Digishire™ - .pl Domain Name Registration

I thought I would write up a quick domain name registrar review section regarding Poland's ccTLD .pl. I have a lot of friends and associates that are interested in investing in the domain extension, however most of them aren't sure which registrar to use. As a general rule of thumb, I usually recommend registering or hosting a domain name with a registrar that is physically located within your home country. I recommend this for two reasons, the first being payment processing related. In many cases your credit card issuer will red flag purchases that take place in a far away country, which usually results in a payment processing delay. Obviously processing delays are not good when it comes to buying, renewing, or transferring domains, as time is usually sensitive. The second reason I recommend using an in country registrar, is for legal liability reasons, specifically incase any registrar dispute arises with any domain.

My preferred domain registrar for hosting .pl domains, is the Florida based Moniker.com, which is owned by the media company Oversee.net. While their prices are higher for registering .pl domains than what you would find at a Polish based registrar, I have found them to be the best US based company that hosts the extension. As mentioned above, I like to keep my .pl domains hosted with a US based company, that way I don't run into any credit card processing issues that seem to affect me when using Poland based domain hosting entities. I also use Moniker as my main domain registrar, which means that I can keep all my many domain extensions in one place, which obviously makes organizing and managing my portfolio much easier. The only issue I have run into while hosting .pl domains with Moniker, is that the grace period after the domain expires seem way shorter than what you would find at a Poland based domain registrar.

I've used Poland's Home.pl domain registrar in the past for .pl registration and hosting, but recently I've discontinued using them for a long list of reasons. The first issue that I continually run into while using Home.pl, is that my credit card payments are either delayed due to Home.pl's payment gateway, or in some cases the payments simply don't go through without any notification whatsoever. If you have a US based credit card issuer, then you will likely experience similar issues using Home.pl. Another problem is that often times US based credit card issuers will put a temporary hold on payments to Home.pl, due mostly because the company is based outside of the card holder's country of origin, a pretty standard security check. The last main issue I have with Home.pl as a registrar, is that their user interface for managing domains is terrible, for example you have to use a separate login for each domain that you wish to manage.

Az.pl is the only other registrar that I have attempted to use for hosting .pl domains, and the end result ended up being that they could not process my credit card due to a grossly incompetent payment gateway. I spent several hours on the phone with their Poland based payment gateway provider, and after several attempts to process the payment manually failed, I finally gave up on the idea of using them. If you have a US based credit card, then I wouldn't waste your time even trying to use this registrar, as it's not worth the frustration. Outside of the payment issue, I also found their user interface for managing domains to be poorly organized. There seems to be an unending maze of various links to click for managing your domains, with many of the links taking you to the same destination. Perhaps they are fine to use for Poland based customers, but if you are English speaking and US based, then I would use Moniker.com as a domain host.