My experience with Cosmotown: > 1 year in

[twiki]

In short, overall positive.

I'm going to outline both pros and cons though here.

I started using them over 1 year ago. For the moment I have 1800 names at Cosmotown (out of 5k+)

This registrar has been growing lately, kinda doubled in names from where I started using them.

Please note that minor technical issues can happen, like CC not working sometimes. I use Paypal with them. Edit: and account funds

Price is unbeatable as you can see. Might be useful in such rough times (I admit it's my reason for be in)

Interface works smooth in general. There are still some rough edges here and there in the user panel, such as bulk domain search where you must actually separate domains with comma (gave them suggestions to improve this).

Definitely needs some new features. The basic functions are however already in. Including bulk domain edit added recently (I have asked for that). As far as I know they are actively working on new features.

Tip: On the home page, you have to type something in the search first and not just copy paste, otherwise it will not work. (copy protection thing)

Problems: I had minor technical issues now and then, but got help from support. No significant issues transferring in and out though except with one .ORG domain that might be an issue with the registry in the end. Anyway in this regard I've had about the same experience as with the other registrars I use.

Some perks for larger investors, see the discount thing they just posted.

Service quality / support: In line with cost. See below.

Cons: One has to be aware though that you can't get perfect service for a very low amount, like I said in the past for Sav when they changed interface and everyone was pissed, I chilled and waited for them to fix. Didn't have access to my names at all for 2 weeks at Sav.

Anyway - you need to expect some minor issues here and there, with a bottom cost registrar. With Cosmotown, got issues fixed in 1-2 days max depending on the case.

Pros: Cosmotown support has always helped though. Expecting it to improve with time as they are actively developing and investing right now as far as I can tell. Again be patient and chill - my solution for everything with registrars....

Edit: There is no integration with Afternic Fast Transfer and Sedo MLS yet. Possibly coming in the future, I know they are looking into it.

End note: I know some other users have had their issues, so anyway do your own diligence. I'm only sharing my personal experience so far.

Good luck to everyone and wish you fresh sales soon.

Edit: feel free to comment and post your own experience, good or bad below. Also if there is any question please ask.

 

[Achumi]

Their site is working and has been working most of the time. I've been using it, using it right now.

This being said, use a VPN to connect from a different ISP or country.

You might have an ISP block in their cloud protection, reasons can be various.

Thanks for helping me out!
I think the Indian government has blocked Cosmotown along with 3-4 other registrars.

 

[DomainNature]

Thanks for helping me out!
I think the Indian government has blocked Cosmotown along with 3-4 other registrars.

Try access it using Epic browser with Proxy switch enabled or use VPN, but VPN cost money, use Epic browser for free.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Also if you have great names, again, they will wait for them for a week. Or even all through the 60-day lock without a sweat. Have seen this plenty of times already.

Thanks for taking the time to start this discussion, and to reply to various points.

People are so used to getting things instantly, have you had issues with a sale, say at Dan or a brandable place like SH or BB, that the buyer or the marketplace complains about the 5 business day wait since the transfer cannot be expedited?

-Bob

 

[twiki]

I have begin to like Cosmotown, they have bulk forward, which SAV did not implemented yet.
Only they would have to fix the sorting of domains, it's always set to low quantity to display, it must memorize it somehow.

They have good intent and taking care if you ask me.

However their way ahead is long now, probably needs a revamp like Sav had, remember the mayhem after the new interface? Anyway I know they are working on everything however it will take some time.

Thanks for taking the time to start this discussion, and to reply to various points.

People are so used to getting things instantly, have you had issues with a sale, say at Dan or a brandable place like SH or BB, that the buyer or the marketplace complains about the 5 business day wait since the transfer cannot be expedited?

-Bob

No I haven't about that.

However I had one client give up. They wanted to transfer before 60-day lock, and they felt that is too long. Insisted on transferring right away on some other registrar...

Dumb choices if you ask me.

 

[Recons.Com]

So here GD claims that FT gets you 3x eyeballs in registrar/partner search path

And here please not the difference between Standard and Premium showing as 15%. So my 20-25% includes some of the syndication effect that gets covered by Standard as well.

Even 10-15% lost in sales for me makes quite a large amount that cannot be covered by cost savings, not speaking of all the admin hassle of going after those.

 

[Recons.Com]

Someone ( significant investor here) had, but it's from several years ago and can't remember anymore who . This is why I mentioned Abdul Basit, maybe he'll come in and remembers or maybe he is the one I saw it from originally.



What I mean, this was probably a way to convince more domainers to enroll in FT. Possibly just originally. (EDit: Afternic website is so outdated by now...)

