So today is your business name’s sanity check. The www dot”your business name” .com.au that’s what I’m referring too and I’m talking about. Your “domain name” everyone knows what that is! But we get a call pretty much once a week or once a fortnight from our client base and extended, saying that their website is down or they can’t check their email and you know what it is? It’s usually the domain name has expired and they don’t know where the details are, they haven’t kept them on file, or whatever, it’s an old website company that they work with five years ago that they’ve never spoken to, have control over their domain.
So the sanity check today, is let’s go through the list, and check a few things off.
Domain registration ownership
Firstly do you actually own it? So does your company name appear on the registrar’s list for the domain? So look it up! and check it! and now you need to know where your domain name is registered for that.
Now that can be anywhere from GoDaddy, Netregistry, Melbourne IT, cheapdomains, crazy domains, or your web companies reseller account, whatever that might be. You need to know where that lives! So go and check on that file, and then look up to make sure your company name is attached to it, and not any other entity.
Email contact details up to date?
And then, look for the email address that is on that account as well… the registrant email address. So when you’re doing any password retrieval on the domain, you need that address to be one that is active.
So that will be also where your renewal reminders go to for that domain, so that email address is old, or not checked regularly (which is often the case), then that will be the problem. So do a sanity check!
Note your expiry date in your calendar
Look up the ownership, look up the contact details. Also look up the expiry date while you are there, and set a reminder in your calendar that’s recurring, whatever – if that’s a year to renew, if that’s two years.. You can actually renew a domain for five to ten years if you like, if you know you’re going to own it.
It’s the most critical business infrastructure, for your business however, it’s so often just pushed to the side and forgotten about for such a long time. It is very easy to do! But please don’t fall into that trap; keep it on file and do that sanity check today and then it’s done! And you won’t have to worry anymore!