Your domain should be in your name. Here’s how to check.
Your domain (yourbusiness.com) is your business’s address online. If it’s in someone else’s name, it isn’t fully yours.
It’s a story we hear often: a business hires someone for its website, that person registers the domain in their own name, and years later they stop answering. The business can’t change anything, can’t move to another provider, and can’t get its address back.
How to check whose name it’s in
- Go to lookup.icann.org and type in your domain.
- Look at who the “registrant” is and which company it’s registered with (the “registrar”). Many personal details are hidden for privacy; that’s normal.
- If your business doesn’t appear and you don’t know who registered it, ask your provider for access to the registrar account or written confirmation that you are the registrant.
What you should always have
- The domain registered in your business’s name, with an email address you actually check.
- Access to the account where it’s registered, or the right to ask for it with no strings attached.
- The expiry date written down, with auto-renew turned on.
Good to know: ICANN rules let a registrar block a transfer to another provider during the first 60 days after a domain is registered or transferred. If you plan to move, plan ahead.
How we do it
At Sitio Ya we register the domain in your business’s name. If you ever decide to leave, we hand it over along with your site’s files.