A Basic Guide to Getting and Keeping Your .com

One of the questions people most frequently ask is, how do I get a new domain name, or how do I keep my existing domain name? That www.yoursite.com is how your customers know you on the internet, so we want to find a good name and keep it. 

In this article I'll walk you through the basics of domain names, including:

What is a domain name?
A domain name is an address on the internet, like yahoo.com or dirtcheap4u.com. This address points to an IP address, which is a unique number that identifies the computer where your website is stored.

When you go to a website, the domain name that you type in your address bar is translated into its IP address by a DNS (Domain Name System) server. Without DNS servers, finding a website would be like trying to find a business in your telephone book by looking up the phone number instead of their name.

Example: The domain name dirtcheap4u.com is just a nice way of saying 72.22.69.129 (the IP address.) This number is the unique identifier for the iPowerWeb server where this web page is stored.

A domain name may have a maximum of 63 characters (letters, numbers, dashes) plus the 4 characters for the extensions such as ".com". This allows a domain name (including the extension) to be 67 characters long. It's generally best to have the shortest domain name possible. Your visitors will find it easier to type and remember.

All domain information is stored in the domain name registry. The domain name registry is like a phone book. It keeps track of which domain name maps to which IP address in the Domain Name System.

How do I get a domain name?
You can purchase a domain name by registering it for a fee. There are hundreds of companies, known as Registrars, that can register your domain name for you. Some popular Registrars include networksolutions.com, godaddy.com, and register.com.

Legitimate Registrars are accredited by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN is responsible for managing the Domain Name System, IP addresses, and domain names.

Domain names have to be unique. In other words, you can't get dirtcheap4u.com because I've already registered it. Once you've come up with a domain name you like, you'll want to check its availability. Any of the Registrars I mentioned above, like Network Solutions, will allow you to check your domain name. The .com, .net, and .org extensions are widely recognized. If possible, you should choose a domain name with one of these extensions.

Now that you've chosen a domain name and confirmed that it's available, go ahead and buy it up before someone else gets to it first. Really. Go, and hurry! Domain names are so affordable these days, there's no reason not to. If you wait, and someone else snatches it up, you could end up paying much more (if the owner is willing to sell) or you might not ever get it at all.

With so many companies willing to register your domain name, where should you go? My recommendation:

• If you're going to purchase hosting with iPowerWeb, your domain name is included for free. What a great deal! Get your hosting and domain name at the same time.
• If you're not going to purchase hosting right away, find a reputable company that will register your domain name for a reasonable price. (I like iPower for low prices and Network Solutions for excellent customer service.)

The legal owner is the purchaser
When you buy a domain name you are known as the Registrant. The Registrant is the legal owner of the domain, and changing owners can be extremely difficult. 

Some web designers / firms will register domain names for their clients. It seems nice and uncomplicated, but what the client doesn't know is that if the designer uses his/her own name and billing information during registration, the designer is the Registrant, or legal owner, of the domain. Unfortunately, this allows them to completely block you out of your domain name if you choose to go elsewhere for service.

Managing Your Domain Name
Although domain name management is beyond the scope of this article, I think it's important to point out several things.

First, you might be curious about how to change the settings for your domain name, such as the MX records. Please don't do it. Entering the wrong information can cause your website and emails to stop functioning. If you really need to know what all those numbers mean, contact your domain name provider or web designer.

Second, your domain has several entries associated with it. These are the Registrant (Owner), Administrative Contact , Billing Contact , and Technical Contact fields. You will want to make sure you are listed as the owner and that the billing information is current and correct.

• If you are not listed as the Registrant (Owner) of your domain name and cannot access your domain settings to correct the listing, the only way to change the registrant fields is through a legal change of ownership, a court order, or an order by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
• The Administrative Contact is the person in charge of maintaining your domain. This field should list either your information, or the information of another designated person such as your web designer. Trust is important here, because when it comes to transferring a domain name (should you ever need to), the Administrator is responsible for approving the transfer. No approval = no transfer.
• The Billing Contact is you or another designated person in your organization that can be contacted for billing issues.
• The Technical Support person is usually someone from your hosting provider or ISP (Internet Service Provider). Leave this field as is.

Finally, there are two more domain settings you should be aware of. Domain Privacy can be enabled for your domain, which basically prevents anyone from seeing the entries associated with your domain. (I still haven't found a practical use for this, but some people enjoy their privacy.) Domain Locking can also be enabled. This will prevent unauthorized transfers, aka theft, of your domain. If a transfer is requested and Locking is enabled, the transfer is automatically denied.

Keeping an existing domain name
We've learned that the person who registers a domain name is the Registrant, or legal owner, and that the Administrative Contact is the person in charge of maintaining your domain name. Now let's see what we need to do to transfer your existing domain name to a new provider.

Get information about your domain name
At the beginning of this article I told you that the domain name registry is like a phone book. Domain information is stored in a database, and just like with a phone book, you can look up that information by name. As long as Domain Privacy hasn't been enabled, you can find details for your domain name on the internet by doing a free lookup on WHOIS.NET.

