Choosing where to register your Domain Name
A domain name is one of the most valuable bits of “Intellectual Property” you may own, it is the address of your shop/office on the internet and is the one thing everyone knows and associates with your company when they are looking for you on “the internet”.
Choosing a domain is one of the first things you need to do when you have an idea for a business or a product, but choosing your domain registrar is something which should be done with care and forethought!
As an internet hosting company, one of the things we see all to often are customers who have lost control of their domain names and then come to us asking for help and to see if we can recover / rescue the domain.
Why and how have they lost control of the domain?
The most common problem is that they got their “web guy” to register the domain (he was a friend, or someone recommended by a friend, or even someone they met at a networking event). The web guy registers the domain for them using his own account at xyz-reg registrars.
Great! Domain is registered, now lets look at the web site .. and that’s it, no-one ever thinks any more about the domain name until the “web guy” has vanished, gone bust, got a job somewhere else or gone travelling for the year.
Then it expires, and you have no access to the domain. You call xyz-reg or even the registrar (such as Nominet) directly and they say “I’m sorry, Mr Smith – this domain is owned by Mr Web Guy, his name is on it and he paid for it. We can’t talk to you, we need him to call in. “But he’s on a kibbutz in Israel for 6 months” … and on it goes…. (This can also happen if Director A registered the domain but then left the company and you can’t get hold of him)
Another possibility is you registered the domain through this “really cheap name company” … but you suddenly discover that the initial registration was “cheap” but renewals are much much more expensive, and you try to move the domain only to find that they then want to charge you an “exit fee” … nothing much you can do here but pay the “penalty” … or read the t&c’s before you sign up and make sure they don’t have one of these penalties hidden away – it will almost always be referred to as “a fee” but never listed anywhere.
We work with companies all the time who have had these problems. Registering with a reputable Domain Registrar Agent such as FidoNet resolves all of these problems before you start. Not only are Fido’s prices some of the lowest on the Internet today, but there are no hidden strings or financial penalties for transferring away at a later date if you were ever unhappy with the service … Fido believe that you will stay because we provide a level of service second to none!
How to Protect Your Domain?
Key things to ensure are that the domain name is registered in the name of you or your company and that you have access to the domain control panel so that you can make changes to the registration details, name servers and so on.
When registering the domain, remember to use an email address which you have access to and that you will keep access to. If you lose the email address, you risk losing the ability to access the control panel which you use to manage the domains.
Use a registrar you can trust.
Conclusion
So when registering your Domain name … don’t just go for the first flashy advert you see on TV, think first and go to a name you can trust, preferably one such as fidonet.com who have been in the Internet Industry since 1992!
Register your new domain name today at www.fidonet.com
- .co.uk domains from just £2.99 per year
- .com domains from just £9.25 per year
