Yahoo Increases Domain Renewal Price by 351.3%

In a recent move that has left many website owners scratching their heads, Yahoo increased the annual domain name renewal price to $34.95, up from $9.95 for normal registration, and $18.95 for private registration.

Effective July 1^st, many webmasters who were perfectly content with Yahoo's services are now scrambling to find a new host before they have to pay an extra $25 for renewal. According to CNET's Holly Jackson, the price increase is, "...primarily being instituted to match the cost of doing business [because] registration is not the core of Yahoo's small-business site."

While Yahoo is seemingly oblivious to the impending customer base suicide, domain owners and tech bloggers are livid, especially those with 10, 20, or more domains to their name. Many angered users are banding together to file a joint complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the unfair price increase.

Yahoo is gambling on the fact that their less savvy customers will either take on a passive c'est la vie attitude, or that current registrants won't want to leave the cozy womb of an Internet giant and decent customer support.

Yahoo is greatly underestimating the web-savviness of even the most basic users these days. Search engines and countless webmaster support forums are full of information regarding who has the best deal for new domains.

While switching hosts can be a dreaded process due to the potential for service disruption, no one wants to be stuck with an insulting $25 price increase per domain name, especially with the recent inflation and high gas prices. Over the next year, Yahoo's sales will plummet, and once loyal customers will be lost forever to hosts such as Go Daddy, Namecheap, Hostgator, and Bluehost - all of which have cheap renewal prices and more software support for website scripts.