Who Owns Your Site?
On a daily basis I come across company's who have no idea who bought, or owns, their website domain name and from what company it was purchased. Only when it is time to move hosting companies or redesign does this issue come up. This becomes a problem when you find out that you don't own your own domain.
In the early days there was only one place to buy your domain, and that was Network Solutions. But since the deregulation of their monopoly a whole slew of sites popped up selling domains. Since then, a lot of those companies went out of business or sold out to some of the bigger companies like Go Daddy or eNom.
See if this sound familiar. You created your site several years ago. You hired some designer or web company to "get you on the web" as soon as possible. Maybe you paid for 4 or 5 years in advance. Now it's time to upgrade or redesign your site, which requires you to change hosting companies. Then the dreaded question comes. Who owns your domain and how can I get in to change the name servers? (name servers are the servers your hosting company uses to direct your url to your site. These are specific to each hosting company).
I usually get an answer like "well Steve the web guy bought it for us, but I think he moved". Or "We used a company called WebTech, but I think they went out of business". So the question arises, do you own your domain or does Steve or WebTech own it.
How can I find out who my site is registered to?
Since the deregulation of domain selling, it makes it harder to
track who owns what site. It takes a little detective work, but
it's no that difficult to find your domain on a "whois" server somewhere.
Start by going to www.godaddy.com.
You must go to the bottom of the page to find the link named "Whois".
From there you can type in your domain and see who it is registered
to. I f you have no luck there try www.enom.com,
their whois link is on the top right of their site. www.register.com
is an other.
How can I get my domain back
If you find that someone else owns your domain the first step is
to contact that person and ask them to transfer it back to you.
This is the easiest way since "Steve the web guy" really doesn't
care that he or you owns it.
If you are having a problem getting your domain back you can go
to ICANN, the overseer of domains, to dispute the issue. They have
a "Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy" which you can
read about at http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
Beware! Someone may want your domain name.
There are companies out there that monitor what sites expire and
sell them before you can re-buy it. Companies like www.afternic.com
or www.sedo.com
lets you put the name you are looking for on a waiting list. Waiting
for someone not to re-new, that is. There is one protection, If
you own the trademark on your company name then you can retake you
domain back. This was set up so someone couldn't buy coke.com and
try to sell it back to Coke for $200,000
Summary
In short, if you did not buy your domain yourself, then someone
else did. Most likely it's not in your name. Do a little research
and protect your interests.
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