What’s in a domain name?
Well. Plenty if you have a website which you intend on promoting and marketing. Otherwise, who cares, right?
A domain name, for the unintiated, is the way you or your business is recognised online. It can be short or long but more importantly, it helps people find you and associate it with your business. That’s why domain names are important. Much more important than any piece of virtual real estate your money can buy.
And domain names must be renewed and as a business owner, you must remember to renew it. But most people get their nephews or nieces or neighbour’s kid to help them with the website, and as such, help them get their domain registered.
Here’s the problem. When the renewal notice email arrives, it is likely to end up in your nephew or niece’s or neighbourhood kid’s email. They might be kind enough to forward you the notice so you can renew it. Or they can, like most people, forget their Hotmail or Yahoo email address and password when they go off to study.
What happens then? Your domain expires. When this happens, there’s a cooling off period whereby the domain hangs in limbo. Like in purgatory. Only this is Internet and World wide web purgatory. Until maybe 30 or 60 days later, it gets released. Anyone (maybe your competitor) can snap the domain up unless you’re fast enough. Once it’s bought by someone else, you can plead and cajole but the domain is gone forever. Unless of course if you want to pay like US$50,000 for the domain (hey, there are unscrupulous people out there but it’s still a legit buy-and-sell biz based on demand and supply). If you want to buy it bad enough, you can cough up the money, no?
So lesson # 1: I am sure your nephew is fantastic with computers and websites, but please, it’s your business and domain name we are talking about. If you are serious about your business, take a serious approach and ensure your domain name is yours and yours only. Get people who are in the business (of web hosting etc.) to help you renew and keep track of your domain.
But here’s an even better story. A friend of mine took care of her domain name (she runs a food manufacturing business) and put the domain and hosting in the hands of web host she thought she could trust.
Her domain expired. She didn’t know. Because her web host didn’t inform her to renew. I bet you the web host themselves would not have known IF she did not tell them.
Her domain, unfortunately, has been bought by a Panaman company! Panaman, can you beat that?
And most unfortunate of all, she had her website (her domain name) printed on ALL her product packaging!
And she didn’t even know the domain was gone until I checked it for her and told her that officially, she didn’t have it anymore.
It’s an expensive lesson to learn. But you see, that’s why it hurts. One mistake and there goes the brand you’ve built. All because sometimes you trust monkeys to do the job for you. For all the monkey does is …essentially to monkey around!
Lesson # 2: Put your trust in people who do what they say they’ll do. Not people who sell on the cheap and expect you to tell them if anything hits the fan. By then it’ll be way too late.
* To learn more about Domain Names, go to http://www.redboxstudio.com/faq/faq.php?s=3