Imagine you’ve paid someone a good deal of money to develop a killer website for your business.  Imagine spending even more money to promote the site online and in print.  Imagine all the traffic you’re getting to your site…

Imagine discovering one day that the website you’ve come to know and love-the website that serves as a vital extension of your business-is not really yours but is technically owned by someone else.

It happens.  And lately, it has been happening quite often.

Case Study #1:

Representatives of a nonprofit recently called asking for help.  Years ago they had decided to use one of those cheaper, less popular hosting companies to save a few dollars per month.  All was well until they decided to change hosting companies.  To their complete surprise, the hosting company, which turned out to be quite cunning and ruthless, had secretly obtained ownership of the nonprofit’s domain name.  To date, that hosting company holds the site hostage, racking up ridiculous charges on the nonprofit’s credit card.

Case Study #2:

Just the other day a different organization called to say they had had a long-term “good working relationship” with their web head.  When that designer failed to deliver a requested makeover of the site, the company decided to find another designer to make the changes.  That’s when the organization learned that the ill-performing web head technically owns the domain name.

What can you do?

Unfortunately, when someone hijacks your website, legal recourse isn’t a viable alternative.  It is costly and time consuming.  Expect years and tens of thousands of dollars in costs.

However, if you have a website and want to be proactive, consider doing the following:

1.  Find out who owns the domain name.

Go to http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp, enter the domain name and click on Search.  The person or entity listed as “Registrant” actually owns the domain name. The Administrative and Technical contacts manage it.

If your site doesn’t have your company’s name for Registrant, Administrative, and Technical contacts, then you may be at risk for domain hijacking.

2.  Put everything in your name.

Contact the person who originally registered your domain name and ask for the registrar’s login and password.  Go to the website that was used to create your company’s domain name and enter the registrar’s login and password to access your account.

Create a new password.  Change the contact info to your company’s contact info.  Avoid using an email address that includes your domain name.

3.  Make sure you own the keys to the car.

While you’re on good terms with your web designer, be sure to ask for:

• FTP login and password.  The FTP login and password lets you access the site and make changes to it.
• Backup the website on CD.  The backup will be handy when the site goes down or your web designer is no longer responsive.

4.  Safeguard the crown jewels.

Write down the new logins and passwords and file it someplace safe.

I know all of this may seem overwhelming but it is very important.  If you have any questions or need help anything, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.  We are here to serve!