How to check if you own your domain name

Your domain name is the lifeblood of your business. It's your website, your emails - the digital connection between you and prospective / existing clients. 

Losing your domain name could be catastrohpic - and once lost it could be impossible to get back. 

Things you need to understand about domain names

Who owns my domain name

Your domain name is never "owned" - it is rented to you by domain authorities. In case of any disputes they're the ones that intervene. You'll never hear from them unless there's a trademark / legal issue. ICANN for top level domains like .com https://www.icann.org/ and Nominet for .co.uk domains https://nominet.uk/ 

As long as you keep paying your renewal fee, you're free to use the domain name. 

But do YOU have access to your own domain?

A lot of people get their IT company, or a friend to register and manage their domain names on their behalf and as long as it's running they don't have a problem. This is actually a big problem. If you don't have access to your own domain name, you have no control over it and if any of these people go out of business or you have a dispute - you're stuck. It happens more often than you think. 

What does having access to your domain name actually mean?

To understand what access actually means, you need to understand the basics of domain names. It gets very technical but we'll keep it as simple as possible for now. 

Your domain registrar

This is the company that you pay your domain renewal to. To check who your domain registrar is go here https://who.is type in your domain name and with the whois tab selected scroll down to see the "Registrar" details. If you cannot see it then scroll down to the section "Raw Registry WHOIS Data". 

You must have access to your domain registrars details to login and see your domain name. 

If you're using a 3rd party to manage your domain, despite the excuses they give you, insist on moving your domain into an account that you can access. Then give them access. Most domain registrars allow multiple users, so set them up and give then access. And revoke if ever needed. 

Once you get access to the domain control panel, make sure the legal owner is you. Some IT companies register it to themselves and this means legally you don't own your own domain - they do. Your domain registrar can change this for you. Just call them or email them. 

But that's not all ...

Having access to your domain name handles the renewal and ownership, but the services that your domain name is "linked" to, you need access to that also. The domain name connects to your email services and website hosting. 

Your domain control panel will have a section called DNS records. Call this the telephone book for your domain. When somebody looks for your website, where should I go.

The 2 records that are key to know is : A records point to your web server and MX records point to your mail server. 

If you do not know who hosts your website and have access to the web server then you could lose your website. Same for emails. 

Always know where your domain is pointing to and have access to these.

Nameservers

Here's something to keep an eye out for. In the simplest set up, you'll have your domain, website hosting and emails with one company - your registrar. 

However it is not uncommon to keep the domain with the registrar and use a different company for hosting and for email. Could be for cost or quality reasons. Sometimes the registrar doesn't offer these services. 

Through your DNS records as we explained, you can point the A and MX records to where you want. Nameservers by default point to your domain registrar once a domain is registered for the first time. Thereafter modifications are made. If you are working with an IT company, then ask them where my namervers are pointing to. If they are pointing to their servers, it means you have lost most of the control of your domain name. This is not unusual or malicious - it's just the IT company prefer to manage the domain in a different infastructure. For example a lot of IT companies prefer to use Cloudflare to manage domains, as they provide a lot of free services that are beneficial. 

Whatever the reason - you should always know where your nameservers are pointing to and have access.

If your nameservers are pointing to a third party, then the DNS records in your registrars setttings will not work. 

Checklist

• Find out who your domain registrar is and make sure you have access to the domain name
• Make sure you are the legal registrant of your domain name and your email is on the account
• Make sure you set your domain name to auto-renew and have a valid credit card on file
• Never ignore emails from your registrar. If there is an issue with payment or renewal they'll contact you. Always check your junk and spam folder
• Know who is actually providing your emails and make sure you have direct access to the control panel for this
• Know who is actually providing your website hosting and make sure you have direct access to the control panel for this
• Know where your nameservers are pointing to and make sure you have direct access to this. 
• Ask whoever is looking after your nameservers to provide you a list of all your DNS records. This is the telephone directory of your domain and in case of any issues, you'll have a record. Ask them if they ever make changes, to sedn you an updated list. This will be full of random names and digits. Don't worry about understanding it. 
• Keep these records safe OUTSIDE your email. If your email stops working, you'll need these details. Send them to somebody you trust for a backup. 
• Legally this is all information you should have. Nobody should restrict you for having access to this if you are paying for services.