers, they are defending. They try to rank important sites higher than less important sites, so we try to make our sites look more important. We get more inbound links because important sites naturally get lots of inbound links. They try to detect and ignore bought links, link farms etc. We attack, they defend. To be able to defend they need to be able to detect what we are doing.

SEO is not about using that latest point and click tool but about staying ahead of the game. It's about not waiting until it's official that Google penalizes this or that. It's about hiding your tracks and taking into account the things that could be used to expose what you are doing.

Years ago, Google became a registrar. Why? for the whois info. They've already demonstrated that they take other domains owned by a webmaster into account.
Go through their patent applications... They talk about detecting whether or not sites are related base don whois info, historical whois info, affiliate ref codes(really) etc.

So, if you own lots of different domains and are interlinking them, it's a good idea to use whois privacy.

I've seen people on other forums, post that using a PO box would be a good alternative to this... Those people are obviously missing the whole point... hence my post...

[SheepGuy]

I don't spend much time worrying about SEO, sometimes I do well, sometimes I don't. I'm always a little bit amazed at the amount of time and effort some people go to chasing after this theory or that.

I have a PO Box just because I don't want my address publicly available.

[ponyman]

Been thinking about getting a PO Box myself instead of paying for privacy.

But "u-Bob"s post has got me thinking about this strategy in terms of SEO. Soon, if not, already, Google will be using WHOIS info to rank listings. So PO Box or actual address will not make a difference. (Unless you have a different address for each domain)

Adding privacy to a domain may also be looked at poorly by Google....

[Buncha]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

1. If you own a couple hundred domains, most registrars will give you the whoisprivacy for free... or at least at a huge discount. Talk to your account manager.

This is good advice, and not just for WHOIS. They'll also give you discounts for renewals and transfers. Even if you own just 50-100 domains. Contact customer service and ask them what discounts they offer. I'd also mention if you see lower prices somewhere else. They might match the price to keep your business.

Namecheap offers a bulk discount for WHOIS. They sell 5 for $7.88 ($1.58 each).

http://www.namecheap.com/products/whoisguard.aspx

[petergg2]

domainsite.com have private whois for regular price $1 and on new domains for $0,5

I have part of my domains there since many years and never have with them any problems

[secretagentwilly]

it's free with reseller club

[NALEM]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Who provides the least expensive WHOIS protection? Inquiring minds want to know.

I guess you are saying FREE WhoIs protection service.

- Yan

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by ponyman

Adding privacy to a domain may also be looked at poorly by Google....

The chances that they'll penalize it are very slim since a lot of registrars are already offering free whoisprivacy for the first year and registrars like Godaddy are actively upselling it.... It would simply result in way too many false positives.

[InfoGuy]

When you use a WHOIS privacy service, that registrar is the legal owner of your domain name(s). For those of you who use or are considering using a WHOIS privacy service, read up on the horror stories about a former top-10 registrar called "RegisterFly" that went belly up and then strongly reconsider whether you want to take the risks associated with using WHOIS privacy services.