Who actually controls your domain

Three roles people mix up

• The registrant is the person or company the domain is registered to. This is who has the legal right to it, and it should be you or your business.
• The registrar is the company it is registered through, and the one that sends the renewal invoice.
• The DNS host is wherever the domain's records are kept: the records that say where the website and the email are. It is often the registrar, and often isn't. Cloudflare and web hosts are both common.

There is a fourth thing that matters in practice: whose login it is. A domain can be registered to you and still sit in your web designer's account at the registrar, so that only they can change it. That is fine while they answer the phone.

Find out where it is

Look the domain up. For .com, .org, .net and most other endings use ICANN Lookup. For .uk and .co.uk use Nominet's domain lookup.

The result shows the registrar and the expiry date. The registrant's name is often hidden for privacy, so its absence isn't a problem in itself.

To see who hosts the DNS, look up the nameservers:

nslookup -type=ns example.co.uk

The answer names the company. Nameservers ending ns.cloudflare.com mean Cloudflare, for example.

Is it in your name?

Ask the registrar, or whoever manages the domain for you, to confirm the registrant's name and contact email. If the registrant is your web designer or a former employee rather than you or your company, ask for it to be changed now. It is a simple request while everybody is on good terms, and a difficult one later.

Make sure the registrant's contact email is one that will still reach you in five years, and that isn't only an address on the same domain. If the domain lapses, that address stops working, and so every reminder about the lapse goes nowhere.

.uk domains are easier to take back

.uk and .co.uk domains are run by Nominet, and the registrant can deal with Nominet directly. Moving one to another registrar means changing its tag to the new registrar's. The old registrar can do that, and as the registrant you can also do it yourself through Nominet's online services, without waiting for them. That works provided the contact details Nominet holds are ones you can still receive email at, which is another reason to check them now.

Other domains need a transfer code

For .com and most other endings, a move between registrars works like this:

1. Remove the transfer lock at the current registrar

   Most domains are locked against transfer by default.

2. Ask for the transfer code

   Also called an authorisation code or EPP code. Under the rules registrars work to, they have to give it to the registrant on request, and shouldn't make you jump through hoops for it.

3. Start the transfer at the new registrar

   Give them the code. The transfer usually includes a year's renewal, and takes anything from minutes to about a week.

A domain registered or transferred recently may be blocked from moving again for a period, commonly up to sixty days. The website and email keep working during a transfer, as long as the DNS stays where it is.

Keep it from lapsing

• Turn automatic renewal on, and keep the card on the account up to date.
• Make sure renewal reminders go to an address somebody reads, which isn't only on the same domain.
• Renew for more than one year if the registrar allows it. It's one less thing to go wrong.