Domain Registration Tips

Domain registration is something that seems innocent enough, especially since you can register your domain name for up to ten years at a time. These long registration periods and offers for dirt cheap registrations have created some difficulty for many people when they try to renew their domain name or change their hosting providers. Blizzard Internet Marketing currently manages about 1000 domain names for our customers; this service includes registration, renewal, and updating ownership information.

We can renew your domain registration for 5 years for $100 or 10 years for $150 — these long renewal terms can help some clients manage their domain more easily by eliminating the need for annual renewals. 

For our other customers that have decided to manage their own domains, we have compiled a list of 6 MUST DO items if you are registering your domain name:

1. Save your passwords or other login information - When you register a domain you are generally asked to set up passwords for your account or the registrar will give passwords and instructions to log into your account. You must put this information in a safe place so you can refer to it later.

2. Keep your contact information up to date - If you change address or phone numbers or especially your email address, you must log into your domain account and update this information.

If there is someone who maintains your domain information for you, contact them with the new information.
Make these changes while you still have access to your old email address or phone number. You may need to use the address or phone number to confirm the changes.

An out of date email address in your domain account can impede your ability to update the name servers to a new host, transfer your domain, or even renew your domain name.

3. Make sure that your domain name belongs to you! - If someone else is registering the domain for you, specify that you want the domain registered in your name. This should be the name of your company, with your name as the contact. If the company or person refuses, then register your domain name somewhere else. If you want to be the only person that has control of your domain, you should also be listed as the administrative contact for the domain name.

4. Make sure that phone support is available - If you are looking for domain registration you should make sure that the company has a phone number for support on their website. Most companies will have a hold time for phone support, but you could wait several days for email support - and that can cost you money if your website is down.

5. Be conscientious about auto-renewals - Some companies will allow you to set an auto renewal for your domain name. This is a good idea, but be aware that the domain will only be renewed as long as the credit card information in the account is kept up-to-date. More than a few companies have allowed their domain names to expire, and have even lost to competition because they thought the domain would be renewed automatically.

6. Know who you will be paying for your domain renewal - If your domain has been registered through your hosting company or webmaster, ask them who will invoice you for the domain name renewal. Some companies, like Blizzard Internet Marketing, are resellers for domains and will invoice you directly. Other companies register the domain for you using a retail account, and the registrar will invoice you directly. There are several companies that are sending out solicitations asking you to renew your domain with them. These solicitations can be very misleading because they do not make it clear that by paying them, you are moving your domain name to a different registration company and that this requires confirmation from the administrative contact for the domain name. Since you thought that you were just renewing your domain name - not transferring it - the transfer is never confirmed, and the domain expires before the transfer/renewal can take place, regardless of the amount of money spent.

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