It has happened once too often... someone calls and tells me the person who designed their website and who has always done their web maintenance has disappeared. Their domain is now up for renewal, they don't know how to do it, and they also want to switch hosting. So I take a look at the information for the domain, and find that the registrant for the domain is their web person, not them. So now they can't get into the domain registration without herculean effort. What can be done?

Solving this dilemma can be a really tough one, since the registrant information determines who actually owns the domain. The most important part of that information is the company name, since we all know that companies can be bought and sold and the owners and administrative people may change, but chances are good that if the company is viable, that company name is going to remain the same.

Who's the registrant of your domain? 

All too often, those "cheap" amateur web designers register the domain in their name and company name, even though you paid for it and it's your website. You originally decided on using the guy/gal down the street who does web design in his/her spare time because they won't charge you as much as the pros. You let him/her register the domain for you and put together your website (and it's usually not very well done, either, not meeting standards... but that's a whole other bag of worms). And s/he now owns your domain.

How do you know who owns it? Check the Whois record with Internic, the website of the organization that oversees the domain name registration system. It is common for a design firm to list themselves as the various contacts of a domain (these include administrative, billing, and technical) and even use their email address as the registrant email address. Nothing wrong with any of that. But if you see their company name as the registrant, and their personal name as the owner of the site, then you'd better get in contact with them and get it changed, because at that point you don't own your domain, they do.

I've seen these happen at local ISPs as well, where every domain name they host is put into the ISP's name and company name. What if they went out of business? What would happen to your domain then? As long as you are the legal registrant, you have recourse.

What do I do if my domain shows someone else as the owner?

The best thing you can do is make every effort to get hold of them and get them to change the registrant information for your domain. This way, even if you have a problem any registrar will, with a little paperwork, allow you to transfer the domain into your own account.

If they are no longer in business but you can still get hold of them, then get them to unlock the domain for you, a simple procedure taking a moment of time. This will allow you to transfer it into your own account, at which point you'd better change all contact information to reflect the true owner of the domain. But what if you can't reach them? What if they've disappeared off the map, moved out of town and you don't know where? Now you've got real trouble.

The first thing you should do is contact the registrar, and ask them what avenues they have for getting back your domain. Much of the time it's going to take a court case, since the person listed as the registrant is officially the owner. You're going to have to track them down, and get them to sign over the domain if you want to keep it.

Should you go to that much trouble? If you've built a brand name with that domain name, and have thousands invested in printed materials as well as other marketing, you have no choice. There's too much money invested in that name to let it slide.

You could let the domain expire, but these days buying "used" domain names is big business, and it could cost you hundreds or even thousands to buy that domain name back—this happened to one of my customers a while back, a non-profit who didn't check on their website regularly and was suddenly made aware that their website was gone, and the domain was up for sale. They had thousands of dollars in advertising out there, it cost them hundreds more to buy back the domain from the speculator who had purchased it.

And then there's the search engines issues that come into it... search engines like older domains because they figure the business that owns them has been around for a while, therefore that older domain has a leg up on the other domains with which it's in competition. You sure don't want that domain to expire fully (beyond the grace period where you can still renew it), because once it does it goes back to square one, and you're back in the Google sandbox waiting a year for your domain to start showing up again.

The point here is that your domain is the linchpin upon which everything else hinges. It's very important, and should be treated as such. It's not just an addendum to your marketing program, it's a major part of your marketing and in some cases, the whole business revolves around the website that uses that domain name.

So why do business owners not check to make sure the registration shows their business as the owner?

Mainly because they don't know how. If you registered your own domain, then you know you're okay. Just make sure your domain information is up to date, particularly the email address used for the account, as this is how a registrar will let you know that it's time to renew your domain. If someone else registered your domain for you, then check with Internic to make sure that your business is listed as the owner. If it's not, then work at it until you see the registration changed to reflect your ownership, not the web design company as the owner of your name.

There is just one more little detail... if your domain was set up with a private domain registration, there is no way that you can view the details of the registration without the password into that private registration account. Make sure you have it, because even the registrars themselves can't help you if you lose that information and your email address is no longer valid in that account. It is absolutely essential that you keep this information safe.

Treat your domain name as the valuable commodity that it is.

You may have several domains, each one with some pages that ultimately point to your main domain. But your main domain, the one which is your business and is the one that's the focus of all your marketing efforts, that's the one to treat as if it were gold. Make sure that once the information in the domain registration is correct, that the domain is locked. This is a setting that is very important, ever since ICANN changed the rules a couple of years ago so that any domain that was not locked can be transferred to anyone who requests that transfer, whether or not they are the domain owner. When you're not transferring a doamin, make sure it's always locked, just as you would lock up any of your valued belongings. And make sure that the only people with access to that domain registration are people you trust.