Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Important Warning before you build your website

Agent Steve Laube shared some important advice
with members of ACFW last week.
With his permission I have copied it below to help
all of you. Think about this before you
build your website.

NEVER let someone else control the details of your domain name.
Today. Right now. Immediately. Make sure you have access to your domain
registration. 
This has nothing to do with who hosts your site. That is something else
entirely.
 
Get the account ID and password for whatever company controls your domain.
It could be Network Solutions, it could be virtually anyone. But as soon as
you get that info...change the contact info (e-mail address) to an e-mail
address you control (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, if you must).
 
I once bought a domain name at a bargain and set up a small business around
that name. I didn't know that the company was in Australia and that they
sold their business. When I wanted to switch hosts (to someone cheaper and
better) it took nearly a month of wrangling and research to find out who
controlled my domain registration. A nightmare.
I switched everything to godaddy.com and I now control the whole thing.
 
Another example. Big publisher creates web site for author, secured domain
and hosted the site. Very cool...except...author switches publishers. Old
publisher will no longer do site updates. So author gets the site hosted
elsewhere where he can make changes himself. BUT he forgets that the domain
name was registered and controlled by his former publisher. So when it came
time to renew the subscription to his domain name, the publisher let it
expire. Because the e-mail address for the domain registration renewal was
sent to the old publisher, the author did not know that his domain name
expired. Guess what happened?
A porn site grabbed his domain name and linked it to their "date older
women" web site. Overnight his entire ministry was linked to something less
than ideal. (an understatement if there ever was one) He had to get a
different domain name and start over. Unfortunately his first six books and
all search engines were linked to his old domain name.
 
A year later he now has regained control of his domain name by using a
service called snapnames.com that grabs abandoned domain names. Fortunately
the porn site did not renew the subscription.
 
Bottom line? Control everything about your own web site. Hire someone to
help if you must, but never let control of your Internet presence out of
your hands.
Hope that helps,
Steve
The Steve Laube Agency


Thanks for the advice Steve, and thank you for your willingness
to share it with all of us. You can visit
Steve's website and find out about helpful resources for writers
at www.SteveLaube.com

1 comment:

Mary said...

Tiff, Thank you for sharing Steve's comments. I've been thinking about creating a web site and I am so glad of the information/warning. :-) God bless!

Mary