Are You Sure You Own Your Website?
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I put out a call for guests on Work at Home Moms Talk Radio a couple weeks ago and fellow show host Michelle Waters sent over a quick topic suggestion that I nabbed up straight away.
It’s ‘Do you own your own website?’ and you can listen in to the interview on my show this week.
The very idea that you wouldn’t have ownership and control of your own website might strike you as odd but it had happened to many work at home moms over the years.
A mom comes online with little understanding of domains, hosting, etc. After searching around she finds what looks like a simple solution for all her needs and she pulls out her credit card. Soon she has her domain and website installed and gets busy making it wonderful. But did she read the fine print?
There are some ‘all in one’ solutions that bundle your domain into your hosting account, making the host the owner of the domain instead of the client. In this case a mom finds out when she tries to change hosting providers that her precious domain name won’t be coming with her.
Some quick tips:
- Make sure that you read all details when it comes to purchasing domains and signing up for hosting.
- Make sure that it is your information listed with the domain registrar and noone elses.
- Take special care that you keep a current email listed on all of your domains and hosting accounts so that you receive expiration warnings.
Aside from issues of domain ownership, there are other potential concerns for a website owner who wants to make sure that her website is entirely hers.
If you build your website in a ’sitebuilder’ you own your content, but you can’t take your existing pages with you. The layout is dependent on the sitebuilder itself. If you move, you have to recreate the pages in a new web building tool whether that is another sitebuilder, a content management system like Wordpress or Joomla or an HTML tool like Dreamweaver or XSitePro.
I’m not anti-sitebuilders, I think they are just right for an internet newcomer’s small home business website. Moms just need to know what they’re getting into in order to make the smartest choice.
Take a minute and do an inventory of your domains and hosting accounts. Check contact info and look at the whois directory to make sure that everything is up to date there.
And while you’re at it, make sure that your site is being backed up regularly and that you know how to access these backups in the case of a problem.
There’s peace of mind when you know all of these bases are covered for your internet based business.
Kelly McCausey worked hard for others for many years and never made ends meet.
Now this single mom enjoys the freedom that comes from working hard for herself as an internet marketer, podcaster
and WAHM business coach. Host of 
Morning,
How very true, especially:
>> Take special care that you keep a current email listed on all of your domains and hosting accounts so that you receive expiration warnings. <<
I lost my flagship site, RiseWay, when I didn’t see the renewal email (had that domain since 1999!, and so had to rebuild it on RiseTrends.
Here’s a helpful note - if you do need to start a new domain, make certain one of your pages has information that includes your former url AND your former contact email address. That way, when it gets indexed in Google, people can still find your new site when they search for the old.
Enjoy,
Barbara
Barbara Lings last blog post..Dumber Than Dirt - Tell me you do NOT do the following to your customers.
Um… this is tricky stuff indeed. My boss had a domain name for a while, he did own it but he didn’t renew it. A few years later when he wanted it again, it was already registered by someone else and they are not willing to sell. So yeah, it’s very important especially if you’ve already built a brand. (Actually, even if you are going to re-brand, like this site did, you should always just set up redircts. No reason to give up what you’ve already built to someone else for free!)
Kelvin Kaos last blog post..The Most Amazing Worms in the World!