Domain Name Management

• Can you register my domain name for me?
• What deceptive domain practices can hurt me?
• I forgot to renew my domain name!
• What do I need to do to avoid losing my domain name?
• I don't like my registrar... how do I move?
• I forgot where my domain is registered!
• What is "propagation" of my domain name?
• I paid you for a domain name, but DirectNIC wants me to pay again.
• What is the difference between "parking" and "redirecting" and an "add-on" domain?

What deceptive domain practices can hurt me?
ICANN (the international regulatory agency for domain names), is warning that there are a number of *scams* circulating right now. These often arrive via postal mail, but can also be emailed to you.

First, are notices from registrars telling you that it is time to renew.. if you do, you will later notice that the notice did not come from YOUR registrar, and you have renewed your domain at some other registrar... often without realizing it. Since the new registrar often does not transfer the hosting info, you may first notice when your email and website suddenly disappear. Examine any such notice closely, and check your online account with the registrar you KNOW you are using. Most registrars use email, not postal mail. A few that have participated in this practice include Domain Registry of America, Network Solutions and Register.com, among others. Gryphyn Media has itself received renewal notices from Network Solutions/Verisign on domains we transferred two years ago.

The second kind of scam is a *Domain Dispute Notification* mailing from an entity identifying itself as *XChange Dispute Resolution.* The mailings falsely state that XChange is an *ICANN authorized arbitrator* and that the registrant must mail in a *security deposit fee* to defend *ownership of the domain name.* This is a plain old con game... do NOT respsond to these. Details from ICANN:
http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-08apr02.htm

A third kind of scam is the registrar that renews your domain using your credit card... without asking you and long before it is time to renew. There are recent reports of Register.com using this method to try to keep you from switching to a less expensive registrar. Things are fiercely competitive between registrars right now... domain clients are being stolen back and forth. This is different than domain hijacking, where your domain *ownership* changes... these are deceptive practices aimed at getting you to switch your domains to another regisration service. Be careful when responding to notices!

And then there is *plain old* domain hijacking. This occurs when someone convinces a registrar that you have sold or transferred a domain to them, or that they are the *real* owner of the domain. You suddenly find you are not the owner of your domain anymore. KEEP the records proving that you paid to register your domain. If a web designer or other consultant bought your domain for you, make sure it is registered in YOUR name, with your contact info, and that YOU have the username and password to the registrar account. This is what allows you to renew, transfer, switch registrars, and set your hosting preferences by accessing the DNS controls.

We prefer and recommend directnic.com

I forgot to renew my domain name!
If you missed our renewal notices, all is not lost. If you bought a domain through us, this is the typical proression: For the first 5 days after the domain expiration date, there is a "grace period" when the domain stays active. Then it goes down, and it parked up to Day 18 after Expiry. If it is still not renewed, it goes into a Redemption Period until Day 60, and will cost a lot more to get back. After that, it could spend up to 18 more days in a Pending Deletion stage, when anyone that may have backordered it can snatch it up. If no one has backordered, it will then be released for reregistration by anyone that wants it. Obviously, the ideal is to renew it with the first 5 days. Sometimes, the best/fastest solution to a lost or inaccessible domain name is to buy a new one.

What do I need to do to avoid losing my domain name?
Keep an eye on it! Use an automatic reminder system to send yourself a notice to check on it once in a while.

1. Do you know when yours expires? Consider buying it for a few years at a time... it also makes you look like you are in business for the long haul.

2. Is your email address up-to-date at your registrar? This is the BIGGEST reason people fail to renew domain names... they forget to change their email address with their registrar, and do not receive renewal notices.

3. Is your registration contact information correct... and is it actually registered to YOU... not the service or consultant that bought it for you? DO NOT wait until you want to leave your old developer to ask for your domain registration to be placed firmly in your own name.

All these things help keep you from losing your domain name or losing access to it.

I don't like my registrar... how do I move?
It makes sense to choose one registrar that you like and keep all your domains there, becoming familiar with the management tools and policies. All accreditted registrars offer the same basic service... the differences are in price, support, and features.

Remember... Network Solutions (now Verisign) is no longer the only registrar, but they are among the most expensive and (in our opinion) the least responsive to customers. We frequently have customers with Verisign-related problems.

ICANN (www.ICANN.org) is the regulatory agency that accredits registrars. Check their list of registrars to see if the ones you are looking at are accreditted. If the organization you like is a reseller, inquire with their provider to make sure they are in good standing. For instance, Tucows and OpenSRS are accreditted registrars, but they do not deal directly with the consumer; they provide services to smaller resellers.

If you plan to move your domain to a new registrar do it more than 60 days before it expires. This is especially important with Verisign, who will not move it less than 60 days from expiration, claiming they are protecting you from domain hijackers.

1. To transfer registrars, go to the new registrar's site and look for a link that says something like "transfering your domain." Make sure you are looking at the instructions for transferring to a new registrar, not to a new OWNER.

2. You typically have to pay for one-year of registration to move to a new registrar. Your old registration period will play out, so you lose no money. There is no reason to wait for renewal time to move your domains if you are unhappy with your registrar.

3. Pay attention to ALL the fees and services of a new registrar before making a move... the annual fee is not the only factor. Look at the domain management panel and see how easy it will be to make changes. Look at the sales policy... what hoops will you have to jump through if you sell a name? Is there an ownership transfer fee? The official Gryphyn Media favorite is DirectNIC.com... we have gotten consistently good value there.

