How we research and write this site
How the pages on this site are researched, written, reviewed and dated.
Why this page exists
A reference site asks you to act on what it says. Before you do, you are entitled to know where the information came from, who is answerable for it, and what happens when it turns out to be wrong. This page answers those three questions in the same detail we would want from a source we relied on.
Where the facts come from
Every extension page and every guide is written from a research file assembled before a word of the page is drafted. Those files are built from primary sources in a fixed order of preference: the registry operator's own published policy, IANA's root zone database and delegation records, ICANN's consensus policies and contracted-party agreements, and the protocol specifications themselves. Where a fact exists only in secondary reporting, the research file records that it does, and the page either hedges the claim in plain language or leaves it out.
Live data is separated from written data deliberately. Availability, pricing and registration records are queried at the moment you ask for them, from our reseller partner's API, from RDAP, and from public DNS resolvers. Nothing about price is written into the prose of these pages, because a number typed into a sentence goes stale silently while the rest of the page stays correct. Where we discuss cost, we describe it structurally: that a first-year price and a renewal price are different numbers, that a restore fee is far higher than a renewal, that premium tiers renew at premium rates.
What we will not publish
We do not publish a figure, a date, a day count or a policy rule that we cannot trace to a source. Where sources disagree, we say so and give the reader the shape of the disagreement rather than picking the more convenient answer. Where a rule is set by ICANN we say it is set by ICANN; where it is registrar discretion or registry-specific we say that instead, because that distinction determines who a reader has to argue with.
We name no registrar as best, and we publish no ranking of registrars. Every commercial link on this site is disclosed as an affiliate link at the point of the click and again on our affiliate disclosure page. Pages that would earn us money by recommending something are held to the same standard as pages that would not, which in practice means several of them exist to tell a reader not to buy.
Who reviews it
Every page carries a byline naming its author, and that byline links here and to the author page. The author is answerable for the page. Nothing publishes on this site anonymously, and nothing publishes under an invented name or an invented credential.
How pages are dated
Each page carries the date it was first published and, where they differ, the date its content last changed. Those two dates are derived from the content itself: the published date never moves once set, and the updated date advances only when the words on the page actually change. A redesign, a template change or a rebuild of the site does not move either date, and no page on this site carries a date stamp that refreshes itself. A date that updates because the site was rebuilt tells a reader nothing, and it is dishonest in the specific sense that matters: it claims freshness the content does not have.
When something is wrong
Registry policy changes, sometimes with very little notice, and a page that was accurate when it published can stop being accurate without anybody touching it. We keep a review register of the pages that make time-sensitive claims and what each one depends on, and we re-check them against their sources rather than rewriting them on a schedule to look current.
If you find something wrong, write to [email protected]. We would rather know. Corrections are made to the page and the updated date moves accordingly.