HowTo Use NameCheap.com

2016 Update: DO NOT USE NAMECHEAP (Because they are crooks!)

They now use the WhoisGuard scam to extort money from customers. Furthermore, Namecheap is listed under "Enom" since they are just an Enom reseller.

See our Switch to NameSilo Wiki page on how to transfer your domain names from NameCheap, Doster, or another Registrar that uses the WhoisGuard Fraud and Extortion Tactic on their customers. Not all registrars are doing this dishonest practice, but many are. Don't get taken in, it is not a means to true ICANN com pliancy.

Now to explain further...

NameCheap WhoisGuard Privacy Scam

In late 2015 NameCheap aka eNom domain registrar started to suspend user accounts for noncompliance of the ICANN valid whois public contact information policy. However, NameCheap eNom will provide a service, at additional cost, to obscure your whois contact information with their own, and they call this WhoisGuard. This makes no sense, since people were simply creating alias contact information in the past for their own privacy, but now through this trickery you have to pay for this or have your domain randomly suspended without prior notification. Either way, it is not a valid whois contact and therefore the NameGuard is just as much a violation of the ICANN rule, however, ICANN has no true enforcement ability. ICANN relies on the Registrar to enforce the ICANN requirement. So, sleazy registrars such as NameCheap aka eNom observed an opportunity to increase their revenue by strong arm tactics. They started to suspend customer domain services and hold hostage the domain unless the customer agrees to pay extra for the NameGuard service, or expose their personal contact information. For the private citizen this exposes their own home residence and phone, possibly creating a danger to their family, including children.

NameCheap is a terrible company. They suspend the domain, and then blame ICANN. It is dishonest. ICANN has no enforcement power. It is a mafia like tactic to bully individual customers into paying extra for an addon service that does nothing more than obscure the personal contact information, something the individual could do themselves before. Even with WhoisGuard, the customer is still in clear violation of ICANN policy. It is a total scam! Do not be scammed! Do not do business with NameCheap, eNom, or any other registrar that uses this dishonest tactic. New customers will receive a free year of the so called WhoisGuard privacy, but then find that an extra fee is added to their account each year on auto-renewal unless they are aware of it and manually opt-out. This is anther dishonest tactic known as the hidden fee.

NameCheap New "Premium DNS" Scam

Update: As of March, 2016 NameCheap / eNom has added yet another scam to extort money from customers. Customers using their free DNS services now will find it to become unreliable. To address this, as they claim, customers can pay EXTRA MONEY for their good DNS service. They call this their new "Premium DNS."

Manage Free DNS for domains not registered with namecheap, but already using namecheap freedns

A. Locate FreeDNS for Hosted Domains Management Interface

1. Locate "My Account" which is part of the blue graphic menu at the top reading Domains, Email [...] My Account. It is a drop down menu.

2. In the "My Account" drop down menu choose "Manage Domains".

3. Locate the lavender colored vertical menu on the left of the page with the headings: Domain Names, FreeDNS, Transfers, WhoisGuard, Others.

4. Choose "Hosted Domains" under the FreeDNS heading. You will now see domains not registered with namecheap, but having dns using namecheap.

B. Set up a domain name a and cname.

1. For hostname @ enter the IP address, Choose "A (Address)" and a TTL of 3600 2. For www - note, we are forced to use an A record for www on namecheap. Do not attempt to set up www as a cname, even though it would be more correct according to rfc. enter an IP address , Choose "A (Address)" and a TTL of 3600 3. You may enter any host A record, such as "virtualhost" , Choose "A (Address)" and a TTL of 3600 4. You may set up any alias cname records, such as FTP

C. Set up domain email.

1. click the radio button "User Simplified (One Mail Server IP Address Required) " 2. click blue "save changes" button and wait for page to reload, showing new fields. 3. enter the IP for scorpion.robotz.com which is 206.222.205.90 and MX REF "0" and TTL "3600" 4. click blue "save changes" button

