It’s happened to many of us at one time or another.  All of the sudden the email account associated with your domain name quits working.  Then you punch in your URL to visit your site and it’s no longer there either—or worse yet, someone else’s site is there.

Well basically, there are two scenarios that can cause this:

1. Your domain got hijacked. In other words, someone else fraudulently got your domain transferred to their control.  This is actually pretty rare.
2. You forgot to renew the domain. This is by far the more common scenario—an innocent mistake, it still happens all too frequently.

First things first, it’s necessary to determine which one of these scenarios has caused you to lose your domain name.  There are other possibilities as well, but for the sake of clarity & simplicity, we’ll leave out these unlikely occurrences.

Getting Your Domain Name Back When It Expires:

Domain Recently Expired – The best case scenario is that your domain name happens to expire and you notice immediately.  In most cases, the domain registrar that the domain name was registered with is required to hold that domain back for a certain grace period.  If this is the case, all you have to do is go back to your domain provider and renew immediately.  You’ll need to check with your registrar for exactly how long their grace period is.

Domain Expired & Grace Period Passed – You’ll need to see who owns the domain name at this point.  If you do a search for that domain with your domain name provider of choice, and if it’s still publically available and not purchased by another individual, it might be a simple matter of just purchasing the domain again with the regular registration process.  Or it could be put up for re-sale or auction as well—these will be a little bit more expensive than a new domain purchase or renewal, but sometimes just paying a slight premium to get the domain back from the re-sale market is worth the peace of mind.

Someone Now Owns Expired Domain – You might try for a little sympathy and just ask the new owner of your old domain if they’ll sell it back to you for a nominal fee (be nice and make it worth their while for the hassle).  Some folks will probably happy to return the name to its previous owner.  At the same time, many domain name speculators purposefully purchase expired domains to resell, so don’t expect many favors from these types of people…and remember, if they purchased the domain legally after it has expired, they do rightfully have possession of it.

Getting Back A Stolen Or Hijacked Domain Name:

Domain Name Is Stolen Or Hijacked – First, let’s avoid confusion by making it clear that when someone else purchases your domain after expires, this is not theft or hijacking by any means.  When we say stolen, we mean that fraudulent means were used to obtain control or transfer of your domain name during its active registration period.  And unfortunately, when this does happen, it can be very difficult to get the name back.  You can try contacting your registrar to begin with (and also the registrar that the domain may have been transferred to).  This can be complex, and it might be difficult to prove legit ownership.  Just be persistent, continue to work the phones, and hope for the best…

Domain Is Stolen…Professional Help Required – If you really need the domain name back that was stolen and your efforts to contact the corresponding domain registrars and request return of ownership are unsuccessful, sometimes it’s necessary to bring in professional assistance.  In this case, you should obtain counsel from one of many attorneys that focus their practice on cyber-law.  Unfortunately, it will not be cheap, but relying on professional assistance might be the only last case scenario available to you.

An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure

One final thing to remember:  In addition to enabling email alerts with your domain name provider so they can notify you when your domain is due for renewal (along with other important notifications), also be sure to put a note on your calendar to renew your domain at least a month before it is set to expire.  Being proactive is much better than being reactive!

Want to create an online store?  If so, welcome to the exciting world of e-commerce!  You should know that building your online store correctly the first time saves lots of headache and hassle down the road.  To help you get started on the right path, here’s an overview of the 7 must-have components of an online store:

1.  Domain Name – Just like opening any business, you’ll need a name—but you’ll also need an address too, right?  Well, in many cases, your domain name is kind of your website address and name rolled into one.  Getting your domain name just right is important—here’s how to choose the right domain name.

2.  Web Hosting – If you think of your domain name as your address, then your web hosting could be considered your online business’s “building.”  Technically, your web host is the computer server for your website—it’s where all of your website files are stored for the world to see.  Just like you would avoid choosing a dilapidated, falling down building to host your brick and mortar business, you certainly don’t want to skimp when it comes to your online web hosting either.

