Obtaining, maintaining and reclaiming ownership of an internet domain
Basic Facts
All domains on the internet have been registered, from google.com to href.com.
To find out who owns a particular domain, you need to do a WHOIS search. These
searches are free, and offered by most registrars. If you are working with a domain outside the
United States, e.g. .co.uk or .com.au or .co.nz, then you need to find a registrar in that country and
use their WHOIS search engine.
Here are two places that you can use to run a WHOIS query for .com and other domains in the
United States:
007names.com and
network-tools.com.
The price of registering an internet domain varies between about US $5 and US $120 per year. Most
places charge about $10 for .com domains, with a discount for multi-year registrations. Prices for country-specific domains can be much more expensive. For example, in Australia prices range from AUD $11 to $99 per year (as of 2010).
The most common mistakes that people make are (a) letting an unscrupulous party register a domain
that they want and (b) losing track of the password that they were given for their domain registration.
These mistakes can cost anywhere from $150 to $15,000 to rectify. In many cases, small businesses are
forced to switch to a different address, requiring changes to stationery, all their contacts' address books, and
so on.
For all of these reasons, we encourage people to register their domain themselves rather than having
a third party do it for them. It only takes a few minutes and it is not really that complicated.
The most important thing to look for in a domain registrar is a so-called control panel, which lets you
login at any time to make adjustments to your name servers.
If you cannot get control of your name servers, you might as well not use the registrar at all, at any price.
We highly recommend using 007names
to register your .com domain name, or,
in Australia, pick someone from the list of
accredited registrars for a .com.au address, and consider using crazydomains.com.au which is accredited (but under the name of AustDomains).
Be careful, and read the fine print. Many registrars
force you to purchase add-ons in order to qualify for
so-called low pricing, which is a disadvantage when all you
need is to register the domain.
Changing hosting providers
A hosting provider is a company which hosts a web site, email accounts, a database, etc., on your
behalf. Hosting services can be bundled with domain name registration but that does not guarantee
optimal service. While domain registration is very, very straightforward, web and email hosting is not.
For small businesses, for professionals working from home without an IT department, it is important
to find someplace which can listen to your requirements and act accordingly.
There are many reasons that people need to change hosting providers over the years. One reason
is, of course, price. But there are other reasons which generally boil down to lack of customized service.
In order to change hosting providers for web or email, you generally need to (re)gain control of your
domain and the definition of the so-called name servers which provide DNS. The name servers
cause a name, such as www.href.com, to resolve to an internet address (number) such as 208.201.252.8.
Each hosting provider has machines with unique numbers. If you want to move a web site from a old/bad
host to a new/groovy host at a new address, you absolutely must be able to control the identity of the name servers.
Usually there are at least two name servers used for each domain.
The WHOIS record for a domain always reports the identify of the name servers. You should check
those and make sure that they are with a company that you trust, either a good registrar, a good hosting
company or a good web design firm.
Transferring a Domain from an Expensive Registrar to a Cheaper Registrar
In some cases, it is worth transferring domains to save ongoing annual fees. This can be tricky because,
these days, domains are locked, meaning that they cannot be transferred without the owner taking extra
steps. (And this is because too many people stole domains away from their rightful owners, before locking
was available.)
Before you transfer an existing domain, you should capture the current DNS records by going
to network-tools, putting in your domain name,
and retrieving the DNS information. Print that - and/or save the information to a file. You will need it.
To transfer a domain, you login to the old/bad/expensive registrar's web site and UNLOCK the
domain. You then go to the new/good/inexpensive registrar's site and request a transfer of your domain
to the new place. A series of emails will be sent by the registrars to confirm that the whole process is
legal, and you will need to confirm the transfer. Usually you will also have to pay one year's fee to the
new registrar, and that will extend the life of your domain by a year (so you do not lose any money, you
are only pre-paying early).
Hosting with HREF Tools
If you want to host your web site with us (HREF Tools Corp.),
then we recommend that you
register your own domain and set the name servers to ns1.href.com and
ns2.href.com. We can do the rest for you.
We do not generally provide web design services but we can refer you to excellent
webmasters in most countries.
Domain Ownership: Control your own domain name