Last week we talked about the necessity of trust between clients and their Web firms. While it’s essential that you be able to trust your Web provider, there is still one area where we always recommend that the client retain complete control and ownership. That is in the registration of your domain name.
(example: www.mwdwebdenver.com)

This is more to do with practicality than with any sort of trust issue. Think about how much is tied to your domain name:

• your Web site
• your email routing
• any search engine traction you’ve built up
• your SSL certificate if you run an online shop or collect otherwise sensitive visitor data

The list goes on and on, but even from just the above it’s plain that there’s a lot riding on your domain. So, what do you do when you need to make any changes or renewals, and your domain name is under someone else’s control? What if you can’t reach them for some reason? What if they’ve gone out of business, or even died?

Granted those are worst-case scenarios, but you get the idea. It’s infinitely more convenient when you own your own domain name, which gives you the freedom to do anything with it that you need to.

At MWD Web we always insist that the client buy their own name, under their own account with any of the many registrars out there. We then ask for access to that account so we can work our magic, but we always leave the ownership with the client. Too many times in the past we’ve been called in to work on a site, only to find out that the domain name is under someone else’s account. Then we have to either get access to that account (good luck with that!), or ask them to transfer the domain to the client’s account. This process in itself has several steps, and can take a couple of days – valuable time in the fast-paced internet world!

If you did not buy your own domain name, and right now someone else owns it, we encourage you to do yourself a favor and get that domain transferred to your control. Do that now, before you need to. You’ll save yourself a lot of hassle later on, and your Web provider will thank you for it!

Photo by Rubber Dragon