3.  Dedicated IP Address – Without getting overly technical, one vital benefit of using a dedicated IP address is the fact that you won’t be penalized for having “bad neighbors” on a shared IP.  In other words, with cheap hosting, it’s common to share your IP with up to hundreds of different websites.  If just one of these sites uses black hat SEO tactics or broadcasts spam, you’ll be subject to penalties from the search engines…simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If you’re serious about your online business, then it’s definitely wise to procure a dedicated IP address so you’re not adversely affected by bad neighbors.

4.  Web Design – As an online business, the image you portray to your customers can either make or break you.  Sure, web design must be eye appealing—it must look awesome—but at the same time, there are other components that quality, professional web design must account for too.  Effective navigation, accessibility, ease of use, and clean standards-compliant coding are just a few web design goals you should seek to achieve for your online store.

5.  Shopping Cart Software – This is what enables customers to browse through your portfolio of products, select the items and quantities they’d like to purchase, and ultimately, enter their contact and purchasing information to complete the deal.  Essentially, your shopping cart software works in harmony with your web design.  No online store would be complete without shopping care software!

6.  SSL Security Certificate – When it comes time to collect sensitive information from your customers to facilitate a sale, you’ll need a way to make sure that the contact and payment details they provide are transmitted securely across the internet without making it privy to prying eyes.  This is accomplished by maintaining and installing an SSL security certificate to ensure your customers that their data will be fully encrypted as it’s transferred.

7.  Payment Gateway – Finally, the last step in the online store process before fulfillment takes place is collecting the payment.  In most cases, the best way to achieve this is by using a merchant account provided by a bank along with a payment gateway (like Authorize.Net) to actually carry out the transaction.  It is this vital link that connects your store’s online shopping cart to your bank account.

While these 7 components are the basics of any online store, naturally there are few more things to consider as well.  This is why it always helps to work with experienced pros to get it right the first time!

Choosing the right domain name for your business or website is a step worth all the attention you can offer.  After all, your domain name is not just a string of characters that connect people to your website—in reality, it also frequently serves as a branding tool, a calling card, a search optimization tool, and most importantly, your online identity.  Here are a few solid steps to choosing the right name…

Brainstorm!

With pen and paper (and a cup of coffee or your favorite creative beverage), sit down for a few minutes and just start writing down any and all domain name ideas that come to mind.  Sometimes your business or organization name will make this step really easy…other times, not so much!

If you could use a little bit of creative inspiration, know that all of the top domain name providers offer name generators on their sites.  This is another easy to like domain name generating tool that will help you come up with potential ideas.

Decide if you’ll hyphenate or abbreviate.

The best domain names are short, sweet, and easy to remember.  Using allowable punctuation in a domain name to separate words (like this: example-domain-name.com) is okay if your primary audience will only find you through the web.  But if offline visitors are going to see and remember your domain name to type it in to their browsers later, this tactic will cause all kinds of problems.  The same goes for using acronyms or other unusual abbreviations—it’s not necessarily a bad idea, but they often do make a domain more difficult to remember.

Dot com, dot net, dot org, or beyond?

These days there are literally hundreds of different top level domains (TLDs) to choose from.  In other words, you don’t have to go with a .com suffix by any means.  That said, the .com suffix remains the favorite contender in most cases because it’s easy to remember and carries a certain degree of respect with it that domains like .info or .tv have just had a really hard time establishing.

It’s also possible to choose a more creative domain name (along the lines of “del.icio.us”).  Check out this tool to generate suggestions using this concept.  It’s fun to look, but practically speaking, it’s almost always a better idea to select a .com for your domain.  One more quick piece of advice when choosing your TLD—if at all possible, purchase your chosen domain in .com, .net, and .org forms to keep future competitors from grabbing them.

Ask for second opinions.

