If you are, then maybe you've been doing what I've been doing forever—using GoDaddy. For years I've been buying domains from GoDaddy. And before you start thinking about all the negative feelings you have about the company, you should know that I've rarely had any issues with their domain registration services.
Additionally, I've gotten to know the new leadership team over the last couple of years and they're sharp folks doing really great work.
So this isn't a post bashing GoDaddy. It's a post about trying something new.
Do you know Joe Casabona?
Joe is a software developer / college professor / author. Yeah, he's a big deal. He also happens to be a cigar smoker, which is how I met him, at a WordPress conference years ago.
He's such a great guy that I invited him to work at Crowd Favorite (when I was on their board). I got to manage him a few months later when I joined as their CTO.
Since then, we've stayed connected more by cigars and Disneyland than anything (especially after my departure from Crowd Favorite).
So when he asked me to be on his podcast about building websites, I gladly accepted.
That's how I heard about Hover.
Three Reasons why I Love Hover
1. The user experience is ridiculously simple.
The other night I was researching encrypted email. One of the offerings they have with their premium service is the ability to use your own custom domain. So I started thinking about domains I might use for a new email account (I didn't want to mess with chrislema.co yet).
So I started looking up names on Hover.com
Did I mention I did this on my phone? All of it. Every step. As you can see, I was able to buy more than a few domains.
Any service that let's you so easily and quickly search, order and pay for domains is awesome on my list.
But that's not the only reason I really like Hover.
2. The “offer” user path is direct without distraction
While this sounds exactly like my first reason, it's not. My first point was about how easy it was. And easy covers a lot of things, that's true.
But what I'm talking about here is more about the shortest distance between two points—it's a straight line. And that's what Hover offers.
In other words, I wasn't offered anything else while trying to buy a domain.
- I wasn't offered hosting.
- I wasn't offered emails.
- I wasn't offered SSL certs.
- I wasn't offered anything else.
When I'm trying to buy a product, I'm telling you that I'm ready to spend cash for something. Not anything else. So putting other offers in front of me, while potentially beneficial to you, is often annoying to me.
Hover didn't annoy. It's why I can't show you a screenshot. There were no extraneous screens.
The domain search filters are fantastic
I really like the “premium” option I get from GoDaddy when doing a search for a domain. But the rest of their filters don't do much for me.
Hover was different. I really loved how they designed the filters as I searched (note: this screenshot was when I was searching on my desktop).
They have options for several top options:
- Top Picks
- Featured
- Generic
- Suggestions
But then they have grouped all the others into additional filters that you can review if you want. The filtering is managed in the sidebar.
I quickly used these filters to cut out all the stuff I didn't want to see. But more importantly, I chose to look at a few filters I hadn't thought about in a while. It was a great interface to help me filter what I would look at.
Bonus: Very few emails
I know I said three reasons, but I should note that in the last few days I've not gotten any further emails from them. I know, this shouldn't be a “thing.”
But the truth is that I've used 3-4 other registrars where I get inundated with additional emails—from setup emails to offer and upgrade emails.
Hover has sent me none of those. And I'm thrilled by that!
So, there you have it. I'm having a great time with Hover. I'm also going to likely spin up a cool new private email using ProtonMail (and use a custom domain from Hover). And I'm going to buy Joe Casabona another cigar because he's the brilliant guy who recommended them to me.