Because of a “best in the area” referral by my friends over at Phil Tenenbaum’s Computer Assistance in Rutland Vermont I was recently contacted by WCAX Channel 3 News to comment and do an interview on Rutland City’s domain name situation and offer my suggestions on how to stop these exact scenarios from reoccurring for others.
Because of a “best in the area” referral by my friends over at Phil Tenenbaum’s Computer Assistance in Rutland Vermont I was recently contacted by WCAX Channel 3 News to comment and do an interview on Rutland City’s domain name situation and offer my suggestions on how to stop these exact scenarios from reoccurring for others.
I had to politely decline the interview due to having the flu/cold that I somehow always seem to contract when I travel, and in this case from four separate flights to get to and from Arizona this past weekend. So, I did what any good, kind, local professional business should do, I still recommended WCAX to my local competition so they could still get their interview.
I digress…
Recently Rutland City’s domain name (www.rutlandcity.com) (Private WHOIS) expired and someone ended up buying the domain right out from under them. Normally this cannot happen due to a grace period after the domains expiration date. Any domain registrar allows the current owner time to renew the domain. Normally a 30 or even 60 day period based on the registrar. After that it goes into what’s called a domain redemption period. This allows the owner to pay a fee to reinstate the domain one last time before it’s offered up for sale as an available domain name.
If I was Rutland City I would want to investigate why the domain was not put into redemption.
I can only think that someone probably had the domain on back order so it could be purchased the very minute it became available. I have a few domain names myself that are on back order just in case. The only difference is these domains pertain to my business, I am not trying to make a quick dollar buying and selling domain names.
The other thing to review is the domain and registrant contact (WHOIS) info. Was it up to date? Is the e-mail address associated with the domain registration active? That is where all renewal notifications are normally sent. There is also the dreaded SPAM FOLDER! Who will really know now that someone in Panama now ownes the URL.
It sounds like Rutland City’s domain name registration info was either out of date or it just simply slipped their mind to renew. This day and age how can a business not know when their website is down or whom controls their domain registration???!
In order to stop this from happening J.E.G. Design, Inc. always assist new web clients with registering their own domain so they are responsible for the annual renewal. There is no money to be made for a $15+/- per year domain registration and renewals, so do not let anyone tell you different.
We see another scenario all the time as well, a friend of a friend of another friend, who’s a web designer (everyone can design websites these days you know!) set up our website and now they are bitter and won’t give you access to the domain name and the registrar account access. They won’t even consider a transfer the domain name.
So basically by letting any web company bundle domain registration with your other web services allows them to control 100% of your web presence the moment you start working with them. That is something we do not recommend. We want the client in control of their website domain name from day one at the very least.
RESOURCES:
We consider the main domain registrars to be DirectNic, GoDaddy and as much as I hate to say it Network Solutions. Each have their pros and cons, especially NETSOL who I would not recommend to anyone just due to the fact you rarely can get anyone on the phone who speaks english. Maybe since web.com is buying them that will change. There are 100’s more to choose from but we highly recommend DirectNic for ease of use and costs.