domain name registration

For people that don't live on the internet like I do, there seems to be some mystery in domain name registration. There really shouldn't be. It's not that hard.

Numerous entities are authorized to sell domain names. For years, the only game in town was Network Solutions and they continue to enjoy pretty good market share despite terrible service and high pricing. To be fair, things have gotten better there but I stopped using them years ago.

Now there is competition and sites like dotster.com, register.com, and godaddy.com can be used to register a domain name.

Domain name registration basically gives ownership use of a domain to an individual or organization, keeps track of the domain contacts, and resolves the domain name to a server.

Let's take these one at time...

1) Contacts

a) Owner - the person or entity who owns the domain
b) Administrative contact - a person who can change information associated with the domain. The administrative contact can change any information except who the owner is (the owner must engage in this). This contact is handy when an agency relationship exists or an employee handles the administration of the domain however there's no reason the owner can't be the administrator as well.
c) Technical contact - a person with control over the servers associated with the domain.

2) Domain Name Servers

Domain name servers are addresses of machines that tell what server a domain name should "point to". There are two ways of seeing this information, one by name server (ns2.gwi.net) and one by IP (a numeric address such as 207.5.128.10). It's best if your hosting provider has several domain name servers to point to as if one goes down or gets overloaded, your web site can still be found. Beyond ownership issues, this is the thing that domain registrants really are for. They maintain these records.

Knowing what they are is as simple as contacting your web host, asking them, and, unless they have some issue with you entering them yourself, they'll likely just give you the information or ask that you give them access to the system so that they can enter it.

Most people would just rather not deal with it and people like myself who manage a number of domain for clients are usually happy to register a domain, make you the owner, and keep the record up to date for a small fee above what they pay for the domain. It's not a money-maker, but it gives clients peace of mind and helps defray some of the "free" tech support that gets dispensed over the course of a year.

Our fee for managing your domain name registration (which includes the fee to the registrar) is $24.95 per year.