10/16/2012
Have you ever lost control of your company's domain name, or been held hostage by your web developer? It happens- sadly more often than not. Feel free to chime in with your war stories, we know they're out there! So why am I talking about this in the first place? I'm dealing with it right now. I act as a creative consultant for a local graphics company that relies heavily on its website. The domain has quite a bit of age to it with a number of good inbound links. At one point a small company was brought in to handle a site redesign along with SEO and hosting services. This company, if it can be called that, butchered the whole project. I won't name any names- yet. Anyway the situation should have been as simple as firing the IT company and go with someone else. Unfortunately, the domain name somehow ended up in the developer's account. This is a HUGE mistake and causes endless nightmares every day. The first rule any business needs to know about creating an online presence is keep control and ownership of the company's domain! Sure, there are ways to get it back (I've navigated most of them) but why take the chance? Any legitimate and reputable web design organization will at least give the option of registering the domain in your name. We typically require it unless there are sufficient reasons not to. So what's the first step in determining if your company's site is on the verge of suffering a similar fate? You'll want to start with checking your domain's WHOIS records. Visit godaddy.com and use their WHOIS search. The important info. in the results will be the "registrant" and "admin" fields- with any luck you and your company are listed here. If your "web guy" or, I don't know, maybe ex girlfriend is listed here it's time to be worried and tread very carefully. It's also a good idea to contact professionals who you trust to get things sorted out sooner than later.
