After almost 15 years in the Internet industry, I have heard so many horror stories about problems when companies use a small or one-person design “firm” to create their web presence. One of those horror stories that I have heard over and over is when those “firms’ go out of business or simply “disappear”, customers then may find out they do not own their domain name. Instead, the web designer registered themselves as the owner of the domain name. This sometimes also happens even if the designer has not gone out of business so it’s always important to know who “owns” your domain.

Today a small company with this problem called me for help, and to make matters worse, his designer did not pay to renew the domain name, which then expired. He no longer has a website or an email address and unfortunately, the best he can do is wait 60-90 days and try to register the domain name again when it becomes available. He also has to rebuild his site from scratch. Obviously, when you have advertised your website and email address, you are not only inconvenienced by this issue, but also losing business!. I’ve also heard of designers holding the domain name “hostage.” We had one small company call us who eventually had to hire an attorney and pay several thousand dollars to get control of their name – hey, but at least they saved money on their web design!

So, what can you do to protect yourself? First of all, make sure you are working with a reputable design firm that has been in business for many years. Secondly, we recommend you register the domain name yourself to insure you have complete control of the name.

If you are unsure of how your domain was registered, click on the link below, put in your domain name and make sure you are listed as the Registrant. If not, immediately do whatever is necessary to get that changed! Your business could depend on it.

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp