|
A Basic Guide to Getting
and Keeping Your Domain Name
Learn what domain names really do, why they
are valuable, and how to get and keep your very own special name. One of the questions I keep hearing is, how do I get a
new domain name, or how do I keep my existing domain name? That www.yoursite.com is how your customers know you on the internet, so you
want to find a good name and keep it. In this article I'll walk you
through the basics of domain names, including:
What is a domain name?
The
domain name is an address on the internet, like
yahoo.com or
SGWebsites.Com. This
address points to an IP address, which is a unique number that
identifies the computer where your website is stored. When you go to a website, the domain name that you type
in your address bar is translated into its IP address by a DNS (Domain
Name System) server. Without DNS servers, finding a website would be
like trying to find a business in your telephone book by looking up the
phone number instead of their name. Example: The domain name
StartingGateWebsites.Com is just a nice way of saying
24.16.4.117 (the IP address.) This number is the unique
identifier for the SGWebsites server where this web page is stored. A domain name may have a maximum of 63 characters
(letters, numbers, dashes) plus the 4 characters for the extensions such
as ".com". This allows a domain name (including the
extension) to be 67 characters long. It's generally best to have the
shortest domain name possible. Your visitors will find
it easier to type and remember. All domain information is stored in the
domain
name registry. The domain name registry is like a phone book.
It keeps track of which domain name maps to which IP address in the
Domain Name System.
How do I get a domain
name?
You can purchase a domain name by registering it for a
fee. There are hundreds of companies, known as Registrars, that can
register your domain name for you. Some popular Registrars include
networksolutions.com,
GoDaddy.com, and
register.com. Legitimate Registrars are accredited by
ICANN (Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN is responsible for managing the
Domain Name System, IP addresses, and domain names. Domain names have to be unique. In other words, you
can't get StartingGateWebsites.Com because I've
already registered it. Once you've come up with a domain name you like,
you'll want to check its availability. Any of the Registrars I mentioned
above, like Network Solutions,
will allow you to check your domain name. The .com, .net, and .org
extensions are widely recognized. If possible, you should choose a
domain name with one of these extensions. Now that you've chosen a domain name and confirmed that
it's available, go ahead and buy it up before someone else gets to it
first. Really. Go, and hurry! Domain names are so affordable these days,
there's no reason not to. If you wait, and someone else snatches it up,
you could end up paying much more (if the owner is willing to sell) or
you might not ever get it at all. With so many companies willing to register your domain
name, where should you go?
-
If
you're not going to purchase hosting right away, find a
reputable company that will register your domain name for a
reasonable price. (We use GoDaddy
for low prices and excellent customer service.)
The legal owner is the purchaser
When you buy a domain name you are known as the Registrant. The
Registrant is the legal owner of the domain, and changing owners can be
extremely difficult. Some web designers / firms will register domain names
for their clients. It seems nice and uncomplicated, but what the client
doesn't know is that if the designer uses his/her own name and billing
information during registration, the designer is the Registrant, or
legal owner, of the domain. Unfortunately, this allows them to
completely block you out of your domain name if you choose to go
elsewhere for service.
Managing Your Domain
Name
Although domain name management is beyond the scope of
this article, I think it's important to point out several things. First, you might be curious about how to change the
settings for your domain name, such as the MX records. Please don't do
it. Entering the wrong information can cause your website and emails to
stop functioning. If you really need to know what all those numbers
mean, contact your domain name provider or web designer. Second, your domain has several entries associated with
it. These are the Registrant (Owner),
Administrative Contact , Billing Contact , and
Technical Contact fields. You will want to make sure
you are listed as the owner and that the billing information is current
and correct.
-
If you are not listed as the Registrant (Owner) of your
domain name and cannot access your domain settings to correct the
listing, the only way to change the registrant fields is through a
legal change of ownership, a court order, or an order by the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
-
The Administrative Contact is the person in
charge of maintaining your domain. This field should list either
your information, or the information of another designated person
such as your web designer. Trust is important here, because when it
comes to transferring a domain name (should you ever need to), the
Administrator is responsible for approving the transfer. No approval
= no transfer.
-
The Billing Contact is you or another
designated person in your organization that can be contacted for
billing issues.
-
The Technical Support person is usually someone
from your hosting provider or ISP (Internet Service Provider). Leave
this field as is.
Finally, there are two more domain settings you should
be aware of. Domain Privacy can be enabled for your
domain, which basically prevents anyone from seeing the entries
associated with your domain. (I still haven't found a practical use for
this, but some people enjoy their privacy.) Domain Locking
can also be enabled. This will prevent unauthorized transfers, aka
theft, of your domain. If a transfer is requested and Locking is
enabled, the transfer is automatically denied.
Keeping an existing
domain name
We've learned that the person who registers a domain
name is the Registrant, or legal owner, and that the Administrative
Contact is the person in charge of maintaining your domain name. Now
let's see what we need to do to transfer your existing domain name to a
new provider.
Get information about your domain name
At the beginning of this article I told you that the domain name
registry is like a phone book. Domain information is stored in a
database, and just like with a phone book, you can look up that
information by name. As long as Domain Privacy hasn't been enabled, you
can find details for your domain name on the internet by doing a free
lookup on
WHOIS.NET. Now that you have your WHOIS listing, we're going to
look at it to make sure we can transfer your domain name to our new
provider.
