Where do you keep your property papers? In the Bank or at a safe place. But, you will not give it to somebody else. Similarly, a domain name is not something you should be giving someone to maintain it for you. You need to take ownership of your own domain name. It’s required to be controlled by your company. And, not by the website development company or the website person.
Disadvantages of having your domain name controlled by the website development company:
- Control: The number one is you will not be having any control over your domain name. And, website company can take an unfair advantage
- Renewals: When you don’t own a domain name – you are less likely to renew it. I know a case where a domain name of a company was handled by a web developer. That web developer left for some other country. And, when the domain name renewal came near. The owner tried contacting him by email and phone. But, didn’t have any response. The owner then brought the same domain after it was acquired by someone by paying a good amount of money. Simply, because his website and emails all were down.
- Unfair Advantage: Good domain names fetch good prices in the aftermarket. And, if your website development company notices that your domain is good. They may take unfair advantage.
- Registrant issue: Refer to this case for understanding this case of 1919.com
for the above reasons – one should always keep control of their domain names – especially for a company. Companies spend a lot of money on development and marketing. And, not taking proper care of the most important asset – domain names – can result in the website getting down and emails getting stopped.
Websites and emails both are very important. And, a successful company or business cannot afford to lose access to the website and email it owns.
There is nothing against website development companies or its owners. My point is businesses should control their own domain name. And, also web development companies should not take this responsibility of handling domain for its clients.