Who owns your organisation's domain name? A ten-minute check
Your domain name is your website address and, usually, your email address too. It's worth knowing exactly whose name it's in.
Why it matters
Many small organisations' domains were bought years ago by a volunteer, a former employee or a web designer, on their own account and their own card. Then that person moves on. The card expires, the renewal fails and the reminder emails go to an inbox nobody reads.
When a domain expires, your website and email both stop working. Getting it back can be slow, or impossible if someone else registers it.
Two words worth knowing
- Registrar: the company you pay to look after the domain.
- Registrant: the person or organisation the domain is registered to, in effect its owner.
You want the registrant to be the organisation, and the registrar account to be one the organisation controls.
The ten-minute fix
- Find your registrar. Search your inboxes for renewal emails. If there are none, use a free lookup: Nominet's lookup for .uk domains, or ICANN's lookup for .com, .org and most others. These usually show the registrar and the expiry date. The owner's details are often hidden for privacy.
- Get into the account. If a former volunteer holds it, ask them to add you or hand it over while they're still in touch.
- Put it in the organisation's name. Use a shared role address like admin@ for the login, so it doesn't depend on one person. For .uk domains, changing the owner is called a registrant transfer. You can ask your registrar to do it, or do it yourself through Nominet for £10 plus VAT.
- Turn on auto-renew, with a payment card that belongs to the organisation and won't expire soon.
- Turn on 2-step verification on the registrar account.
- Write down where the login lives, ideally in a shared password manager, and make sure at least two people can get in.
Worked example (made up)
A community centre's domain was registered in 2016 by a volunteer who has since moved away. A lookup shows the registrar and an expiry date next March. The chair emails the volunteer, who logs in and does a transfer to the centre. The treasurer adds the centre's debit card, turns on auto-renew and 2-step verification, and notes the login in the committee's password manager. Total time: about half an hour over two emails, and no risk of the website going dark in March.
Common mistakes
- A recovery email on the same domain. If the domain lapses, admin@ stops working too, so you can't receive the password reset. Add a recovery address or phone number that doesn't depend on the domain.
- Forgetting the DNS. The settings that point your domain at your website and email are sometimes held by a web designer or host, not the registrar. Find out where they are.
- Assuming the web designer "owns it for you". They may be doing a good job, but the registrant should still be your organisation.
If you're planning a new website or booking system, sorting out the domain first makes everything else easier. Our how we work page explains how we hand over logins and code at the end of a project.
Sources
- The UK Domain (Nominet): How do I transfer my domain?
- Nominet: Domain lookup
- ICANN: Registration data lookup tool
- NCSC: Turn on 2-step verification
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