Manage DNS for domains registered with namecheap

• Updated 1/2014 for new Namecheap web interface

1. After you have authenticated and find yourself in the new dashboard interface, you can navigate to the "Your Domains" page by one of various means:
   1. You can: under the account information box in the middle left there is a heading "Number of domains in your account" with an option to "view," click that option
   2. -or- in the top left of the black menu bar you will see your name preceded by the word "Hi" which when clicked activates a drop down menu with the option "Manage Domains"
   3. -or- on the right there is a lavender colored box with "more links," simple click "Your Domains / Products"
2. In the middle main area choose your domain by clicking on the domain name. Click the "Edit Selected >>" button.
3. Locate the lavender colored vertical menu on the left of the page with the headings: General, Email Management, Host Management, Advanced Options, and Miscellaneous.
4. Choose "All Host Records" under Host Management heading.

Transfer DNS of domain registered elsewhere to NameCheap FreeDNS

1. From the namecheap homepage there is a blue menubar across the top of the screen which has the following options: Domains, Email, Web Hosting, SSL Certificates, Products, Marketplace, More... , and My Account. Choose PRODUCTS.

2. From under the PRODUCTS menu choose FreeDNS

3. Enter the domain name you wish to have NameCheap Free DNS services on. example: foobar.com

4. Click the GET DNS button

5. Make sure you see a message indicating availability, example: [x] foobar.com can be added to our system

6. Click the blue button that says "Add DNS Service for Selected Domains >>>"

7. At your current registrar, point your host to the nameservers:

   freedns1.registrar-servers.com
   freedns2.registrar-servers.com
   freedns3.registrar-servers.com
   freedns4.registrar-servers.com
   freedns5.registrar-servers.com

Transfer domain from Dotster to Namecheap (entire process)

• It is recommended that this is done prior to 30 days left in the domain before expiration.
• It is assumed you already have both a Dotster and Namecheap account.
• Updated 1/2014 for new Namecheap web interface.

1. Log on to dotster.com

2. unlock each domain you wish to transfer. This can be done for all domains at the same time.

3. Under Dotster's domain central, select one of the transfer domains, and choose "transfer". Click "Send Auth-Info Code". Under the new dotser interface, these options are all available after clicking the + plus icon by the domain name. Each domain auth code has to be sent manually, and will be emailed to you. Make sure the EMAIL ADDRESS associated with your domain is active!

4. Wait about 10 minutes* for the auth code(s) to arrive by email. Once you have an auth code for each domain you want to transfer, and have verified that the domain is not locked, proceed to the next step.

5. Log on to namecheap.com with username password (if you have an account)

6. From the namecheap homepage there is a horizontal list of drop down menus across the top right in a white strip. It has these drop-downs: Domains, Hosting, Websites, Security and Menu. Move pointer to expand DOMAINS and select "Transfer."

7. In the area below the white strip of drop-down menus is a region with a very busy and distracting background with a bold face white title, "Transfer a Domain." Enter domain or domain names in box and click the bright orange TRANSFER button.

There is a "bulk transfer" option allowing you to transfer more than one domain at a time

8. Viewing page to verify domains are transferable. Click ADD TO CART. Now click VIEW CART.

9. Viewing Shopping Cart page. From here click on the "Set EPP Code" link next to each domain in your cart. Each EPP code will be unique. Click "Confirm Order" and pay by your choice of payment method.

10. Go to the Namecheap "dashboard" and looking for "Transfer requests in progress" under ACCOUNT INFORMATION. You can use the "status" link to monitor the transfer progress.

- Within a few hours you will receive an email from NameCheap for each domain. You must click on a link in each in the email and from the web page it loads, select "I Approve - Please renew/transfer ..." NOTE: The web page FQDN has been http://transfer-approval.com/

- Check back daily. Any problems with the transfer will be indicated in the "Domain Transfers in Progress" screen. It will take several days for the transfer to take place.

- As of 2014 NameCheap is still affiliated with eNom. The web interface for confirmation will show the codes for eNom, and/or NameCheap.

