Hi:
My client just purchased her domain name through GoDaddy for her counseling business.
I noticed she paid for the following options on her domain:
- Certified Domain
- Private Registration
Are these necessary options these days?
Hi ob187. Welcome to SitePoint. 
I don’t see the point of that extra service. As far as I know, it just means that when someone looks up information about the domain name, the owner’s address, email address etc. are not shown publicly. While that can be nice, in reality I don’t think many people would take interest in that information.
Private registration may be useful to avoid spams to your email associated with the domain. Because such info by default is open to public.
But certified domain is almost useless. It just means godaddy verified your email and telephone numbers. Anyway, I remember it is very cheap.
“certified domain” isn’t really useful for anything. Private registration can be, depending on how well you want to protect your name, billing address, and contact info–all that will show up in the WHOIS record for the domain. I usually recommend it for individuals, but not for businesses who are using their business contact info.
Furthermore it just plain stupid for businesses to play hide and seek games with
Joe Public that wants to know to whom they’re going to pay for services and products.
Sadly too many businesses either too naïve or just another scam-runners who
are one way or another are shooting themselves in a foot.
fastreplies
I suppose if your client doing some business and provide some services that is not good point of view at all.
That was designed as protection against spammers (mostly for domainers).
Certified domains are such a scam… Private is very useful if you dont want your name associated with a brand.