Several conditions must be met before your domain can
be successfully transferred:
-
The Administrative Contact's email address for the
domain you want to transfer must be correct. When a
transfer request is submitted, a transfer confirmation email will be
sent to the Administrative Contact. The Administrative Contact must
confirm the domain transfer via a link in the email.
-
Your domain status must be UNLOCKED. You must
unlock the domain at your current registrar before it can be
transferred. WHOIS data does not always report the domain status
correctly. You should be able to view the status of the lock
setting in the account management system of your current registrar.
-
The domain name must be at least 14 days prior to the
expiration date.
-
You must wait until the domain name is
registered for at
least 60 days before you transfer it.
-
You must wait at least 60 days since the last domain
transfer to request a new transfer.
-
Whois privacy must be disabled, if active.
How a transfer works
Let's say you already signed up for your domain name and website hosting
service with XYZ Hosting. Along comes Dirt Cheap Web Designs, and I
recommended that you switch to GoDaddy. You signed up for hosting and
now we need to transfer your domain. Here's what happens:
When you sign up for GoDaddy hosting, they'll send you an email with
the subject "Domain Transfer Information". In order to start the
transfer process, we have to reply to this email with "I authorize
GoDaddy to start the domain name transfer process." Within the next few days another email will be sent,
this time to the Administrative Contact of your domain. The subject is
usually something like "Transfer Request for yourdomain.com". The
Administrative Contact generally has 14 days to follow the instructions
in the email to approve the transfer. If the Administrative Contact
doesn't confirm within this time, the transfer will fail. Then we have
to re-request the transfer and start all over again. It usually takes 7 to 10 days to complete a domain
transfer. If the domain is locked, or you don't respond to the
confirmation email immediately, the process may be delayed.
Using your domain name without transferring
It may be possible to leave your domain name at XYZ Hosting. Some
companies will allow it, especially those who provide domain name
registration separate from hosting. Instead of transferring the domain
name, we simply edit its settings to point to your new hosting account.
XYZ Hosting may do this for you if you supply them with the username and
password for your domain account, or you will have to do it yourself (in
which case, a web designer or developer can come in very handy.) The downside of this is that you'll be paying for both
GoDaddy
hosting AND your domain name at XYZ. By transferring your domain name to
GoDaddy, the domain fees are included with your hosting package.
Solving domain transfer problems
Transferring domain names is not without problems. There are a number
of things that can prevent a successful transfer.
The Administrative Contact field lists someone else's email
address
When it comes to transferring a domain, it's the Administrator,
not the Registrant, that has to approve the transfer. Think carefully
about that for a moment. If you have a web designer that you're planning
to replace, it's best to be up-front about your plans. Since the web
designer usually has access to all account information regarding your
domain and is very likely the Administrative Contact on record, they can
lock you out of your domain if things go bad. When you request a
transfer, an email is sent to the Administrative Contact asking for
approval to complete the transaction. If they refuse - or simply don't
respond - your transfer will be denied. Sometimes it's not a web designer's email address that's listed. When
you sign up for hosting and a domain name through an Internet Service
Provider, that ISP is listed as the Administrative Contact. In that
case, your domain can probably still be transferred. ISP's sometimes
prefer to list themselves as Administrative and Technical Contacts
because most private parties and small businesses trying to build their
own websites don't care to be involved in the technical aspect of domain
maintenance. A quick phone call is usually all that's needed to
straighten things out.
The Administrative Contact field lists an old or
incorrect email address
You must have access to the email address listed in the Administrative
Contact field in order to approve the transfer. If you need to update
the email address, either login to your current Registrar's account and
update it online, or call their Customer Service to help with this
change.
The domain is locked
When a domain is locked, transfer requests are automatically denied. You
might not even be notified that this has happened. For this reason, it's
important to check the status of your domain
before
requesting
a transfer. You should be able to view the status of the lock setting in
the account management system of your current registrar. To unlock your
domain, you may login to your current account with your Registrar to
turn off the lock feature on the domain(s) or call Customer Service at
and ask them to unlock your domain name.
The domain extension can't be registered
GoDaddy registers domains for .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .us.
GoDaddy, as well as a number of other hosting providers, can host
other domain extensions but can't register them. What that means is, you
can't transfer a domain name with a .tv extension to GoDaddy. If you
want a domain name with a .tv extension, you must purchase it at a
Registrar that handles that extension, such as
Network Solutions. You can
then log in to your Network Solutions account and edit your domain
settings so the domain points to GoDaddy's servers. Network Solutions has this note on their website regarding domain
name transfers:
"Only .com and .net extensions can be transferred using the
automated online process... To transfer, .biz, .bz, .cc, .org, .info
.tv and .us extensions to Network Solutions, you will need to
download a transfer request form, complete the required fields on
the form, and fax it back to us. The form can be found at:
http://www.networksolutions.com/domain-name-registration/popup-transferform.pdf
For these extensions, an authorization code is required for each
domain you want to transfer. The authorization code can be obtained
by calling your current Registrar. You will need to include this
code on the fax form."
Conclusion
I hope this article has shed some light on the world of
domain names. This is a very simple overview of how domain registration
and transfers work. For more information,
Network
Solutions is an excellent place to learn about domain names.
|
|
|
