It's time to become master of your domains

By Bottom Line . Joel Snyder
Network World, 06/25/01

If I have to read another article about the new top-level domain names, I'm going to scream. So I'll compound the crime by writing one about them myself. But, unlike the others, my piece will be useful and correct. I'm not going to talk about all those new and useless TLDs, such as .info and .biz. I want to talk about the old .com, .net and .org domain names. We've been in the pay-to-play regime for years now, so every name in these common TLDs has gone through at least one payment cycle. Now, there are so many domain names floating around that the names and registrars are becoming difficult to keep track of. Because we're getting into the dog days of summer, this is a good time to get your domain name act together. Here are some suggestions:

Make a list. You'll be surprised at how many domain names you have. When a company had one (and it was free), things were easy. Now that even the most mundane company has multiple domain names, you need to keep closer tabs. Figure out which domain names you have, which registrar is handling them, when the next payment is due and what your contacts and name servers are. If you have IP addresses assigned to you, don't forget to verify your reverse DNS mapping at the domain in-addr.arpa as well.

Compare your list to reality. The Internet is changing every day, and the odds are that something is wrong with your domain names, especially if they're old. You may be pointing at a secondary MX that won't accept mail for you anymore, or one of the name servers listed for your name may no longer be doing zone transfers. Make sure your company name, address and contacts (phone and e-mail) are correct in the registrar database.

Clean up your act. You may have domain names you're not using. Delete them now. If you're spread across registrars, consolidate with one you trust. Remember, the reason there are multiple registrars is so that companies can make lots of money selling you domain names, not to make your life easier. Deal with one company and one modification system.

Prepay your bills. Back when the idea of paying for a domain name was revolutionary and evil, companies did it one year at a time. Stop doing that; you're wasting time and money. You know you want to keep that domain name, and the cost to generate a purchase order every year is much higher than the cost of the name. Unless you really think you won't be using that name next year, renew it for as many years as you can: five is a good starting point because odds are you'll be doing something else in five years and it'll be someone else's problem.