Maybe the effect was there years ago, but it isn't that much anymore. I personally don't see how it could be anymore. 3x? Where from? There's absolutely no reason for such a significant impact as long as the domains are listed on all major sites.

The impediment of say 24-hour transfer is not that big for a buyer, so it can be of 20% of impact.



Ah, I do have my own beliefs as well... we all have. Religiously, sometimes

For me, what really adds up and eats from the bottom line is domain cost, base .COM price and renewals. Especially in these times.

So I think we all have our own choices to live by, and that's just fine.

I understand your cost concerns. Not sure though how much you are saving by moving into a little known registrar, as what matters is the incremental saving. I am sure though that one lost sale would wipe out all the savings for you. And that is without factoring in the cost of your time dealing with transfers, dealing with issues, with manual sales etc.

Btw, my renewal costs are already over quarter of a million. I don't look at costs as a separate thing existing by itself. What matters is the margin. If margins are good, more costs mean more profits.

 

[Recons.Com]

That's true. My margin is not that good at this time (it used to be very good before mid-2022 or so).

I hope you are right. Because if you are, I've just found a goldmine and I'd be very thankful.

Next task for me: I will do a sales analysis these days over my past 2 year sales and see whether there's a correlation between sales and registrar having FT or not. While this is not going to be 100% science, it might tell me whether I need to take FT more seriously.

That is a good idea. I have never done the test, but empirically felt that names at Epik or Dynadot sold worse for me. Given that I never had more than couple of hundred names with those, it could be just coincidence.

So, as soon as Epik had FT/Paypal problems, I moved the names back with GD. As for Dyna, I use it mostly for non-com names that GD is overpricing even with Discount Club, like .org, .tv.

 

[DomainNature]

ProtonVPN is free with 3 countries (US, UK and Germany).

Edit: You get an IP from either of these countries under the free tier. I've used it in a couple emergency cases, it works quite acceptable as speed.

Thanks to this ProtonVPN i found out that I was blocking it on 3 of my websites, which were real humans using VPN, the thing i was blocking was WOW64 which is used by this software, I see that Namepros is blocking all the free IP's of it and can't browse the forums with VPN turned on.

 

[twiki]

Thanks to this ProtonVPN i found out that I was blocking it on 3 of my websites, which were real humans using VPN, the thing i was blocking was WOW64 which is used by this software, I see that Namepros is blocking all the free IP's of it and can't browse the forums with VPN turned on.

You might want to get a paid version VPN, it's useful . like $5 per month or so.

I use NordVPN but Proton is also an option. Nord however now offers mesh VPN network for free which is a big asset.

 

[twiki]

I just found out this from Cosmotown team directly:

- They currently have implemented Sedo MLS Platinum internally.

It is not launched yet; being soft tested now. So they are already accepted in the Sedo network. A beta it might be released very soon. Again this is implemented, in testing.

- They are also currently implementing the next step, white label + Fast transfer feature will be launched after that. (dunno exactly what white label is, but Fast transfer - yeah we all know that). Guess it's the superior level of Premium SedoMLS overall.

I don't have an exat timeline, they will announce it but it shouldn't take long from now given the stage. I knew they been working on this since the beginning of this year but I just am now allowed to share.

Anyway this ain't anything official, just a sneak preview for now.

 

[NicTraders]

There definitely seem to be some issues accessing Cosmotown, which is a bit of a concern. When using PC I get this with Chrome:

and with Firefox:

It DOES load correctly using a different internet provider on my phone, so it seems to be related to some sort of filtering with the internet provider?... But the message seems to indicate it's some SSL config issue. However I do not get this issue with any other website I go to, so one would wonder why the Cosmotown site has this problem?...

@Cosmotown - any comments?...

 

[NicTraders]

There definitely seem to be some issues accessing Cosmotown, which is a bit of a concern. When using PC I get this with Chrome:
Show attachment 234206

and with Firefox:
Show attachment 234207

It DOES load correctly using a different internet provider on my phone, so it seems to be related to some sort of filtering with the internet provider?... But the message seems to indicate it's some SSL config issue. However I do not get this issue with any other website I go to, so one would wonder why the Cosmotown site has this problem?...

@Cosmotown - any comments?...

@Cosmotown you have never commented on this, though the issue persists. Surely there must be something up with your config that means yours is the only website that gives me these errors. And even on my phone pages take ages to load and sometimes give 504 Gateway Time-out errors.

