I finally got my domain redirected to my SBI site. I just had to call my registrar (enom) and tell them what I wanted to do.
Gee, that sounds simple enough, but it took me at least 2-3 hours sniffing around on the SBI forums, help and the Google apps trying to figure out what to do. Argh. What was really irritating was that I had figured out how to redirect to a Typepad site in much less time, thanks to Typepad's superior help.
While on the subject of domains, what about registration? I registered 64mascots through Google because it was only $10/year w/WHOIS privacy. I did that a few days before going w/SBI so I couldn't transfer 64mascots to SBI yet. (Turns out I probably won't transfer it anyway because it seems to be a pain to transfer domains.) Because I'm on a timeline to get 64mascots up, I registered 64-mascots through SBI, with no WHOIS privacy.
That brings me to the question of where to buy related domains to redirect to my SBI site.
I have a few unrelated domains registered through at&t for about $22 a year per domain, including WHOIS privacy. (It seems keeping your info private on WHOIS usually runs about $9/year.) A few years ago when I registered those domains I chose at&t because they were my phone provider. I knew I could buy a domain cheaper somewhere but I didn't want the hassle of dealing with one more company.
Turns out that hunch was probably right, though I went against it when I registered with Google to save a few dollars. Google's interface was horrible to navigate and the enom interface (when I finally found it) wasn't user friendly for someone with limited backend site experience. Additionaly, when I tried to get help for enom and Google they seemed to send me back and forth to one another. I felt like a kid getting the runaround from one parent to another when asking for something.
I finally found a number for enom help. I had to wait on hold a while both times I called, but both times the agents were super friendly and helpful.
Thinking I should just stick with at&t, I wanted to go check out their current domain info. Nice idea, but I couldn't find the control panel for the domains. They used to have decent one for small businesses. It was nowhere to be found, despite my hour long rummaging through their site.
I finally broke down and called at&t's help number. I wasn't expecting much based on previous experiences with sbc/at&t help over the past several years. What a relief when a familiar accent answered the phone. Not only could I understand him, but he helped me find what I was looking for at http://smallbusiness.att.yahoo.com. Oddly, he was only able to help me because he had registered some domains through Yahoo a few years ago. Since I had succes w/that experience, I'll consider using at&t/yahoo to register future domains and redirect them to other sites. On the other hand, I may use SBI's Name Park It, which I did for sixtyfourmascots.com. The question would be if it's worth the nine extra dollars for the WHOIS privacy.
Another question is the ease of navigation on the SBI NPI control panel, which I haven't worked with yet. If it's not user friendly I may use at&t for redirected sites and SBI for main site registration in on any future sites.
Oy' that's a lot of thinking about domain registration and redirection.
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