Now that you have your WHOIS listing, we're going to look at it to make sure we can transfer your domain name to our new provider. Several conditions must be met before your domain can be succesfully transferred:

• The Administrative Contact's email address for the domain you want to transfer must be correct. When a transfer request is submitted, a transfer confirmation email will be sent to the Administrative Contact. The Administrative Contact must confirm the domain transfer via a link in the email.
• Your domain status must be UNLOCKED. You must unlock the domain at your current registrar before it can be transferred. WHOIS data does not always report the domain status correctly. You should be able to view the status of the lock setting in the account management system of your current registrar.
• The domain name must be at least 14 days prior to the expiration date.
  
• You must wait until the domain name is registered for at least 60 days before you transfer it.
• You must wait at least 60 days since the last domain transfer to request a new transfer.
• Whois privacy must be disabled, if active.

How a transfer works
Let's say you already signed up for your domain name and website hosting service with XYZ Hosting.  Along comes Dirt Cheap Web Designs, and I recommended that you switch to iPowerWeb. You signed up for hosting and now we need to transfer your domain. Here's what happens:

When you sign up for iPowerWeb hosting, they'll send you an email with the subject "Domain Transfer Information". In order to start the transfer process, we have to reply to this email with "I authorize IPOWER to start the domain name transfer process."

Within the next few days another email will be sent, this time to the Administrative Contact of your domain. The subject is usually something like "Transfer Request for yourdomain.com". The Administrative Contact generally has 14 days to follow the instructions in the email to approve the transfer. If the Administrative Contact doesn't confirm within this time, the transfer will fail. Then we have to re-request the transfer and start all over again.

It usually takes 7 to 10 days to complete a domain transfer. If the domain is locked, or you don't respond to the confirmation email immediately, the process may be delayed.

Using your domain name without transferring
It may be possible to leave your domain name at XYZ. Some companies will allow it, especially those who provide domain name registration seperate from hosting. Instead of transferring the domain name, we simply edit its settings to point to your new hosting account at iPowerWeb. XYZ may do this for you if you supply them with the username and password for your domain account, or you will have to do it yourself (in which case, a web designer or developer can come in very handy.)

The downside of this is that you'll be paying for both iPowerWeb hosting AND your domain name at XYZ. By transferring your domain name to iPowerWeb, the domain fees are included with your hosting package.

Solving domain transfer problems
Transferring domain names is not without problems. There are a number of things that can prevent a successful transfer.

The Administrative Contact field lists someone else's email address
When it comes to transferring a domain, it's the Administrator, not the Registrant, that has to approve the transfer.  Think carefully about that for a moment. If you have a web designer that you're planning to replace, it's best to be up-front about your plans.  Since the web designer usually has access to all account information regarding your domain and is very likely the Administrative Contact on record, they can lock you out of your domain if things go bad.  When you request a transfer, an email is sent to the Administrative Contact asking for approval to complete the transaction.  If they refuse - or simply don't respond - your transfer will be denied.

Sometimes it's not a web designer's email address that's listed. When you sign up for hosting and a domain name through an Internet Service Provider, that ISP is listed as the Administrative Contact.  In that case, your domain can probably still be transferred.  ISP's sometimes prefer to list themselves as Administrative and Technical Contacts because most private parties and small businesses trying to build their own websites don't care to be involved in the technical aspect of domain maintenance. A quick phone call is usually all that's needed to straighten things out.

The Administrative Contact field lists an old or incorrect email address
You must have access to the email address listed in the Administrative Contact field in order to approve the transfer. If you need to update the email address, either login to your current Registrar's account and update it online, or call their Customer Service to help with this change.

The domain is locked
When a domain is locked, transfer requests are automatically denied. You might not even be notified that this has happened. For this reason, it's important to check the status of your domain before requesting a transfer. You should be able to view the status of the lock setting in the account management system of your current registrar. To unlock your domain, you may login to your current account with your Registrar to turn off the lock feature on the domain(s) or call Customer Service at and ask them to unlock your domain name.

The domain extension can't be registered
iPowerWeb registers domains for .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .us.

iPowerWeb can host other domain extensions but can't register them. What that means is, you can't transfer a domain name with a .tv extension to iPowerWeb. If you want a domain name with a .tv extension, you must purchase it at a Registrar that handles that extension, such as Network Solutions. You can then log in to your Network Solutions account and edit your domain settings so the domain points to iPowerWeb's servers.

Network Solutions has this note on their website regarding domain name transfers:

"Only .com and .net extensions can be transferred using the automated online process... To transfer, .biz, .bz, .cc, .org, .info .tv and .us extensions to Network Solutions, you will need to download a transfer request form, complete the required fields on the form, and fax it back to us. The form can be found at: http://www.networksolutions.com/domain-name-registration/popup-transferform.pdf

For these extensions, an authorization code is required for each domain you want to transfer. The authorization code can be obtained by calling your current Registrar. You will need to include this code on the fax form."

Conclusion
I hope this article has shed some light on the world of domain names. This is a very simple overview of how domain registration and transfers work. For more information, Network Solutions is an excellent place to learn about domain names.