Before making the final choice, run the potential choice by a few friends or associates.  After intensely reading and working with a select domain name, it’s easy to make our own permanent perceptions of it really quickly.  The thing is, the vast majority of other folks might be reading it as something totally different (or even obscene).  Play it safe and run your choice by a few others who you trust to get a second opinion.

Do a trademark check.

This is essential!  Avoid potential legal hassles by making sure the domain names (and the word phrases used within) do not infringe on another party’s trademark.  A good place to start is with the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online search system.  Trademarks can be tricky though—it might be a good idea to hire a trademark search professional or attorney to make certain your choice is safe.

Again, as important as your domain name is, be sure to give the selection process all of the attention it deserves.  As your new web property grows, you’ll definitely be glad you’re working with a well planned domain name!

It happens a few times a month to one of our clients, or someone I know: THEY LOSE THEIR DOMAIN NAME!

Sleepless Media is not a domain reseller, although we do register domains for some of our clients on occasion for their convenience. If it’s registered with us, we’ll get the notices and manage making sure that the client is informed on the situation, and given the opportunity to renew the domain. But often, if a client has registered the domain name for their website themselves, they did it at some obscure registrar online somewhere, that isn’t really a registrar at all, but more of a reseller. Then on top of that, they used some old email address they no longer have for their contact information. This can be irritating to track down to say the least, and we find ourselves tracking them down more often than not.

If your domain expires, that often means that your email, website and associated services will stop working, and the domain goes into something called “redemption.” It’s easy to blame your webmaster or host for this, but the truth is, it is usually a totally and completely separate thing. Thankfully, no one else can steal your domain from you once it’s in redemption, but they can sure as damn hell make it as hard and painful as humanly possible – the 1and1.com registrar is NOTORIOUS for this! They’ll turn your domain/website into a spammy-looking link farm before you know it, and they have not shame in doing it. On top of that, it’s not something where you can just call them up and give them a credit card, and get everything back to normal. You could be looking at 1-3 weeks, depending on how evil your registrar is, and that’s going to include phone calls, emails, support tickets, faxed documentation and more. It’s no fun, SO DON’T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU.

Here are some helpful tips to prevent having your domain name expire:

1) When you register or renew a domain, do it for AT LEAST 5-10 Years.

If you’re serious about your website and/or business, you should be doing this anyways. It’s cheap, and you won’t have to worry about it. On top of that, search engines like Google look at domains that are registered for longer in higher regard for top search engine rankings, as they are less likely to be a fly-by-night operation.

2) Keep your contact information at your registrar updated.

Make sure your address, fax number, phone number and email addresses are ALL TOTALLY UPDATED AND CURRENT. Just do it, it’s not that hard.

3) Add a third party administrator or tech contact to your registration account.

It could be your host if you have someone you know that is local (hey, that’s us!), it could be your IT company or your web designer/developer. This way, if the thing’s coming up for renewal, they’ll see it to, and may be able to help prevent the dreadful expiration – and therefore redemption.

4) DO NOT REGISTER YOUR DOMAIN AT A DOMAIN RESELLER.

I hate domain resellers. They are pointless, they really are. YAHOO! is a domain reseller for a company in Australia called MELBOURNE IT. Yahoo’s info doesn’t come up on the whois, and it really could be registered by any one of their many many resellers, so it’s hard to track down. Melbourne IT is quite expensive to call, and they aren’t nice either. Also, never, ever, never, ever register a domain name at Verio or 1and1.com. Both of those places will make you wish you were never born.

Go with reputable and easy-to-deal-with registrars like NameCheap.com, Network Solutions, Register.com, and (gulp) even godaddy. Yeah, I hate their site, and especially their hosting/control panel,  but people like to register their domains there, and at least you can get in touch with them when you need to.

5) Don’t forget where you registered the domain!

People do it all the time. Save your emails, and print them out. Keep them on hand so it’s easier for someone to get you out of this mess.

I think that covers it, that’s my rant for the day. Keep on top of your domain situation.