You’d never leave your business checkbook in the hands of someone no longer working for you or trust your mortgage payment to be made by someone that doesn’t live in your house.

Yet many business owners can not readily find information about their domain name, where it was registered, or who’s the domain name is under the control of an employee who no longer works there or an outside firm that can no longer be reached.

And if you do not have your domain information in a safe place that will transcend employees and outside relationships, it’s time to do just that.

The information you should have on file

Create a file for your domain name or names if you have more than one. The file should contain the following information:

• The online location where you purchased the domain name. If you are without this information, http://www.internic.net/whois.html can help you track down the online business your domain was registered, what the current contact and management information looks like, when your domain name was registered, and when it is set to expire.
• The username and password of the place of domain registration, including the recovery email on record. This allows you to access, manage, and renew/delete the domain.
• The hosting company and contact information for your domain.
• The FTP info or the IP/website address, usernname, and password that will allow you access to the files on the web host for updating.
• Content management system login (if the website has a content management system). This is the website address to login to add/edit/delete pages and content in the website itself.
• Contact information for website support for any company you’ve used to design, purchase or host your website.

The Domain Registration Information

The other really important point is to make sure you or your business is the legal owner of the domain itself. While this may not seem important on a day to day basis, should you have to change any element of your domain in the future, not being the legal owner of the domain could make change difficult.

Remember, you never “own” the domain – you lease. 

As long as the bill is paid, you are able to use it. Having all the information at your fingertips will make life easier when action is needed.

The author

Cary Weston