Ask HN: What's the best way to register a foreign domain name? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's the best way to register a foreign domain name?

15 pointsjayro10 comments

Specifically, I'd like to register a domain name ending in .er (Eritrea). Does anyone know of a reliable and reasonably priced registrar that can facilitate this?

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If you're hoping for a great domain hack, I think you're out of luck. I don't think you can register at the second level, so you'd have to register a .com.er or similar. The Wikipedia article seems to indicate it's not a well-supported TLD at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.er

Here's the official registry: http://www.tse.com.er/aboutus.htm

They are your best (probably only) contact. It might also be worth searching namepros.com/dnforum.com to see if anyone there has had experiences with the TLD.

First, a really good site to find available domain names is http://domai.nr/

They link to a bunch of registrars, but I do have the same question, which of those registrars are a reputable.

Be careful w/ foreign domains. I bought rankin.gs (South Georgia) a couple years ago from Godaddy, developed and launched a small side project for it, and a couple of months in the .gs registry went down indefinitely.

Searches for .er are our most popular viewed results. Unfortunately, Eritrea’s TLD management is in about as solid a state as the state itself—which is to say, not very.

We’ve no anecdotal evidence of anyone managing to register an Eritrean domain name.

Funny thing though—the technical contact for the TLD is right here in SF.

Randy http://nb.io - http://domai.nr

101domain has a lot of TLDs: http://www.101domain.com/ (I've never bought a domain from them)

Do not buy from these guys or any other similar sites if you can find a person that speaks the language of the country you want to buy a domain from. For example they sell a .co.il for 65 dollars / year while you can easily find an Israeli registrar that sells for 18 dollars / year if you speak Hebrew. I also saw .co.il s selling for $200 + a couple of weeks ago on a similar site.

Yeah, I bought an .ly domain recently ... it was $199 on 101domain.com but available from the Libyan Spider network for $75 (and they're fairly reputable).

Usually, though not always, domain.tld or register.tld lead to a registration agency.

Also, try en.wikipedia.com/wiki/tld to find the official registrars site.

domai.nr

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