Free Domain Name Review & Check Up

Techsoup has offered site reviews in the past, but I don't think we have ever offered a review and checkup for the domain name(s) an organization has.

I'm going to offer to provide this on a limited basis and see how it goes. While this could be seen as fishing for business, and I do provide Internet consulting and domain sales, I think there is a real need for organizations to have someone look at their domain name and make sure they are not at risk of losing it due to it containing outdate information or lack of security. My review will cover these main points:

- Do you have a good domain and is it suitable for your mission? If you have a .org domain, are you losing visitors to the sites that may be hosted on the .com or .net versions of your domain? Could someone solicit donations on those other domains and cause confusion for your visitors? Who are your neighbors?

- Is your domain contact information current? Each of your contacts should be different or at least use a different email address under a different domain. If you don't get the renewal emails for your domain, you could lose access to your site and email, and if not renewed, you could lose your domain. Who is listed as the owner of your domain? Is is your org, your ED, your web designer, or your hosting company?

- Is your domain hosted at a good registrar? The yearly fee for most domains should only be between $8 and $12 a year. If you are paying $30 a year you may be a register.com customer and supporting their high profit margin business model.

- Is your domain "locked" and secured against unauthorized transfer or changes? If you have a small, struggling NP this is not going to be a problem, but if you have a larger site with a lot of traffic, it might be.

Hi Chris--

Thanks again for this offer. I spread the word when you first posted about this and mentioned it again today when I was looking through some past forums discussion. Have you had any takers for a site review? 

I was also wondering what your opinion was on who should be listed as the owner of the domain, even if the contact(s) are different?

Best,

Megan

No, there has been no interest in this topic on-forum or off. I guess domains are sort of like the foundation of your house: If it hasn't fallen down, it must still be working...

For an organization or NP, the "owner" of the domain should be the organization, and a "role" email address used that can be forwarded to different people as staff changes. Then the Admin and Billing contacts can be the org, roles at the org, or for actual people, but in each case a different email should be used to insure that one or more people will always get any notifications that are sent. You can also enter in Tech contact information as well, but that may be used by the hosting company for the domain.

Using the organization as the own should insure that the domain ownership will be clear. If a staff member or (gasp!) a contractor or volunteer should be listed as the owner, future conflicts could cause the organization to lose the domain, which would be a bad thing, since the web site and emails could then be shut down.

If it's not too late, I'd like to take you up on your offer for a site review on www.bstp.net.

Hi,

If you are looking for a site review, you may be disappointed. I am only offering "domain name" reviews.

Review of domain name: bstp.net

Short, meaningful domain names are great and this is one of these that fits the name of the site perfectly. The domain also has letters that would be easy to apply to other organizations or companies, or to assign different meanings. For example STP could stand for the city of Saint Paul.

The domain is a .net which is not as valuable as a .com, but for an organization I think .org is always best, even if you also get the .com or others. The .org projects the image of a non-profit and appears more respectable. But I think the .net works well for this site, and the shortness of the domain offers more class than if words were used in the domain. Estibot.com says the domain is worth about $80, give the existing traffic, but that would be the wholesale price in my opinion and it may be a little low.

In this case the .org appears to be registered by a domain investor since it has ads on it. The Canadian corporation could be approached about purchasing the domain, but it may be quite expensive. Some people may be going to the .com site if they forget to use .net, but they will quickly see it's not the site they want. If they got to the .org domain, they may be confused and click on some of the links, but the main topic of your site does not appear on the .org site.

You have domain privacy enabled on your domain, but it appears you only have one contact method, the Admin contact. The technical contact is Doteasy.com and there is no billing contact or registrant contact. I would see if you can add a listing for the billing contact that uses a different email address. This way if there is a problem with your domain, you have two chances to be contacted and not just one. Not being contacted could possibly result in you losing your domain.

The domain appears to be locked and due for renewal by 02-May-2009.

Thanks for your insights. The domain privacy was enabled on purpose and the hosting company has other ways to contact me that are not accessible via Whois. I am curious as to who else would need to contact me about a situation that may result in losing the domain name? One reason we do it this way is to fend off the sneaky companies that send out mailings about your domain "renewal" and try to trick you into transferring it to them.

If your hosting company has another way to contact you besides the email address in the whois that is (or should be) forwarded to you, that's great.

But it's your domain registrar that I would be concerned with. If you don't get their notifications for renewal, or in the very worst case, a transfer request, it could result in the domain being transfered. If not renewed, and if it continues undetected for an extended period, the domain could be dropped and made available to anyone who wants it.

While these cases are not frequent, they are common. All domain owners should protect themselves by using all 3 contact fields and use completely different email addresses hosted on different domains. It's one cheap insurance policy to make sure your domain doesn't get lost and stray into the world of adult entertainment...!

The hosting company also handles the domain registration & renewal so we're covered there. I've used them for at least 12 domains and nothing has ever been missed. Good advice, though. Thanks.