 

[Cosmotown]

I tried yesterday and today and continue to get 504 errors. I can't even view a list of my domains. Unfortunately I have no option but to transfer out my domains as I need to be able to administer them. I contacted Support to request the authcodes but they told me the website was now working and I could access them there. Nope - more 504 errors. I have now sent off a second request for Support to provide a list of Auths.
Cosmo is going to lose all their customers if they can't get this sorted. Cheap registrations don't mean much if you can't access your account.

Hi, NicTraders!

Our team is vigorously working to fix this issue ASAP. We are very sorry that you are encountering this.

Regarding your request to support for auth codes, can you please send us your ticket number? We will have our support team look into it

 

[NicTraders]

Hi, NicTraders!

Our team is vigorously working to fix this issue ASAP. We are very sorry that you are encountering this.

Regarding your request to support for auth codes, can you please send us your ticket number? We will have our support team look into it

PM sent. thank you.

 

[Rhinnnn]

As far as I know, not yet.

Thanks. I was thinking of giving them a try but now I'm not so sure.

 

[doangmain]

Hello sir!, i want to ask something, maybe you all can help me. I'm a beginner in Afternic, almost a week ago I made a domain for sale, and yesterday I got an E-Mail that my domain has been sold. in the E-mail were instructed "Remove all registrar locks from the domain" and "Retrieve the authorization code exactly as provided to you". I am very confused about this, where can I "Remove all registrar lock" on Afternic and get the "Auth-Code" from the domain I am selling?

 

[twiki]

Hello sir!, i want to ask something, maybe you all can help me. I'm a beginner in Afternic, almost a week ago I made a domain for sale, and yesterday I got an E-Mail that my domain has been sold. in the E-mail were instructed "Remove all registrar locks from the domain" and "Retrieve the authorization code exactly as provided to you". I am very confused about this, where can I "Remove all registrar lock" on Afternic and get the "Auth-Code" from the domain I am selling?

Hi, this is not a beginner support thread. You're completely offtopic here.

Ask your question in the appropriate forum section (beginners).

 

[Achumi]

I haven't been able to login to my account on Cosmotown for a month now. It always says "Login Error" and I want @Cosmotown to help me fix this issue.

 

[twiki]

I haven't been able to login to my account on Cosmotown for a month now. It always says "Login Error" and I want @Cosmotown to help me fix this issue.

Have you even tried to create a support ticket?

That's how things are done at Cosmotown.

Side note support tickets are NOT using the same login, you create an support account on Zendesk, check help.

 

[Achumi]

Have you even tried to create a support ticket?

That's how things are done at Cosmotown.

Side note support tickets are NOT using the same login, you create an support account on Zendesk, check help.

The site's not loading.

 

[twiki]

The site's not loading.

Their site is working and has been working most of the time. I've been using it, using it right now.

This being said, use a VPN to connect from a different ISP or country.

You might have an ISP block in their cloud protection, reasons can be various.

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks for helping me out!
I think the Indian government has blocked Cosmotown along with 3-4 other registrars.

Could you try again using any of these public recursive nameservers?

You have to configure these first on your phone or computer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_recursive_name_server

 

[DomainNature]

I have begin to like Cosmotown, they have bulk forward, which SAV did not implemented yet.
Only they would have to fix the sorting of domains, it's always set to low quantity to display, it must memorize it somehow.

 

[twiki]

For me, personally, fast transfer is a must for using a registrar.

I don't know where 1-2% comes from, I would estimate its impact as 20%-25%.

Have you made long-running split tests on that? Thanks

 

[Recons.Com]

Have you made long-running split tests on that? Thanks

It makes sense to do split test for the situation where you want to find out if option A is better/=/worse than option B. In this case, the matter is incremental. I.e. FT is better, but by how much? So, it is not a priority. And it might result in financial loss for me, if I do large scale and long test. Let's say, the effect is 20%. If I take out 5000 names out of FT for half a year, that could result in a loss of 10 sales or $20k-30k for me. Even at smaller scale, it will be loss in thousands, if not tens.

Now, where the 20-25% I mentioned comes from:

Let's say overal STR is 1%.

Let's assume, about 50% of it comes from registrar pathway and another 50% from direct type-in (landers).

Let's assume about 40%-50% of registrar/partner pathway is coming from FT network.

50%*40%=20%, 50%*50%=25%.

It is also indirectly confirmed for me after Namecheap started prioritizing Sedo over Afternic. I probably have had around 15 NC sales like that in the past year. Some of it (not all) is also captured in the sales where after Afternic FT sale you immediately get GD "sorry to see you go" email, meaning the name was sold via partner registar and they also chose to capture the customer for themselves. And it is definitely all in single digits.