Dotty Scott explains why you need to own your domain yourself, not let a designer, spouse, or anyone else hold it. If someone else controls it, they can lock you out, demand ransom, or disappear with your business address. Watch for fake invoices and transfer scams.
Hello, I have many customers who are very confused on the whole concept of domains, so I wanted to explain it all for everybody here. A domain is simply your web address. So mine, premiumwebsites.net, that's my domain. Your domain is whatever you purchased. And there's the key. Did you purchase it? Because I'm gonna share today all of the different things I've seen over the last 20 years of being a website designer so that you are aware of what's going on out there in the whole world of domains and you do not fall victim to this. So the best way is you purchase your domain, it's in your account. It's paid with by your credit card, and you are responsible for renewing it every year, every 5 years, however long you purchased it for. That way you own the domain and you're in 100% control because this is a business asset. There are lots of well-intentioned and some not so well-intentioned website designers, tech people, uh, whoever you wanna call 'em, that will help you buy the domain because you feel like you don't understand the process, you don't understand the technology behind it, you don't understand whatever. Uh, and so you welcome the help of these well-intentioned people. However, if that person purchases that domain in their account and you just pay them for it— I've seen this a lot— they own your domain, uh, and there's nothing you can do about it without them allowing you to transfer it into your own account, which is technically way more challenging than just buying it in your account to begin with. So over the 20 years, I've seen it all. And let's start with family. Oh, my spouse will buy this for me. It's no big deal. Fast forward 5, 10 years, whatever it is, and you get a divorce. All of a sudden, your spouse is holding your domain hostage. And they are not giving it up, and your only choice is to sue them, which you probably don't want to do because that's going to cost you money, or get another domain, change your branding on your business, change your domain. That's never a good option. Do not let a spouse purchased the domain for you. Children, well-intentioned children who are younger, they understand technology, they can do this so easy, you know, hey mom, just let me help you. Great. Fast forward however many years, All of a sudden your children don't like you anymore for whatever made-up reason is in their head, and they decide they don't wanna help you. Well, your domain expires because they were getting the notices, not you. And, huh, mom doesn't need to know that, or dad doesn't need to know that. And so all of a sudden your website goes down. You have no idea why, and you have no way of fixing it. Because again, the domain isn't in your account. So never let children help you. And that goes the same thing for siblings, cousins, friends, your next door neighbor, any of those. I'm telling you, I've seen it all and it always turns out bad. And it could be 10 years down the road before it turns out bad. But it will turn out bad. The other thing I wanted to mention is something that I call domain scams. Now, this really isn't a scam because it's from a legitimate company, but the whole concept is a scam. So if you ever receive this letter, I get one every year for every domain that I own. Um, they get their information from the public domain directory that has the domain, who bought it, their address, all of that stuff in the directory. If you don't want to be in that directory, you get to pay an extra anywhere from $10 to probably several hundred dollars depending on where you buy your domain, uh, so that it keeps you out of that directory. However, Your address and stuff is probably on your website, so it doesn't really matter if they can find it anyway. So these letters are for a specific domain, and it will tell you that it's— they're sending you an invoice. Looks like a bill, looks like you have to pay it. It's— my clients call me, every one of them calls me every year that gets one of these, and Hey Dotty, where did I buy my domain at? You should know that information. You should know what company you bought your domain at. I guarantee you it's not this one. I pay $10.95 plus tax for my domain every single year. And I pay it to the same company every single year. This company would like to charge me $265 for this one domain that I paid $10.95 for. Why would I pay $265? Hence why my clients call me, why, why am I paying this much, Dotty? I'm like, you're not. This is a company that's trying to trick you into transferring your domain to them and, um, well, let me requalify that. Not transferring your domain to them, but transferring your domain to that domain company in your name and paying them a ton extra for no reason. And the number on these is never consistent. Every domain I have is a different number. It's for a different amount of time length. Some are a year, some are— this one was 5 years, some I've seen for 10 years. And when you transfer your domain, I had a client do this once. They thought, oh, I'll just pay it. I don't really know, well, whatever went through their mind. And when they transferred the domain or started the process, when they paid this bill, essentially, lo and behold, their website went down. Why? Because the DNS records get changed to the new ones where your website files don't exist. It's a process, a technical process. To move a domain from one company to another company. It's not something— if you're not technically savvy, you don't do it. You hire someone to do that. So that's one problem with this. The other problem is, why pay so much? Uh, I don't really know how this company stays in business other than there's a lot of people out there that just don't understand how domains work and fall for this, what I call a scam. Now, there are other legitimate scams out there as well. Never accept or listen to a phone call from some company saying that you need to transfer your domain. Never give access to your DNS records. That stands for Domain Name Service, I believe. Your DNS records is what tells the domain company where your website files are at your hosting company. It has a lot more. It's all of the settings that are associated with that domain. If you're running email through your domain, There's DNS settings for your email. If you're, if you have any subdomains on your domain, it's all in that DNS settings. Never give access to someone that you don't know and trust to help you with your domain in that aspect. I help my clients all the time with these kinds of things. But the domain is in their account, in their name, paid for by their credit card. And that way everything stays copacetic. It's all theirs. They're responsible, not me. But I will help people, um, with that. So if you have any questions about domains, please get ahold of me or someone that you really trust and make sure you're clear on every action you take with your domain before you take it. It's way easier to not do something than it is to fix a mistake later, and it could cost you weeks of time with your website not working, with your email not working, and just think about that. What is that? How is that going to affect your business? So domains are super important. Thank you. I'm Dotty Scott with Premium Websites.
