Do you own your Domain Name?

In today’s economy your online presence is a vital part of your business and marketing strategy and your domain name must be central to your website development and branding. As your online presence matures, customer awareness of your online identity increases, as does the profile of your website in the search engines. With this in mind, your domain name becomes an extremely valuable asset to your business and is key to your online success.

It’s not uncommon for your web design agency to register and manage your domain name(s) on your behalf. This often makes sense, as your web design company knows the set-up of your website and hosting. However, it is of vital importance that YOU are the owner of your domain name so that you can retain the rights to this essential part of your website.

Ensuring that the correct registration details are recorded when purchasing your domain can save unforeseen costs and difficulties in the future. Recent months have seen some of our new clients experiencing problems with their domain name ownership. This is down to their previous web designers registering domain names on their behalf, but recording themselves as the registrant. In some cases this has resulted in domain names being held to ransom for high fees when clients come to change service providers. In the worst case scenario, providers refuse to release domain names at all, claiming they are the legal owners.

When registering your domain name, ensure that your business is recorded as the 'Registrant'. This means that you are the legal owner of the domain name and if you ever need to change providers, you will be able to do so. It’s also recommended that you are recorded as the administrative contact, in order to approve changes to the domain name such as contact details or change of service provider. You might however wish to consider recording your web designer or web design agency as the ‘Technical Contact’ as it’s this contact who manages the technical aspects of your domain.

If you have the incorrect details recorded for your domain, these details can be changed, but this can be a time consuming and costly process and may depend on the provider that currently holds your domain name. Always ensure that you are the ‘Registrant’ as this is the legal owner of the domain name.