Global Domains International is a mix of an MLM program and domain registrar. In this review, let’s find out if it’s a scam:
Quick Report on Global Domains International:
Price: Varies from $10-$1,000’s potentially.
Overall Rating: 1 out of 10 stars (Red flag. Possibly a scam).
Global Domains International in recent months has been one of the most popular rising MLMs and being that it deals with making websites as well as offering people an affiliate program, I decided to look into it and find out it was worth buying a domain from them and/or promoting them.
After carefully looking over it, I feel this place is not worth investing time/money into and am leaning towards it being a scam for many reasons I’ll discuss here:
Global Domains International in a nutshell:
It is a website which allows people to buy domain names which end with the .WS extension which stands for website. Global Domains International deals with only selling .WS domains. The pricing for these sites is far greater than other places where you can buy domains such as Godaddy or Namecheap. or Karbon (which is my top choice).
In addition, Global Domains International also offers a referral program in which people can promote it to others and earn revenue as a result. The referral program is MLM in nature and features a 5 layer system in which you can refer people, earn money from them and have up to 4 levels under that referral people and make you money.
Overall while the site looks similar to other popular domain name registrars, it is by no means (at least in my opinion) even close to being on par with them. Not in pricing nor many other aspects and I will not be recommending this place to anyone.
4 reasons why I gave Global Domains International a red flag:
1) The domain extension .WS doesn’t really carry much value.
Whenever I rate domain extensions, it is usually:
- .com first.
- .org second.
- And .net third.
Everything after it is just not worth the price to me. .WS sites in my opinion don’t carry the same weight as the .com’s or the others which follow after it so if you’re going to make a .WS site, you’re likely going to run into issues trying to get it to outrank the other, more popular domain extensions.
Update: Any domain extension carries value, but the 3 main extensions above I mentioned are still most commonly used, therefore the best value is there. Overall, it’s the site’s content that determines that. Read more here on gTLD which are domain extensions.
2) The pricing for the domain names can be absurdly expensive.
You’ll find purchasing any domain name on GDI with 4 characters or more only makes sense (price wise) if you purchase it for several years. Otherwise, purchasing a domain name there for 1 year is 3x as expensive as other places like Godaddy or Namecheap.
And if you wish to purchase domain names with less than 4 characters (Something I’d NEVER recommend), you’ll find the price for that to be insanely large. And considering how .WS sites probably don’t rank well to being with, plus being that you shouldn’t buy a domain name for 10 years right off the bat before exploring it’s profit potential, it’s not worth going in that deep.
Here is a screenshot of their prices:
3) Further ridiculous charges for things you can get for FREE.
I can’t believe the price of some of the services GDI provides.
So many of them can cost a fraction and even free than what this place charges if you just go through other places. Here is another screenshot of the things they charge you for:
Let me do a quick comparison and explain why these prices are NOT worth it:
A) Domain Email Forwarding.
This just means you can have an email set up which will forward all emails to another. For example, if I purchased a website called Mywebsite.com, I could set up an official email for that site which could be called something like Vitaliy@mywebsite.com.
Then if anyone would want to send me an email, they could do it through that one and all emails would then be forwarded to a private email account I have.
The ability to do domain email forwarding is FREE if you do it through places like Godaddy & Namecheap. It simply comes with your domain purchase which in their case is $10 a YEAR. To charge you anything for a service like this which is supposed to be free is just wrong. Yet GDI appears to do it…
B) A Sitebuilder.
Apparently GDI gives you the ability to make beautiful websites with some sort of website builder. I believe it may be WordPress sites (which is good), but this day n age, such a service is also free. How you ask?
Well I personally use this site builder. It lets you choose from many different website templates and makes WordPress sites.
If you DON’T have a website, you can make 2 of them without paying a penny using this Site Builder. If you do own a domain name, you can take advantage of this Site Builder’s hosting services, among other perks.
Long story short, you can also get this for free.
C) Standard hosting/Deluxe hosting.
Anywhere from $239-$199 if you purchase their standard hosting. They also have a deluxe which is obviously more expensive. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw these prices was: Are you serious!?
You can get hosting for as little as $1/month. Generally hosting costs $5-6/month if you want a good one. I personally get free hosting from the same Site Builder service I mentioned above, although in that instance, I pay $47 for other things, but no matter how many domains I have, it’s free hosting for all of them which makes it cost effective for me.
Not even sites like Site Build it charge this much! It’s absolutely ridiculous!
4) The referral program isn’t worth it in my opinion.
Let’s forget for a moment about the already overpriced features GDI provides you. Let’s consider their referral program which in typical MLM type fashion provides you the opportunity to make money through a 5 tier referral system. Is it worth it? I say absolutely not.
It pays you a ridiculously small commission per person, per month.
Considering you have a list of 100’s or even 1,000’s of people who will take your advice and join GDI as your referrals, AND then get their own referrals, it’s a waste of time and money. Here is how much they pay you per person:
$1 for every customer per month is what you’re looking at…
I’ve seen a lot of affiliate programs in my time, including MLM’s, but I’ve never stumbled onto one which pays so little. How likely is it that you’ll make it all the way down to the 3,125? And even if you did, the money you get paid for that is ridiculous!
In other affiliate programs, you could be making six figure incomes with that many referrals. And furthermore…
Most people who join GDI under you are likely uninformed about making money online so they’ll probably not succeed whether they try to refer others into it OR try to make their .WS site succeed online. This is my opinion based on years of experience in seeing MLM programs try to sell you their stuff.
Now some may look at the referral program GDI offers and ask if it’s a pyramid scheme. I am honestly split on this because on one end, the services people buy are cheap in which case there is no pyramid scheme, but if you factor in the high pricing I mentioned above people likely have to pay in addition to their initial investments, then the argument for a pyramid scheme becomes much more real. Regardless, I’m staying far away from anything GDI.
Pros:
- If you are an affiliate, they provide you with some free tools to get started…
Cons:
- .WS extensions in my opinion don’t carry nearly as much SEO weight as other more popular extensions.
- The pricing of GDI’s services is WAY too expensive. You can get most if not all of it for MUCH less & even free.
- The affiliate program pays way too little. Most of the money GDI makes is through the services they sell.
Final Rating: Global Domains International
Red Flag (Avoid)
1 out of 10 stars. Major red flag. I say it’s a scam. It’ll cost you much less to make sites through the traditional methods. As for making money with GDI, I say it’s a waste of time and if you’re looking for a realistic opportunity, this program sells legit domain names (and offers training to build sites off them).
My final thoughts:
I simply cannot and will not ever recommend you use GDI for website creation or domain purchasing. The price is just too much in my opinion.
And as for the affiliate program, not only does it pay WAY too little, but even if you can get a ton of referrals, why in the world would you even want to send people to a site which then charges them such outrageous prices for services they can get for free? It’s just not right.
When I make websites, this is the procedure I follow:
1) I buy a domain from a legitimate place like Wealthy Affiliate which offers them for an awesome price that doesn’t rise every year.
2) I use the Site Builder from the place I mentioned above to quickly set up the site (no coding experience needed and it takes me seconds to do).
3) I then utilize the training from my #1 recommendation to make my site rank high in search engines, get visitors and earn revenue.
And for all of this I only pay $10 for the domain (a year), and the hosting comes free with the training (it’s also free to try). Compare that to GDI and you’re looking at serious savings.
By the way, the Site Builder and the place I recommend are all part of the same program. They show you the simple ways to create successful online businesses through your website/s.
Anyway, that sums up my review of GDI. If you have questions, by all means, let me hear what you have to say!