WHOIS: Is Your Domain Name Really Yours?
What every company needs to know about their domain name…
Imagine that you are moving into a new office today. Your furniture is moved in, the phones are being connected, offices setup.
You’re all set, but for one detail. The landlord has decided that he’s going to keep the only set of keys. Does that sound crazy?
Well, you might be suprised to know who is holding the keys to your virtual office front door - your domain name.
We find that many web designers and IT geeks have a strange habit of not handing over the keys. Too many business people aren’t even aware that there are any keys, let alone how important they are.
What could be done with your domain name keys? Let me give you an idea. A person could:
- Shutdown your website
- Intercept your email
- Hold your company to ransom.
Sadly, we’ve actually seen it happen.
Fortunately, there’s a way you can find out who has the keys. It’s called WHOIS.
If you don’t know who has the keys to your domain name (commonly known as the domain name password) then you need to go and check right now.
- For Australian .au domains go here: http://www.mywebname.com.au (WHOIS tool from the Australian domain name authority AusRegistry)
- For other domains go here: http://www.whois.net/
What you will see when you search on your domain name is three sections: registrant, administrative contact and technical contact. Here’s a rundown on each of these records:
Registrant
This tells you who owns the domain name. If someone else’s company name and address is not listed here, hit the big red panic button.
Administrative Contact
This should be you, or a trusted person within your organisation. If the administrative contact listed does not work for your company, you should get this changed ASAP.
Think about using a generic or group address within your company to ensure access to this part of the record. Ensure that this is kept up to date at all times.
Technical Contact
It can be helpful to have your web designer, programmer or IT assistant people here. This will be the backup contact for your domain.
You’ll only be able to retrieve the password to your domain name if the information in these contacts is right. If your company is not listed in the contacts for your domain name and you don’t have the password, then you have a few choices to fix the situation:
- Contact the company or contact that is listed on the WHOIS and politely request that they change the contacts to yours (I really hope you’re on good terms with them).
- Contact the domain name registrar and apply to have the details changed. They usually have a policy to deal with these situations, particularly where the contact listed on the domain is no longer current and can’t be contacted.
- Go through a dispute resolution process with the domain name authority. This can be long, drawn out and difficult. Not a good option.
It’s a shame that I have to say that 6 out of every 10 domain names that we deal with are not registered correctly, leaving the company at risk.
We have a strict policy within our organisation to never register clients’ domain names using our own contact details. Check to ensure that your web company has the same policy.
From the author: If you run an eCommerce website then you might wonder, “How do I know if I’m getting as many orders as I could be through my website?” The answer to that question is in your website’s conversion rates.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’ve seen this happen a lot too. The really sad cases are where the webmaster registers the domain in their own name, then can’t be found when the whois record needs to be updated, effectively trapping the website with the existing host.
Thanks for bringing this subject up!