I think "Register your domains from just $3.98 a year" was better than "The Internet Needs People. To tell stories, open stores and share what matters."
Happy NameCheap customer with 35+ domains here.<p>This is the worst redesign I've seen in a long time but has a really well redesigned logo. Sorry. Looks like they're trying to fit their content in one of those Generic Fad Layout Templates you find on ThemeForest. The LOGO is awesome though.<p>● Registering a domain is now harder. Before I could select a dropdown menu and see all the TLD options. Now I can't.<p>● Did you know that NameCheap sells .es domains? Guess how many screens you have to click through to find that out.<p>● Did you know NameCheap .coms are only $10 while other sites sell them for $14. Because this design doesn't tell you anything.<p>● I have to scroll so much to get so little. White space is good in moderation but this is just overdone. There's so little content and so much white space and meaningless grey elements and slideshows and giant icons that it makes the site look sterile.<p>● There's a slideshow with only 2 slides, one of them talking about Web Hosting (to sell web hosting plans), the other about Security (to sell ssl certificates). No other data. No other info. How many people do you think are going to click the second slide and find out that NameCheap sells really cheap ssl certificates.<p>● Lots of garbage information is taking up space.<p>● Less functional than the previous design.<p>● Some of the worst copywrite I've seen. "The internet needs people" and "Getting your site online is easier than you think."<p>● It tries to advertise NameCheap (poorly) and what it does (poorly) rather than letting me do it. Look, you guys won, I'm already ON your site. Stop selling your "image" to me and start selling your products and services.<p>Hopefully when their sales drop they'll revert to the previous layout and work off of that.
Aw shucks - I thought it was a complete site overhaul judging by their new landing page.<p>It seems they took the old client area and just plopped it into an iframe. :(
As patio11 says, the margin on domains are fairly small and so many domain companies survive on the upsells instead. Verisign's current .com price is $7.85 and for .net is $5.62. This is the minimum that the registrars (GoDaddy, NameCheap etc) need to pay - so when you think that NameCheap sometimes sell .coms for $8.95, the margin really is small... especially since I've left out the $0.25 ICANN transaction fee (many companies - GoDaddy aside - include this in the overall price). So a $8.95 .com sale leaves just $0.85.<p>So it does make sense for domain companies to market themselves as sellers of an online presence, instead of a sub-$10 domain name.<p>But having said that, the website seems a tad... boilerplate. I thought that big companies were done with rebranding to a Web 2.0 esque corporate web design?<p>Also the footer is 865 pixels tall on my 1920x1080p screen - does it really need to be that big?<p>I don't mean to be too critical - I do support the change to selling a 'story' instead of a domain name. But the design just seems... outdated?
It's not too bad. Unfortunately what I <i>really</i> wanted them to change wasn't just the "face" of their website, but the <i>whole</i> website, especially the domain managing features and whatnot. Those kept the same early 2000 design. I'm hoping it's because they didn't have time to finish redesigning everything, but why not just wait until they did?
Hopefully, they get higher quality support reps with better understanding of English. I'd also like the ability to be able to call someone, that's something that GoDaddy does better. I guess they take advantage of the cheaper technical salaries in Eastern Europe though so that's why customers aren't able to talk to someone.
Oh man, it looks like iOS threw up all over this redesign. What's the extra popout menu on the right for? it's all the same stuff from your navbar. And why are all the account management tools shoved in a tiny menu in the corner of the screen even when I'm logged in?
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Hosted e-mail pricing is broken. "/yr" should change to "/<length of time>" when you change from yearly to monthly/biannual.
Just a heads up if you're planning on using namecheap. I transferred a bunch of domains (around 70 or so) and they just refused to provide me with an invoice, so I couldn't deduct the expenses from my company's taxes. They will only sent you receipts, which are completely useless if you're in EU (and I think refusing to provide an invoice is even illegal here).
It seems namecheap is more concerned about small business and/or side projects. The market for small, "I'll try this thing out" sort of people: that is the market they, NameCheap, seem to be luring. Eventually, except in rare circumstance, the sites do not do too well and are sent back into Tao.
Namecheap allowed me to escape from GoDaddy; for that alone I am deeply thankful.<p>That the transition was seemless and, well, cheap, was an added bonus.
The menu on the right cuts off at the bottom of my screen and there is no way to scroll it down. Also, the default font size is too darn big, zoom out to 75%, thats how it should look.<p>They haven't rethemed the manage pages yet, looks hilariously out of place x)