Be the Master of Your Own Domain
Scenario
You’ve just hired a webmaster to build you your very own e-commerce website. Everything is going great. The site looks good and you’re eager to launch your new business. You’ve spent thousands of dollars on the website and marketing materials to drive customers to the site. The day of the launch, you excitedly type in your website address. Your site is live, orders are coming in and everything is running smoothly. After a few days, you notice that your site is running extremely slow, even to the point of timing out. You know this is costing you customers and need to speak to your hosting company about potential upgrades. Unfortunately, your webmaster is not returning your calls and you don’t even know who the host for your site is. If you are not the “master of your own domain”, you are stuck until the webmaster decides to return your call. What does it mean to be the master of your domain? If I asked you to login into your domain account right now, would you be able to? Do you know who your registrar is?
What is a Registrar?
A registrar is a middle man agency that sells domains to the public. All domains are registered with an organization called ICANN. Currently, the most popular domain registrar is “Go Daddy”. If you are interested in finding out what registrar your domain is registered with, visit http://whois.com and type in your domain name. The information that is returned will show you not only who the registrar agent is, but will also show you who is the owner and administrative contact for that domain. If the owner of the domain is not you, then you are NOT the master of your own domain.
How to Obtain Ownership
If you are not the owner of the domain, find out who the owner is and make sure that the domain is transferred into your or your company’s name. The current owner of the domain will have to initiate the transfer. Any professional webmaster will understand and cater to the transfer request. If you own a company and have a matching domain name there are legal channels that can be followed in order to force the domain transfer. As with any legal battle, it could be time consuming and expensive, but may be worth it in the end. Trademarks are significantly helpful in a court case concerning a domain name the proper ownership.
What Else Can You Do?
If you are unable to gain control over your domain name, you are going to need to purchase a new domain and maybe even need to have a new website created if the webmaster is unwilling to relinquish control to you. In this case you should consider using dashes in your new domain name. For example, if the domain name that you originally chose was “ABCImports.com” then you should try to purchase “ABC-Imports.com”. Not only will this allow you to stay close to the original domain name, but the word separation actually increases your ranking potential in some of the major search engines.
Advantages of Owning Your Domain
There are many advantages to owning your domain name. If you are unhappy with your current hosting provider, or your current webmaster, you would have the ability to point your domain to a different hosting service or take your domain to a new web development firm.
Conclusion
Hopefully this article has shown you the importance of being the master of your own domain and the steps you can take to gain control. Peacock Production Studios encourages all of its clients to purchase and control the domain account. If you need assistance in establishing your domain account or would like more information, please contact us:
E-mail: info@peacockproductionstudios.com
Website: http://peacockproductionstudios.com
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