New Series: Pitfalls and Traps in Website Design
In the coming weeks we will be offering tidbits of useful information regarding how you can take control of your website.
Learn the top seven common pitfalls and traps to avoid in website design. To kick it off, here is number 1.
Pitfalls and Traps #1
Domain Names
Own these. Simply put, this is like your physical address for your business online. What if suddenly your address is stripped away? How would clients find you? Where would your mail (or in this case, e-mail) go? In many cases a business owner will hire a local college student or website designer / webmaster to setup their site and a few years later realize their site is no longer up and their e-mail is down. What the business owner did not count on was their .com name registration lapsing thus taking down their site, e-mail and putting their .com name up for grabs to anyone. It is best practice to make sure domain names are registered in your name and that you are paying the yearly fee directly to the register (Godaddy, Google Domains or Yahoo! for example) to have control. Too often these wind up in a student, web designer or webmaster's own name and could cause serious issues down the road for both parties. In some serious cases, website hijacking may have occurred where the web designer / webmaster will not relinquish their control over the domain. Typically, who's ever name is under "registrant" has full legal control over what happens to the domain name. They control whether your email is functioning, where your domain name is pointed (this doesn't have to be your website) and are responsible in keeping up with the yearly payment. Don't chance it, own it!
