A surprising number of businesses do not own their own domain name. It was registered years ago by whoever built the first website, it sits in that person's account under their name and their email address, and nobody thought about it again because it kept working. It keeps working right up until the relationship ends, the developer disappears, or the renewal notice goes to an inbox nobody has checked since 2019. Checking takes two minutes.
How to check
Look up your domain in any public WHOIS search. The registrant details are what you are looking for.
Many registrars hide those details behind privacy protection, which is normal and sensible, so you may see the privacy service instead. In that case the question becomes simpler: can you log into the registrar account yourself.
If you cannot log in, and you do not know the email address the domain is registered to, you do not control your domain. Whoever does can move it, let it lapse, or point it somewhere else, and you would find out when the site stopped loading.
Why it matters more than it sounds
The domain is the one asset that cannot be rebuilt. A website can be rebuilt in weeks. Hosting can be moved in a day. A domain that has been your address for ten years, that every customer, every invoice, every business card and every email signature points at, has no replacement.
Your email usually depends on it too. Losing the domain means losing the website and every email address on it at the same moment.
And the search value attached to it, all the links and history that make it rank, belongs to the domain rather than the site.
The expiry problem
Domains expire. Registrars send warnings, to the registrant email address, which in this situation is not yours.
After expiry there is a grace period, then a redemption period where it can usually be recovered for a considerably larger fee, and then it becomes available to anyone.
Domains with traffic get bought within minutes of becoming available, sometimes automatically. Getting one back after that is a negotiation, not a process, and the price is whatever the new owner decides.
Turn on auto renewal, make sure a payment method on the account is current, and make sure the registrant email is one somebody actually reads.
How to put it right
If it is in someone else's account, ask them to transfer it. Most will, and it is a normal request rather than an accusation.
A transfer needs the domain unlocked and an authorisation code from the current registrar, then it moves to an account in your name. It usually takes a few days.
If the relationship has already ended badly, a domain registered to your business name gives you a claim. One registered personally to someone else is much harder, which is exactly why it is worth fixing while everyone is still on good terms.
When it is done, check the registrant email, turn on auto renewal, and enable the registrar lock that stops a transfer nobody authorised.
Questions people ask
- My agency registered our domain. Is that a problem?
- It is only a problem if it stays that way. Plenty of agencies register domains for clients as a convenience and transfer them on request without any fuss. Ask for it to be moved into an account in your business name. An agency that refuses has told you something useful.
- What happens if my domain expires?
- It stops working, which takes the website and the email with it. There is a grace period and then a redemption period where it can usually be recovered for a much larger fee. After that it can be registered by anyone, and domains with traffic are often taken within minutes.
- Should the domain be in my name or my company's?
- The company's, with a business email address as the contact. Registered to an individual, it becomes a complication whenever that person leaves, and a straightforward matter of company records when it is not.
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