Imagine for a second that you are sending a letter to your old friend, John.
You’ve been to John’s house before, so you know that it exists, but you can’t quite remember his address and so you simply write ‘John’ on the front of the envelope and drop it into the post box. Now, let’s be honest, you wouldn’t hold much hope in your letter finding him. Even if it did fall into the hands of Royal Mail’s most dedicated postie, how many doors would they need to knock on first to find the right John? Chances are they would soon get bored of trying and your letter would become destined to an eternity at the bottom of the post bag (or worse still, in the nearest hedge). Include an address on the envelope however, and the postman knows immediately and exactly where to take your letter to.
That’s providing, of course, that John didn’t move without telling you...
The reason I use that analogy is because it’s exactly the same with your website. Chances are that you use your website’s address (it’s domain) all of the time without necessarily realising you are doing it. The letterheads you send, the business cards you hand out, the decals you have stuck all over the van you drive and even your email address all probably contain yourbusiness.com. Of course they do, how else is anyone expected to find your business online?
If you aren’t the owner of your own domain name, you run the risk of being held ransom by a disgruntled web developer and losing your online identity that you may have spent valuable years building up.
The internet is littered with stories of companies who have fallen into that trap. Less reputable domain sellers have been known to transfer legal ownership of domains registered on behalf of their clients into their own name, maintaining registrar access for themselves and blocking their clients from control over its use.
That’s why it’s so important that you are in control of your domain name.
There are a number of free online sources for further information regarding domain registration, such as whois.is and icann.org - but the best way to protect yourself, and your business, is to come to us.
At Measured Brilliance we fully protect you and your business from day one, transferring all ownership over to you once your project is complete.