Buying domain names isn’t quite as bad as buying a car, but it’s a similar experience. You just get finished spending 25 grand on a car and then the dealer tries to sell you tire replacement insurance, lug nut locks or the scam of all time, rustproofing. The experience takes the notion of up-sell to new heights or lows, depending on how you look at it.

I just bought dodgeretort.com from godaddy.com, which advertised in the SuperBowl. Check out the ads and rough cuts that didn’t make it. They’re as crass as the web site is chaotic.

At one point, the site tells me it’s going $1.99 a year, but there’s an astrix that leads to nowhere. Then it ends up costing me $10.19 which all told is a pretty good deal. Along the way, GoDaddy tries to sell me a ton of digital rustproofing if you will –   more years, privacy, hosting and email. You have to wade through a crap minefield to get the check-out.

Splashy doesn’t quite seem to do GoDaddy’s site justice, but the high pressure sell was on for every second of my visit.  They have my attention so they might as get me to buy more stuff whether I need it or not. On the first pass, GoDaddy had me down for about $550 of URLs, protection and other junk I did not want and in some cases did not understand. Be very careful to proactively remove things they automatically sign you up for. Don’t be in a hurry.

They also say they’re offering so much off the regular price that you’d think they’d owe me money. But of course, they don’t.

Network Solutions was just as much a hall of mirrors except it’s more expensive than GoDaddy. It appeared to me I could get dodgeretort.com for $9 a year, but when I checked out, the price it had changed to  $34.99. How’d that happen?

GoDaddy is the better deal. Network Solutions charged me $12 for a year of domain name forwarding and GoDaddy as best I can tell offers it for free (I want dodgeretort.com forwarded to netbookie.biz). However, I added forwarding more than an hour ago and it still has not happened.

I have to make sure it that it’s specified I do not automatically renew anything or cancel the credit card on file before the year passes. I fear they’ll slip something in.

The web site that makes shopping for domains easy and straighforward could make a goldmine. Maybe Amazon should do domains.