More than 600 ISP partners have found their thrill on Blueberry Hill, at least when it comes to picking the right domain name registration service with which to partner.

by Jeff Goldman [February 26, 2001]

Blueberry Hill Communications, or Bluehill.com, based in Palm Desert, California, offers three different partnership agreements for ISPs through its registration site, 4Domains.com.

Bluehill.com was founded in 1995 to offer hosting services to organizations with high-level programming needs. Five-and-a-half years later, their focus continues to be webhosting, but domain registration was always a necessary part of that package. Until they became ICANN-accredited in June of 2000, the company was a Premier Gold Partner with Network Solutions.

In addition to offering the usual top level domains, Bluehill.com soon plans to take on a number of additional options for their customers. Starting on February 28th, users will also be able to register domains in they'll be able to access a total of 115 ccTLDs, including 30 restricted domains.

Craige Campbell, Bluehill.com president and chief executive officer, contends that the company's age and connections allow it to offer something of an edge to its partners.

"We're not new," he said. "We've been doing this for five and a half years, which I think is a big differentiation. Not that younger companies can't also be very successful in their levels of service, but I think it does help us."

"The level of quality of the ISPs that we work with is very high," Campbell said. "They're looking for a company that's been around and is going to be around. We're not a startup, we're a profitable company, we're a private organization, we're self-funded, and we have no debt."

To program or not to program
The three partnership options available to ISPs are:

• an API that requires advanced programming skills to integrate
• an online backroom that allows for manual entering of domain name requests
• a click-through affiliate program

The first option, and by far the best one for ISPs, is the API setup. According to Campbell, the arrangement allows ISPs to offer domain registration to their customers as if they themselves were the registrar.

"It's completely seamless," he said. "There is no detection back to us, except that ICANN requires certain stipulations, like when you transfer a domain name, or when names expire."

An example of the code, as well as its specifications, can be viewed on 4Domains.com's site.

Campbell said that the API crucially outperforms any email template system.

"I've seen companies offer email templates, but that goes back to the same issues that Network Solutions had in the beginning," he said. "People misspelled things, it didn't parse right, it came back, it bounced ... so we're a big believer in an integrated setup where a system talks to a system, then writes directly to the registry database, and gives you the results—right there and then."

And the programming shouldn't necessarily be a deterrent—if an ISP partner pre-purchases a large number of domains, or if they're willing to a pay a setup fee, then Bluehill.com will do the programming and integration for them.

If the ISP partner wants to resell Bluehill.com's hosting services as part of the partnership agreement, that can be included in the agreement as well.

The second option is for ISPs who don't want to get quite as involved in integrating the service into their current offerings. They can process a customer's order however they like, and then manually enter it into Bluehill.com's online backroom system, retaining full control of all interaction with the customer. A example of the code, as well as its demo of the backroom service, which offers a range of statistics and management tools for the ISP, can also be viewed at 4Domains.com.

Finally, the third option for ISPs is a straightforward click-through arrangement. The ISP simply puts a banner on their Web site that leads to Bluehill.com, and the then receives 10 percent of any and all money spent by a customer who accesses Bluehill.com through the internal link.

Pricing options
Pricing for the domains, whether for the API or the backroom, ranges from $6.95 to $9.95 per domain, depending on volume. ISP partners can set any retail price it likes for its customers. Setup currently costs about $250, but if the ISP is willing to prepay for 20 or more domain names, then Bluehill.com will waive the setup fee.

According to Campbell, waiving the setup fee is in everyone's best interests.

"We're really trying to garner the repeat volume more than we are the setup costs," he said. "I think that's one of the things that differentiates us. We don't ask for $79 to get started; we're just saying, do you want to develop a turnkey, world-class domain registration system?"

Once the system is set up, payment can be made any number of ways—domains can be bought in bulk in advance, they can be charged to the customer on a daily basis—or for larger customers, they can be paid through regular invoices.

Campbell noted that pre-purchasing the domains in bulk seems to be the most popular option, because it allows partners to make sure they get the lowest possible rates.

Service first
Approximately 600 companies have partnered with Bluehill.com, but if you visit 4Domains.com, you'll have trouble tracking down much concrete information on their partnership options.

Campbell said that's all part of the plan to keep its partnership plans flexible, based on what the ISP partner needs.

"Since we've been around for so long, we decided to let 4Domains.com be kind of a retail front end, because that's what it's known for," he said. "When an ISP asks, 'Hey, we see these bulk rates: can we do something different,' then the answer's always yes."

The partnership agreement is customized for each company that chooses to work with Bluehill.com—nothing's set in stone.

And it's that personal touch that Campbell said is important to him and the company. Campbell maintains that service is really the company's key differentiator.

"One of the things that you'll notice is that when you call our company, you get a live voice," he said. "It's something that we've done, and been committed to, all the way back to 1995."

ISPs who partner with the company can count on speaking to a live support person whenever they need to, toll free, seven days a week from 6 am to Midnight. In addition, partners are assigned a group of dedicated personnel to contact directly if they need to—a dedicated customer service representative, a dedicated billing person, and a dedicated tech support person.

"We have always set ourselves a high level of customer service," Campbell said. "It's just what we do, and it's where our complete focus is as a company. We want people to be able to get to us."

— End