If you have a website then you should ensure that you keep a record of all the important information that allows you, or a web developer, to access your site.
Any new website project can be delayed if you don’t know this information – you may not be able to reach the person who designed your site previously and if they registered your domain name then you might not even be able to access your site without their permission.
I issue my clients with a simple document that contains all the important information that they need.
Here is a guide to this information:
Domain Name Registrar
This is the company that manages your Domain Name. It is where you renew your Domain Name and where your Domain Name DNS (Domain Name System) settings are controlled. The DNS settings point to where your website and emails are hosted.
You need access to your Domain Name if you want to move your website or email to another host.
You should always registrar your domain name yourself rather then your current web developer because you may have problems contacting that web developer in the future. This could mean that your Domain Name isn’t renewed when it needs to be.
Hosting Company
This is the company that hosts your website and may well be a different company to your Domain Name Registrar.
If it is your own hosting account then you need to have the username and password so that you or your web developer can access support and your web hosting control panel.
Email Provider
This is the company that hosts your emails. This may be the same company that manages your Domain Name or you may use Google Apps or Yahoo Business Mail.
It is best to have your emails hosted by a different company than your website, mainly so that if your website hosting goes down, then you still have access to your emails and it means that you won’t experience email downtime if you change website hosts. Carrie Dils explains more in her post ‘Know what’s a terrible idea? Mixing hosting with email.’
Here is a screenshot of the document that I now use.
So there are no excuses! Gather all your important website information and keep in a safe place.
This will also help you to understand which different accounts you have, who to contact for support and when you need to renew important services.
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