Where's My Domain?

by Cliff Feldwick

One day you call up your website, and its not you. Or more likely, a customer or lead tries to get hold of you or see your goods via website, and gets directed to a “You can buy this domain now!” ad or someone else’s off the wall site (or even a “this site has expired” message) and is kind enough to tell you. You visit your own website and are horrified by what you find. Which, by the way, is a good reason to check every so often anyway.

How did this happen?

 Oops

 It can be benign neglect, or it can be an attack.

 In the more benign scenario, it happens because of inattention or, more often, a switch of providers of your Internet service. Often when you sign up for a domain name, you’re offered a deal to go for three or five years at a deeply reduced price, and usually take it. So there is a long-ago-and-far-away memory that it will expire sometime, but when becomes hazy.

To check on when this may happen, go to http://networksolutions.com/whois. Type in your domain name, scroll down past the attempt to sell you more stuff, and look at your registration information. You’ll find your creation and expiration dates, and some other important information. For instance, who is listed as your Administrative contact? It should be you, rather than your service provider. This is the person who will be notified if an attempt is made to switch service providers, for instance. Does it have your correct email address and phone number? If not, you probably need to contact their support people to see how to update it.

There will also be a Technical Contact listed. This will usually be your web designer or host service tech guy. They will take calls on technical problems/issues, and you generally want them to do that.

Often domain names fail to get renewed because you have changed web hosting firms sometime between registration and the renewal date. The old firm doesn’t have any incentive to notify you, and the new one doesn’t know when. So you fall through the cracks. Sometimes outside firms who want to make a little money look for expiring names and offer to re-register them, for a fee. These are usually unnecessary, and can be scams. Ask your current web hosting firm to take care of it.

There’s also a market in expiring names that waits for something popular to expire and jumps on it, offering to sell it back for a too-large fee. Even legitimate businesses like Network Solutions allow you to pick names you’d like to acquire, and sign up for an email notification if it comes open. I have seen firms try to get names of their out-of-business competitors, hoping that some customers had bookmarked the old web address and would be led to their site. Seems a little desperate, but with domain names so cheap, maybe it’s worthwhile.

Lock it up

Another thing to look for in your domain information is whether the Status is locked. This is what you want. This prevents moving your registration to another provider without your consent. In the correct procedure and correct world, any attempt to move your domain registration (to or from GoDaddy or anyone else) requires approval from the Administrative contact, which should be you, by email or fax. If the status is not locked, it is possible for an unscrupulous provider to send a “If you don’t respond to this message, we’re going to go ahead and switch you” email and say this was your OK. No reputable outfit does this, but the disreputable ones will try it. This is what I mean by an attack. They’re either trying to get your business, or wanting to hold you for ransom. Either way, not really someone you want to deal with.

By the way, the whois address listed above can be used to find out who is using a suspect domain name, such as those internet dating sites that were popping up on roadside signs all over the place a year ago. Looking  them up led to a PO box out in Nevada - obviously someone I’d like to entrust my name, income and preferences to. Sure.

A senior moment

I’ve gotten two mailings recently from candidates (luckily, this will be past the elections when you read this – maybe the mud will be able to back to the construction sites by then, rather than on the TV) who are really misreading their market. They have obviously bought mailing lists sorted by age and are tailoring their postcards appropriately. That’s fine, except their cards mention “seniors” – such as “Candidate Wonderful respects the contributions seniors have made to our community” or (add correct hysteria here) “They’re going to raise senior taxes!”

Like most Baby Boomers, I will never think of myself as senior. Hell, we’ll be dying off in nursing homes from old age and will still insist that we’re middle aged. Someone needs to tell these candidates they’re stepping on a sensitive toe here. And like many boomers, those toes hurt already.

Cliff Feldwick does PC troubleshooting, network setups and similar techno things for small businesses (but not web hosting), when not acting youthful and overly sensitive. He can be reached at 410-880-0171 or at cliff@feldwick.com.