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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Small Business Web Site Design – Registering your domain

I have to write this because of a personal experience I went through with a friend of mine who I help off and on.

Scenario: I want to register a domain name so prospects and customers ca have a meaningful name to type in to visit my web site. I want to use this domain name to provide my web hosting company so they can host my web site.

Sounds easy, right? But beware. If you are not sure of what you are doing, you can be in for a nasty surprise. Here’s what you need to do to assure you are not caught unaware.

When you register a domain name, almost all registrars ask for the following information: Registrant, Administrative, Technical and Billing information/contact. Frequently, many small business owners do not know the mechanics of registering domains etc. so they leave it in the “trusted hands” of their web site developer or designer. This is OK as long as you tell them what you expect. And expectations are simple. YOU want to control the domain and want it registered in your name. I cannot emphasize this enough. In my experience with many businesses, I have come across this situation very often. The business owner has no clue who his/her domain is registered with and what contact information has been provided.

One of the easiest way is to go to http://www.whois.com and type your domain name there. The output from your search will show you all the details of your domain name.

If the contact information indicates anyone other than yourself, then ask yourself if you were aware of this situation. If not, it’s time to get things reorganized and ensure you control your domain.

In my next article, I will let you know another potential painful problem you may have if you are not careful in managing your domain.

Elvin Picardo
Delivering Net Results to Small Business
Author of numerous articles on web development and Internet Marketing for small business
10723 159th St, Surrey, BC V4N 3J1 Canada
http://www.netmedian.com
mailto: epicardo@netmedian.com

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