Your website is usually one of the most precious pieces of internet marketing property a business owns so protecting it is important.
- If you do not own your domain, any money and effort you spent in building it as well as marketing it are not under you control.
- Whoever owns the domain can simply walk off with it or take control over it
- If the domain is owned by your marketing agency or web designer, they can hold it hostage and make it really difficult for you to leave them.
- Think of it like not being on the deed to your house but your renovating and investing in the property just for the owner named in the deed to come and confiscate it or rent it to you at an outrage rate.
Before you invest in a website or marketing make sure you own your domain!
If you need help registering your domain name, marketing your website or having an SEO Friendly website built we can help!
Why Is It So Important To Own Your Domain?
I know this seems like something basic but one of the most important assets you have online is your domain name and several times over the years we have seen where a business did not own their own domain name and did not even know it until they left their web developer who ended up being the registrant.
Here is just a short list of things to consider when getting a web developer to build your website and you are completely new to the internet and how things work.
- Register your domain name yourself before you even contact a web developer or web designer for your project. The simplest one is GoDaddy, Siteground, Network solutions are just a few. Just be careful to not buy extra services that you do not need. All you need is to register the domain. You also do not need the privacy unless you are concerned of people knowing you own the domain. In that case you will want privacy.
- Also register .com, .net and .org versions of your domain. This is not a must, but it stops others from owning a domain name close to yours.
- Make sure that you save your account information in a safe place and do not give it out to just anyone. Think of this like the deed to your house and treat protecting it in the same manner as you would the deed.
The Basics Of Registering Your Own Domain Name
I want to disclaim we are not affiliated with Godaddy in any way nor does you registering there help us or make us money. I am simply using this registrar because they are one of the easy ones to use and managing your account is simple. Where they are tricky is with trying to sell you more services in the checkout process. So, once you get there just say no to all the extras and check out. Your total for one domain without extras should be around $12-$18 if you register it for one year.
- Register an account
- Use the search to find a domain name that is available. You will want to preferably find one that has .com, .net and .org available as well and register them all.
- Once you found the domain you want add it and all its variations by hitting add to cart.
- Once you are at the checkout make sure that there is nothing else in the cart unless there are extra services you want like privacy.
That’s all there is to registering your own domain. Now that you have an account with GoDaddy you can manage your domain thru an interface as well as setting up auto renewals and locking it preventing it from being moved. Once it’s time for you to actually get a website for your domain then you can use the interface to change the DNS information to point it at wherever you choose to host the site. Registering and managing your domain yourself will keep it in the safest hands possible. Yours!
How Can I Tell If I Am The Owner Of My Domain?
If you have a domain and a website already but now you want to make sure that you own it and that it is properly registered what can you look at to see that you are the owner?
Well if the domain does not have privacy on it, it’s easy! So, you’re probably wondering what is Privacy on a domain and what does it do? Well what it does is it hides the registered owner’s personal information from being publicly seen by anyone. If that is the case, you will have to log into your account and make sure all your information is correct.
It is also important that you keep your email and contact information current so that if there is an issue with your domain you are notified, and you do not lose control over it.
Domain Info Without Privacy
If your domain does not have privacy you can do a search on google for whois and you will find several services where you can put the domain name in the tool and it will pull the ownership information for it. What you will want to look at is who is the registrant and who is the technical contact if that information reflects you as the registered owner and technical contact then you are in good shape and all is well. If you are not, then you will need to see if you have information to login to the account and fix that which is different with every registrar. So, the first thing will be to find the account info and login to address anything that is outdated or inaccurate.
Domain Registration With Privacy
If your domain has domain privacy then you will not be able to see any info other than that of the place that is the registrar and you will have to get with them to get information on who owns a domain which may not just be given but may require legal action. If you registered the domain then no worries just login to your account to deal with any updates or to just verify ownership is correct.
