Who really owns your domain name?
The short version
- Your domain name controls your website and your email. Lose it, and you lose both.
- Keep the account in the business's name, with a login the business controls, not a former designer's or employee's.
- Turn on auto-renew, keep the payment card current, and turn on the registrar lock and two-step login.
- Ignore renewal notices from companies you've never done business with.
Why it matters
Your domain, such as yourbusiness.com, is a registration you renew through a company called a registrar. Whoever controls the registrar account controls where your website points and where your email goes. If the registration expires, your website and email stop working, and after a grace period anyone can register the name.
Find out where it lives
Look up your domain with ICANN's free lookup tool to see which registrar it's with and when it expires. Then find the login. If nobody knows it, or it belongs to someone who no longer works with you, sort it out now, while things are calm.
The checklist
- The account is in the business's name, its login is stored in your password manager, and at least two people can get in.
- Auto-renew is on and the payment card on file is current. Renewing several years at a time adds a cushion.
- The contact email is one you'll actually see. Ideally use an address on a different domain, so renewal notices still reach you if the domain itself has a problem.
- The registrar lock is on (sometimes called a transfer lock), so the domain can't be moved to another registrar without your approval.
- Two-step login is on for the registrar account.
- You know where your DNS is managed and which records your website and email depend on.
Watch out for renewal scams
Businesses regularly receive official-looking letters and emails urging them to renew or "register" their domain, often from companies they've never used, at inflated prices, and sometimes transferring the domain away in the process. Only renew through the registrar you already use, on its own website. ICANN's renewal and expiration FAQ explains how renewals normally work.
If someone else holds it
Domains are often registered by a web designer or an employee on the business's behalf. That works until the relationship ends. Ask them to move the domain into an account the business owns while everyone is still on good terms.
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