They registered IneedaName.com through Tucows with ICANN and told ICANN Ineeda Name can be found at this address 123.123.123.321. This is called your Domain Name Record. The registrar, in this case, Startlogic, holds the responsibility of keeping your Domain Name Record up to date. They will generally send out annual notices and you MUST keep your domain name registered annually. This is generally a separate transaction from a hosting account renewal. Now, let's say you want to move, you don't like the neighborhood or want a new home that offers you more. First, you find a new home for your domain name, which is generally another hosting services provider. So, we find one at Ipower. You don't have to change your registrar, only your hosting service provider. If you are just not happy with your current service provider you can transfer your domain registration to the new hosting service provider to be the registrar. However, this can be tricky and painful. So, if you are with a good registrar to begin with, all you have to do is tell them you moved to a new location. This is called your DNS Records, Domain Name Server. You simply ask the new hosting service provider, in this case Ipower, for the DNS address for your new hosting account and let the domain registrar, Startlogic, update your DNS records with the new address. Your Domain Name Record always points to you no matter where you are hosted in the world and no matter how often you change hosting service providers. You just have to remember to tell it where to point. Hosting service providers are a dime a dozen and you may change hosting service a few times in the course of your internet presence. So be very familiar with the name of your domain name registrar and the domain name renewal process. There are tons of scammers out there like Domain Registry of America and Liberty Names of America (both pictured right), they are the worst. They send you marketing material that looks like a domain name renewal and people fill them out and send them in because they don't want to lose their domain name. What they actually end up doing is changing their domain name registrar and all too often when they didn't need to anyway. By knowing well, who your registrar is and the renewal process, you will avoid something like this happening to you. I hope this helped. My clients have peace of mind knowing they can ask me just about anything and if I have or can find an answer, I will promptly share it with them.

Keep Domain Names Safe

Domain names are renewed yearly and sometimes can be renewed up to ten years at a time. This often puts your domain name(s) registration out of sight and out of mind. Domain registrars send out notifications at renewal time, not via postal service, via an email. Many of us use or have used more than one email address and if you use an email address associated to to internet service provider, what happens if you change to another provider? Will you remember to go and update all your email addresses out there to the current one? Here is my suggestion, use an email account with a free email provider such as and I recommend Google. They have what they call GMail. By doing this, you will always have access to a private email account only used for the purpose of safeguarding information. To keep from having to periodically login and check your free mail account, use an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Windows Mail. This allows a software program installed on your computer to periodically (every few minutes the computer is on and has a connection to the internet) login to all your email accounts simultaneously and download new emails to your computer making them available to you on a consistent basis without having to think about it. Now, you can use this email account from a reliable entity to privately manage all your personal registrations and online activity, including domain name registration. The next concern is payment methods. Most domain name registrars allow for "Auto-Renew" at the time of registration. This is often a manual setting between, "manual" and "auto" and you have to set it. So check with your registrar to be sure you are on "auto-renew". Usually with any registrar or hosting service provider you must have a credit card on file with them. We all know these credit cards expire right? Well what happens if your credit card expires and the time for domain name renewal comes. Most registrars will send you notification of expiring credit cards and give you time to update the credit card information on file. Another step you can take is keeping a list of places associated to auto debits for each specific credit card. When they expire, schedule yourself some time to revisit the list when the replacement credit card arrives and update the account information. This will give you added peace of mind knowing you will avoid issues. It has often made me aware of other contact information while reviewing the account information, which could have gone undetected. Is there more to be concerned about? Unfortunately yes.

Let's look at Domain Privacy. Many domain registrars and hosting service providers inundate you with an overload of advertising that advises you to keep your identity safe by using their domain privacy services. This is a pure profit situation for them, so they focus on your insecurities and impulse triggers to get you to agree to pay their fees and then they are dead silent about it so you don't change your mind and hope for many years of out of sight and out of mind profit. Think about the information made public for your domain, Click Here and go to Tucows Whois lookup and type in your domain name or even mine for that matter. You will find that as a small business owner, you have and will continue to plaster the internet with this very same information, so why pay to restrict access to it on your domain record? Unless you are running a prostitution ring, porn site or something you Don't want to be publicly associated with, there is no real concern here from my point of view. Need more confidence? Look up major companies like Google or Microsoft, they don't use or pay for domain privacy and neither should you. Just my opinion. OK, are we done? No, there is one more concern.

Often, we find that in order to get help, resolve an issue or even get service from others like a webmaster, we are asked to share our account information, including login and password. This can be and is somewhat tricky at times and we simply fall back on, hope nothing bad happens. I keep a secret little black book of both personal and client information. Each account has its own page. The pages are kept in alphabetical order and contain the account name, where it is located, login information and dates for anything important. So if I need outside help, even with my hosting service provider and I have to trust someone I don't know with my account information, I get out my little black book. As soon as the concern is resolved, I change the password and update the book. To make it easy and not duplicate, I use word and numeric sequences that can step up plus 1 in sequence. For instance, dayone#1001 would become daytwo#1002. If I feel insecure about the person for any reason, then I pick new step values. Now we have to consider webmasters, designers and maintenance providers. They usually will ask for and prefer master login information. Some hosting services providers will allow you to create additional users to your account and some will take it one step further and allow you to set specific permissions, however, most do not. Anyone provided access to directly access and manage your account can alter the information. They can in fact, put the account in their own name and lock you out of your own account. If this account also includes your domain registration, they can take that from you too. What can you do to keep your protect yourself. First piece of advise is NEVER have your domain name and hosting service with the same provider unless you are confident and trust all the people that support your internet presence. If you are going to use a freelance web designer or maintenance provider to help you, if they have integrity and you trust them, fine. But if you want total peace of mind, have your domain name with a specific and reputable registrar with no hosting service. You can use the registrar as your domain name email service provider for added security as well. But, you will be required to manage this information yourself. Then just point the DNS records with the domain registrar to whomever is hosting your website. This way, no matter what happens, poor service, bad business experience or any concerns on the hosting side, simply open another hosting account and update the DNS records to the new location and your problems are solved. This way, sharing your login information is not so scary and you never put your domain name at risk.

Another measure you can consider is creating  a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) account for someone to access to the public area of your hosting account. This is great for one time in and out type help and users can often be added and deleted at will, but for someone to give you the best services they can, they need the ability to control account features like email account, scripts, platform applications, extensions and so on. If they are limited through you or denied access, this can lower the quality of consistent service they provide you. Most webmasters will resolve issues with your website when they occur and work with your hosting service provider as well, without you ever knowing about them. So for one time in and outs, FTP is the way to go. For confident peace of mind, keep domain registration and hosting services in separate accounts and if using a web designer or webmaster for website designing or maintenance, look for integrity, longevity and keep an eye on them until you get to know and feel good about them.

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I wish you well in life and business.