Recently, we’ve had a lot of clients come to us who were dissatisfied with their previous web development company. In a lot of these cases, the clients did not have access to their own domain name. How does this happen? Often, when a business develops its website, they let the web designer handle the purchase of the hosting account and the domain name. This, in and of itself is not really a problem. The problem is that often the web designer purchases the domain name in his or her name.

If your web designer doesn’t purchase your domain name in your name, then you don’t own the domain. What does that mean? It means that if you have some sort of dispute with your web designer, or your web designer disappears off the face of the Earth, it can be very difficult to gain control of your domain name. There are a couple of things you can do to avoid this pitfall.

1) Purchase the domain name yourself. You can go to Go-Daddy, Network Solutions or any other domain registrar and easily register a domain name with a credit card. This is very inexpensive. Just make sure the registrar you use allows you to access your domain and manage it yourself. You may not know how to do this, but at least you will have the username and password to provide to any web developer you use. On top of that, you’ll be able to change your username and password if there is a “falling out” between you and your web developer.

2) If you do allow your web developer/designer to register the domain for you, make sure the registration is in your company’s name and that they provide you with the username and password to access the domain. Any reputable web development company will be more than happy to provide you with this arrangement.