• Transfer Away request has been received for the domain email from: "Transfer" <do_not_reply@ns-not-in-service.com> or the source domain is transfers.domain.com - this is a legitimate email from Dotster. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK in the email! The email clearly says "If you want to proceed with this transfer, you do not need to respond to this message." By clicking the link you risk cancellation of the transfer. This email typically comes several days after you initially started the transfer process. It is an indicator that the transfer process is proceeding normally.

*. When a customer requests a domain transfer code to transfer to another registrar, Dotster delays for about 10 minutes before sending the code. Customers cannot do a bulk auth code request, however, individual auth codes can be requested, one at a time during the same session. Each auth code will arrive in a separate email message with the corresponding domain name indicated in the message.

*. Dotster is affiliated with domain.com. Transfer away messages will appear to come from domain.com and in a whois search the registrar may appear as either DOTSTER, INC. or DOMAIN.COM, LLC.

*. Namecheap.com is affiliated with ENOM, INC. and in a whois search the registrar may appear as ENOM, INC.

Tips for using Namecheap DNS Hosting Modify Domain Interface

There are a few basic tips for using this web interface to avoid errors with your domain.

• A recommended TTL is "3600".
• CNAME (Alias) record types should point to IP ADDRESS/ URL like: "host.domain.com." Specifically, do not simply enter a host, you must enter host + domain and if you forget the trailing period (.) it will be added automatically on save.
• Only one mail server? Use "User Simplified (One Mail Server IP Address Required)" which creates a record MXE. Use recommended MX PREF "0" and TTL "3600".
• Set www as an A record.

Popular Domain Registrars

A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registry or a country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) registry. The management is done in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries. Originally all domains were registered though Internic, then Network Solutions, and now there are several competing registrars in an open marketplace.

Top 5 Registrar services

The Good

1. Name Silo best value, low cost, free DNS and Free Contact Privacy WhoisGuard

The Bad

1. Namecheap - NO LONGER RECOMMENDED, unless you like to have your domain names constantly suspended even though you have paid. 2015 - they now use the WhoisGuard scam to extort money from customers

1. Dotster - New control interface, now offering free DNS too. 2015 - they now use the WhoisGuard scam to extort money from customers

Other Registrars

1. Network Solutions - not a good value, but the oldest and lest likely to go defunct.
2. Name.com - another popular registrar.
3. 1&1 - offering low cost email and hosting starting at a dollar.

*. Top 5 picks selected by affiliate author review (www.techreviewcentral.com).

Comment

In late 2015 NameCheap aka eNom domain registrar started to suspend user accounts for noncompliance of the ICANN valid whois public contact information policy. However, NameCheap eNom will provide a service, at additional cost, to obscure your whois contact information with their own, and they call this WhoisGuard. This makes no sense, since people were simply creating alias contact information in the past for their own privacy, but now through this trickery you have to pay for this or have your domain randomly suspended without prior notification. Either way, it is not a valid whois contact and therefore the NameGuard is just as much a violation of the ICANN rule, however, ICANN has no true enforcement ability. ICANN relies on the Registrar to enforce the ICANN requirement. So, sleazy registrars such as NameCheap aka eNom observed an opportunity to increase their revenue by strong arm tactics. They started to suspend customer domain services and hold hostage the domain unless the customer agrees to pay extra for the NameGuard service, or expose their personal contact information. For the private citizen this exposes their own home residence and phone, possibly creating a danger to their family, including children.

NameCheap is a terrible company. They suspend the domain, and then blame ICANN. It is dishonest. ICANN has no enforcement power. It is a mafia like tactic to bully individual customers into paying extra for an addon service that does nothing more than obscure the personal contact information, something the individual could do themselves before. Even with WhoisGuard, the customer is still in clear violation of ICANN policy. It is a total scam! Do not be scammed! Do not do business with NameCheap, eNom, or any other registrar that uses this dishonest tactic.

Additional Resources

HowTo Use NameCheap.com covers many of the common tasks associated with domain transfer and management within this registrar. Namecheap not only offers domain name registration, the company offers DNS hosting at no additional cost. Their DNS management tool is also covered in the guide.