One of the least expensive yet most valuable assets your business has is your domain name, your business’s address on the web.
But over and over again, I’ve seen businesses lose control of their domain. Or they never owned it to begin with, and now the company who does isn’t around anymore.
Sometimes businesses just lose track of who inside the company registered the domain and which email account it’s under. There are many reasons it can slip through the cracks, but things can get complicated very quickly if a domain expires or important DNS changes are needed but there’s no way to make them.
Prevention
Like health and car maintenance, prevention is key. Start by placing a yearly reminder on your calendar a little before your domain’s renewal date, which is usually a little before the expiration date. If you’re not sure when that is, you can check your domain’s registration on ICANN’s lookup tool.
Even if your domain renewal period is longer than year-to-year, it’s good to log in to your registrar yearly to make sure payment methods are up-to-date, no passwords updates are needed, all the right people still have access to the domain, anyone who shouldn’t is kicked off, and any other maintenance items are taken care of.
Ownership
If you’ve been working with a freelancer or agency, and they handle everything regarding your domain and website, it might be a good time to talk with them about transferring ownership of your domain.
An ideal setup is for you to maintain your domain registration and grant access to the team responsible for settings and configuration. This gives you the confidence and freedom to work with whatever web service provider you choose at any point in the future (it can also be helpful to request periodic backups of your website that you have access to).
To get control of your domain, you’ll need an account with a domain registrar. There are many of these services available out there, and I won’t recommend any single one, but GoDaddy, which I have a love/hate relationship with, and Cloudflare are two options that allow you share domain access with other users. This is a key feature if you need someone else to configure and manage your domain settings (it’s bad practice to share your main login credentials with anyone else).
These are the steps you’ll need to take to transfer a domain into your account:
- Create an account with the registrar of your choice (with a verified payment method added).
- Grant access to the person/team that will be handling the transfer.
- Request a transfer authorization code from the current domain owner–this is created in their registrar account, often when the domain is unlocked for transfer.
- Request a report of your current DNS settings in what’s called a zone file or a similar report. This is a critical step; you don’t want to transfer a domain without a complete record of all the current settings for email, domain verification, subdomains, and all related records. REPEAT: do not transfer your domain without a list of all the current DNS records.
- Prepare for transfer.
• With some registrars, you can enter all the DNS records in a template that you can apply to the domain directly after transfer; with others, you’ll just want to be familiar with adding DNS records so you can quickly do so as soon as the domain moves over.
• This is also a good time to prepare your team for a small bit of email and website downtime while the transfer completes and the settings are being applied. This can be scheduled ahead of time within a window. - Kick off the transfer with your new registrar (using the authorization code from step 3) and keep an eye on progress. The transfer will not happen immediately, but registrars are usually pretty good about sending alerts as things progress.
- After the transfer is complete, enter or apply all the existing domain records to the domain. This will reconnect the domain to your website, email, and other services. The time between 6 and 7 is where downtime can happen as the domain is disconnected from the current DNS records and new settings are applied.
- Enjoy the peace of mind that comes with owning your home address on the internet.
Reclaiming Your Domain
If you have truly lost control of your domain, and the company or person who registered it is no longer responding, it can be difficult to regain control. It’s usually best to start by reaching out to the current registrar and figuring out what options are available. They will require verification of your claim on the domain and other supporting material.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out for domain assistance and any other website support. I’ve helped clients work through all sorts domain and DNS issues, and I’m happy to offer advice or answer questions.