About DynDNS buying up competitors and where to get free DNS hosting

For a while I have been using ZoneEdit as my DNS hosting service for name resolution. To those of you who have no idea what DNS is all about here is a very short intro: DNS (domain name system) is a Yellow Book of the internet – it matches names (such as www.google.com) to internet addresses such as (8.8.8.8) . Without DNS we would have no user friendly names for websites sites.

So, this perform this basic but very important function I have been using ZoneEdit – a company providing reliable DNS service. However a while back it announced that they have been acquired by DynDNS ( a competitor providing paid services) and will be moving to paid services for majority of its users. You see, DynDNS with their ridiculous prices could not grow while companies like ZoneEdit provided the same quality of service for free. So to remove the threat – they started buying them one by one.

When I heard of the ZoneEdit sale to DynDNS I had only one option – move DNS for my domains to another brand as even with a possibility to stay with DynDNS for a low fee – I wanted to have no business relation with the company (knowing how rotten their business practices are).

So I moved to EveryDNS – another high quality provider of free DNS services. About two years later EveryDNS announces that the company has been sold to DynDNS. While I was upset, the letter did say that all existing users will be grandfathered into the new system for free and that they will remain the use/management of their dowmains. However, three months before the EveryDNS services were to be shutdown, a new letter came in saying that for a small fee existing users can migrate to DynDNS. Not only that, but if you wanted to stay after migration – you would have to pay double of what competitors charge (About $25 a month) ! That kind of tactics is to be expected of DynDNS as they have never been able to treat customers right and as a result retain them. It took me a while to find someone who offers both free and very reasonably priced DNS hosting since all the other free providers have been bought up and shutdown by DynDNS. Since DynDNS can not compete on the quality or price, buy and kill is their only hope for growth.

However, there is another player who seems to be taking the right approach – www.Zerigo.com  provides very easy and intuitive interface for DNS configuration, free service for up-to 3 domains and paid DNS services for those who need to manage more domains under the same account or need more DNS queries per month than default 50,000 for free accounts. Those who need more – can register up-to 20 domains for only $20 a year. At the same time with DynDNS you will have to pay at least $30 for 10 domains.

I’ve setup my 3 domains within 5 minutes, updated my registrar with the new name servers and the pain of potentially dealing with DynDNS has disappeared. I really dislike companies who resort to bait-and-switch tactics and see buying and killing competition as the only way to grow.

Give www.Zerigo.com a try and by all means – stay away from DynDNS and their shady practices.