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Namecheap DNS robust enough? (24)

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Am I making a mistake by using Namecheap for DNS?

Noticed some anomalies in the data that was coming in and saw some slowness when resolving my tracking server's domain name. I did a 'dig ns' on my tracking domain and the first two DNS servers are dns5.registrar-servers.com and dns2.registrar-servers.com.

Checked Namecheap's site and they were showing both DNS2 and DNS5 were down. Tried doing DNS queries of my tracking domain through various third-party servers and they were all taking about 5-7 seconds to complete.

Is Namecheap a robust enough DNS provider or should I look for something more stable? (cue the obligatory "use BeyondHosting!" posts. I know.)

Thanks

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i would setup my own nameservers..namecheap does have some dns problems from time to time

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I use namecheap's free service for most of my DNS needs. However for a few very important domains I've used AWS' Route 53 (just lowered their pricing) and DNSMadeEasy. No real complaints about either, but it is important to note that AWS has had some stability issues... but nothing related to Route 53 that I can think of.

Good DNS related info here: http://dnscomparison.com/speed.html

EDIT: By the way, do not "setup your own nameservers". What that really means is just pointing your own subdomain to your host's nameservers. It's stupid, and slow.

Aside from being reliable, you also want your nameserver to be FAST. I'm sure a lot of people already know this, but what a nameserver does is tells the client computer what IP to find a domain's content on. So when a user wants to go to youraffiliatedomain.com, they have to first look up the nameservers for your domain, then ask those nameservers what IP your domain (or subdomain) corresponds to. All that has to happen before the user even tries to connect to your server to request the content on your domain. So, speed is very important.

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http://www.opendns.com/

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Speed was my other concern. I've used DNSMadeEasy in the past for some of my non-affiliate business and I know they have a solid IP Anycast infrastructure that has good global reach. I don't know that Namecheap has the same thing.

I looked into Amazon Route53 but the tools weren't quite as user-friendly as I would've liked last time I checked.

Probably make the switch to DNSMadeEasy if Namecheap keeps dropping the ball.

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outside of opendns which is an OK solution, my friend owns DNS.COM which I've been using a few thousands of my domains which also allows you to do geo-filtering @DNS level..

i.e. I have domains with international and US traffic ,now I can park my domains how I usually do and then filter certain countries (even down to city level) and provide 301 redirects to co-regs

lmk if you need a hook up...

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heres a great way of testing various DNS services:

http://cloudharmony.com/speedtest/run

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I don't know if AWS has a web interface for managing Route53 yet, but I use http://code.google.com/p/nephelai/ (formally MyR53DNS) to manage my Route53 zones.

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nice one kyle. whats the main + of the aws dns service in your experience? and when you mention "impotant domains" what do you mean - ie what makes them important enough to get the Route53 treatment?

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Main plus of Route53 would be that it's on a very fast anycast network and has been 100% reliable for me. I use it for domains for which a shitstorm would ensue if they went down... offers that have other people running paid traffic to them, domains that have paid traffic going to it that I'm not able to stop quickly, etc. I really should use it for everything under my control, it's just that namecheap's DNS is just so damn easy since I have all my (and a4d's) domains there.

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I have used dnsmadeeasy for 3 years. They have great service and they have a cool failover feature as well. Well worth the money to have a good DNS service like dnsmadeeasy

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so are most of you using external dns services like dnsmadeeasy or the domain registrars nameservers? personally i have created my own namservers with liquidweb..but after reading this thread i'm not sure anymore if thats a good solution.

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all of mine are with namecheap.....time to reconsider though

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Would the ultimate speed not be serving creatives from an IP rather than on a domain?
Or how about using the free version of Cloudflare.com as NS, they are anycast and you can turn off the CDN part if you want and just use their NS.

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in theory yes - going direct to the ip will increase speed. But it might not help with clicks/conversions as it comes across less legit. So i guess its a case of testing. You can go with IP initially, and then when you have a campaign that works splittest a domain or 2.

Im not familiar with cloudfkare

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I use the domain registar's dns servers anyway, I bet they have about few hundred thousand of domains with them, so the name servers should be clustered and able to handle the load

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Or they are heavily overloaded but work and that's good enough for the 25 cents a year profit your domain name makes them...

I've benchmarked dns querys with namecheap and its hit or miss. Most of the time they have at least one nameserver down or responding blank querys.

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which ones best in your view tyler?

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when doing benchmark, you will notice certain server which located in somewhere will fail to response due to geographical location or network issue. For the downtime, maybe they are doing maintenance, anyway for your domain's dns, always specify minimum 2 dns entries for name resolution redundancy. Hope they know domain registration is a volume based business, whose domain owner easily switch to another registrar if get pissed like what happen to the GoDaddy owner few months ago.

I won't worry about name (dns) server, as tons of people using the same servers for their domains, I guess the admin won't be so dumb to lose his job because offline those dns servers. but for web server, a slowdown is a BIG NO NO. Nginx, litespeed, varnish cache come to rescue. PS : sorry to Apache lover.

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i got my tracking domain at namecheap along with the positive SSL

when setting up with beyond hosting for cpvlab, i was instructed to do "Nameserver Registration" and point ns1 and ns2 to an ip

now my custom DNS servers are
ns1.mydomain.com
ns2.mydomain.com

is this not ideal?


thanks for answering!!!

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@harrypotter, if you going to host your domain with a hosting company, which mean the hosting company manage your domain, you need to point the ns1 and ns2 to the web server ip given by the hosting company

else, you want to host the domain with domain registar, just point your domain and subdomains to your web server ip which is given by the hosting company, the web server will know to answer the web request from the domain once configured.

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hey hd2010,

my domain is for cpvlab and it is my tracking domain being hosted at beyond hosting. i pointed ns1 and ns2 to the ip provided by beyond hosting...

i am a little confused because apparently now i am using the VPS for my DNS, which I have never done before.

I have always used my hosting company's nameservers, never my own nameservers.

is using the VPS for my DNS ideal??

if not, i want to make the switch to what is suggested in this thread ASAP!

i am trying to understand the above statement can you explain this again? sorry for the trouble...

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ok here is how dns ( domain name server ) work, dns exist because it is used for translating your cooldomain.com into ip and vice versa, so the dns records needed to host somewhere, whether on your domain registar's nameserver or your hosting company nameserver, it is ok to hosted your own dns on your vps, but I would prefer to let 3rd party host my domain, so my vps is free from doing name resolution.

how dns work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm

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great! getting it

back to this thread and the discussion about who to go with for 3rd party to host the dns.

please excuse my newbie questions everyone...

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