Do you own your domain?

It may seem an obvious question but we come across issues with domain registration fairly regularly. Many people don't know how to access it, update it or even if they own it and it can cause problems further down the line. In this short article we look at why it's important.

Do you own it?

Even if your website is working on a particular domain it may not necessarily be yours. Every domain has a registered owner and this person has the legal right to manage a domain. Now, this should be your organisation regardless of whether you or your web company registered it - if you don't own it and want to do something with it (like move providers) you are at the mercy of the domain owner.

How can you tell?

It's fairly easy to see if you own the domain or not. Simply visit https://who.is/ and provide your web address and hit the search button. This will show you the domain details like this one. As you can see we are the owners of our domain and your details should appear here. If they don't, don't panic there may have been a perfectly sensible reason for this not to be the case but ask your developer to change these details.

Can you access it?

If you own it then great! The next question to ask yourself is, how do I access it? Someone at some point would've registered the domain themselves or with the help of a hosting provider. It is crucial to your organisation's business continuity that you know where it is and the login details to access it. Web addresses are very important and should stay with you, you don't want to change web addresses just because you don't have access to it.

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