Here’s a question most business owners can’t answer about their own business, and it takes about 90 seconds to find out.
Whose name is your domain registered in?
Not who built the website.
Not who you pay the hosting bill to.
Whose name is actually on the licence for yourbusiness.com.au.
For a lot of small operators around here the answer is somebody else.
The nephew who set it all up in 2016. A web bloke in the next town who’s since moved on.
An agency that registered it on your behalf and never mentioned it was going in their name, because it made their admin tidier.
Most of the time nothing goes wrong.
Then one day something does.
The nephew moves to Perth and stops replying to messages.
The agency you parted ways with is now sitting on the address your customers type in.
A domain isn’t something you buy once and keep forever.
It’s a licence you rent, a year or two at a time, and whoever’s name sits on that licence decides what happens next.
That includes letting it lapse. Once a lapsed domain drops off the register, anyone can pick it up.
Ten years of Google rankings, the address on the side of your ute, the one printed on two thousand business cards.
Gone to whoever was watching.
I’ve had the panic version of this conversation.
Nobody enjoys telling a business owner that the quickest way to get their own name back involves asking a favour of someone who isn’t returning calls.
So here’s how to check in 90 seconds.
Go to whois.auda.org.au.
Type in your domain.
Look at the field marked Registrant, and the ABN sitting under it.
If it’s your business name and your ABN, you’re sweet.
Close the tab and go have a coffee.
If it’s someone you haven’t spoken to since the last drought, or a company you no longer deal with, sort it out now while everyone’s still on reasonable terms.
It’s usually a form and a phone call. It gets a lot harder once there’s been a falling out or somebody’s gone quiet.
And if you’re about to have a website built, put it in writing before anyone starts.
The domain goes in your name, against your ABN, and you get the login details.
Any decent operator will say yes without blinking.
The ones who won’t have just told you something worth knowing.
Matt Rowlands runs Your Mate Agency, helping regional businesses get found online.