4. And of course, MAKE SURE you again point the nameservers (also called DNS settings) to Gryphyn Media to continue your website hosting uninterrupted. At most registrars, you only have to enter the names, but some require the IP addresses, as well. Your nameservers were specified in the welcome email you got when you signed up. If you are not sure, ask us. ns1.gryphynmedia.com 209.124.87.12
ns2.gryphynmedia.com 209.124.87.13

I forgot where my domain is registered!
It can be confusing. Your domain might have been registered on your behalf by an ISP, by your previous host, by a web designer that did work on the site for you, or by a registrar that has since been bought up by someone else. You've heard horror stories, but most registrations are simple and problem-free.

Do a WHOIS lookup for your domain name and the registrar will be displayed. For results with no ads, try http://whois.sc/

What is "propagation" of my domain name?
"Propagation" happens whenever there is a change to your domain's nameservers, or you register a new domain name. It can also happen if you have a laspe in your domain registration of more than a day, and you are dropped from the Domain Name System.

The change happens very quickly at the registrar and in the DNS system... the "whois" info. But "propagation" is really the process of waiting for all the world's ISPs to update their DNS caches to reflect the new nameserver info changes for the day. Many ISPs do that daily... which is why it takes about 24 hours for much of the propagation to happen, as we cycle through the world's time zones and back to our own. Some big ISPs do it several times a day. But some pokey ISPs do it every other day or so. You may have just missed the DNS cache update cycle for your ISP, or a sluggish ISP in your local network.

That might help explain the inconsistancies of propagation. For your specific domain, here are some tools to help monitor the process and troubleshoot problems:

Here is a place you can use to check if a new domain is resolving, and if the server is up for a currently hosted domain:

http://alertra.com/
Put your domain name in the box on the right side of the nav bar.

It checks to see if the site comes up from a bunch of places all over the globe. Can help identify if *you* are having trouble seeing your site, or if *everyone* is, and whether there is trouble on just parts of the global network.

Example:
Spotcheck Results for domainname.com
Time (US/Eastern) Checked From Result KBytes Secs Kbps
07/10/2004 10:16:44 Atlanta USA OK 0.6 0.34 13.74
07/10/2004 10:16:46 Hong Kong CHINA OK 0.6 1.51 3.10
07/10/2004 10:16:44 Las Vegas USA OK 0.6 0.63 7.42
07/10/2004 10:16:44 Chicago USA OK 0.6 0.28 16.87
07/10/2004 10:16:44 Orlando USA OK 0.6 0.42 11.25
07/10/2004 10:16:45 London UK OK 0.6 0.53 8.93
07/10/2004 10:16:45 Frankfurt GERMANY OK 0.6 0.85 5.53
07/10/2004 10:16:44 Oklahoma City USA OK 0.6 0.43 10.94


Here is another tool: a propagation checker. It shows you the IP address for your domain from 30 ISPs all over the world.

http://www.dixiehelp.com/tools/netutil/index.php
Fill in your doman name at "The Propagator"

You are looking for it to show you the IP (207.99.111.140, for instance) that we sent you in your "Welcome to Gryphyn Media Hosting" email. (Don't worry about that server in Albania that times out... it always does.) IfF only some of the ISPs have the right IP, you are not done propagating.

I paid you for a domain name, but DirectNIC wants me to pay again.
If you paid us, do not try to register it at DirectNIC... or they will ask you to pay again. Wait for us to do it, and we will send you a receipt. If you made your own account at DirectNIC, you might want to delete it, so you don't confuse it with the account information we send you. If you added the domain name to your shopping cart at DirectNIC, delete it, or it may "hold" it for you while we are trying to buy it from another account.

What is the difference between "parking" and "redirecting" and an "add-on" domain?
Park, Redirect, and Add-on are 3 methods of having one domain lead to another domain. Each is useful, but for different things.

We would PARK a domain "on top of" one you already have hosted. Let's say you have hosted a website at "car.com" and you want "auto.com" to show the same content. If you PARK auto.com on top of car.com, when someone types in auto.com in their browser, they will SEE the content from the car.com site, but see "auto.com" as the URL. You can make email accounts and control email for the parked domain with this option.

(For techies, parking is a function of a DNS entry, whereby the DNS zone for the "parked" domain resolves at the same location as the original domain. With Park, the system actually recognizes one domain to be the other domain.)

When we set up a REDIRECT, the websurfer types in one domain, and shows up at another. If we REDIRECT auto.com to point to car.com, then when the websurfer types in auto.com, he just shows up at car.com. This is often perfect for domains you purchased because they were mispellings or alternate spellings of your main domain. There is no email control with this option. Many registrars provide this service for free when you register a domain name. They will ask you if you want to point it at another domain, at GoDaddy, for instance. It is sometimes called DOMAIN FORWARDING.

(Techies: Redirect is a function of .htaccess, usually used for temporary redirection to another location or when moving a site. Redirect means you show up at one address and you get sent to another. You enter one domain in the browser, and end up at a different domain. It can also be done with an HTML redirect, from an existing website.)

An ADD-ON domain is the same as parking a new domain to a SUBDOMAIN. If you made auto.com an Add-on Domain, it would point to auto.car.com. and display the content of that subdomain while the user sees "auto.com" in the browser window. This is great for making microsites and landing pages for extra keyword domains you want to promote in search engines, since each domain has its own content.