Dominder is a very specific app that does one thing: manage your domains. Website owners often own more than one domain, and some of us own or have to keep track of twenty or more. While domain registrars will notify you of renewal time, they don’t check for downtime or make sure your domain hasn’t been blacklisted.
That is where Dominder comes in. Let’s see if Dominder is the “all-in-one solution to manage websites” it claims to be.
Getting Started
Signing up with Dominder is simple and straightforward – create a free account in just a few minutes.
Your Dominder Dashboard
When you login to your Dominder account to manage domains, you are greeted with the above dashboard. As you can see, it lists your domains and relevant information so you can easily see the status of any domain at a glance.
On the left side, you can choose which features to look at for a domain: Whois, Reminders, Monitoring, Notes, Security and Finances.
You can edit your default settings for reminders, monitoring and security from your settings menu. Then you can edit individual domains (or multiple domains in bulk) from the respective places, which we discuss below.
Because Dominder is free and doesn’t have a limit on domains, you can add sites that you don’t own or manage and use the tools for whois lookup or set up reminders when a domain is about to expire. You can also use it to monitor your competitors’s websites if you want. You don’t have to verify anything to add a domain to your dashboard.
Pricing
Dominder is free to add and monitor domains and get notifications via email. The only cost is for SMS notifications (text messages to your cell phone). You get 5 free credits when you sign up to test out the SMS notifications, and then they are $0.10 each after that.
Whois
A domain manager wouldn’t be complete without a whois lookup. After selecting a domain from your dashboard, click on Whois in the left sidebar and see all of the relevant info, including registrar, name servers and owner contact.
Domain Whois in Dominder
Reminders
The reminders area is where you can define notification periods for domain and hosting expiration. These options can be changed per domain, or edited in bulk and applied to multiple.
Setup reminders for domains in Dominder
Add Hosting Information
If you want to get notifications for soon-to-be-expiring hosting packages on a domain, you need to add the expiration date. This is done on the reminder popup when adding reminders; it can also be done per domain or applied to multiple in bulk.
Monitoring
The next major feature of Dominder is domain monitoring.
Monitor your domains with Dominder
Once you have added your domains to Dominder, the app will monitor them for downtime and keep track of average response time. You can set the ping frequency to 3, 5, 10 or 60 minutes, and set notification options.
Change the settings for domain monitoring
Notes
Dominder also has a section for you to add notes about your domains.
Keep track of notes on your domains with Dominder
The notes feature is minimal – you can add lengthy notes with multiple paragraphs, but it is not meant for extensive note-taking. Meaning, you should not use this as a replacement for a project manegement or note-taking app if you need to keep track of information long-term.
There is no note history, there is no undo and there is no time stamp for revisions beyond the latest change. This is a great place to add the name and contact information for your hosting company or SEO contact, or even quick plans for future development. Not the best place to keep track of customer communication, however. That is another matter altogether.
Security
Dominder will also scan your website against blacklists and antivirus databases to make sure your domain is safe and secure. If something does come up, you can set notification settings by clicking Edit at the top.
Dominder makes sure your domain is safe
Finances
One of Dominder’s most interesting features is the ability to keep track of your finances. If you are a big shot web developer, you may already have an app to keep track of your money, but if you don’t, Dominder can help you here as well.
Keep track of your domain finances with Dominder
Right now the options are pretty minimal – you can add, edit and delete transactions. You can see money coming in and out based on the current month or the previous month (which I believe go by 30 day increments and not the month you are in), or you can see the current year.
Add a transaction to your finances
Currently you can’t export your data, which is crucial for me, but the website states they plan to develop this feature soon. Other upcoming features on the finances side include data analysis, domain comparison and budgeting.
Final Thoughts
Dominder is a very good webapp, especially a fairly new one with such a specific purpose. The interface is clean, easy on the eyes and very simple to navigate. It comes with a very nice price tag – free – with an affordable option for SMS notifications.
The development team seems fairly active so I expect great new features in the coming months. Follow Dominder on Facebook or Twitter to keep up with developments.
Overall, Dominder is a solid app that does its job extremely well, and will make a nice addition to your arsenal of apps.