A Yearly Check on the Names You Hold

The whole month, compressed

Domains generate problems slowly and reveal them suddenly, which is why they get attention only when something has already gone wrong.

The alternative is not vigilance, it is ten minutes once a year with a list in front of you.

Everything covered over the last few weeks reduces to seven checks, and none of them takes more than a minute.

Doing it annually is enough, because the things that change do so on annual cycles.

The seven checks

• Expiry dates and auto-renew.
• The card on file.
• The registrant and contact address.
• The transfer lock on each.
• What each domain points at.
• Certificates covering every name.
• DNS records you no longer recognise.

The third and the fifth catch the most. A contact address belonging to somebody who has left, and a domain redirecting to a page that no longer exists, are both silent and both common.

Pick a date and keep it

Which is what makes this happen at all.

The same week each year, in a quiet period, with a recurring calendar entry.

Attach it to something already annual: the insurance renewal, the year end, or whenever you review anything else.

A standalone reminder in March gets dismissed and one attached to an existing routine does not.

Put the domain list itself in the calendar entry, so the check begins with the document open rather than with finding it.

That single detail is the difference between a ten-minute task and one that gets postponed.

A worked example

A business added a domain review to the same week as their insurance renewal.

The first year took ninety minutes because the list had to be built.

The second year took twelve minutes and found two things: a contact address for somebody who had left, and a spare domain redirecting to a page deleted in a redesign.

The third year took eight minutes and found nothing at all.

They have done it four times and consider it among the cheapest habits in the business.

Nothing has lapsed, been lost, or gone wrong in that period.

Write the answers down each time

Rather than only fixing what is wrong.

Note the date, what you checked, and what you changed, in the same document as the list.

Four years of those entries tells you which things drift and which never do, which lets you shorten the check.

It is also what allows somebody else to take this over, since the record shows what the check consists of.

That is the same argument as everywhere else and it applies particularly here, since domains are the thing most likely to outlive whoever set them up.

Check what each one actually resolves to

Since this is the check with the most surprises.

Type every domain you hold into a browser and watch what happens.

Your site, a redirect to your site, a certificate warning, a parking page, or nothing are five different findings.

The redirect pointing at a deleted page is the common one, produced by any redesign that changed page addresses.

That takes about thirty seconds for a handful of domains and is worth doing first, since it needs no logins.

Ask who else can get in

Which is the access question the rest depends on.

Confirm that more than one person can reach the registrar account and the address that receives its notices.

A business where one person holds everything has a single point of failure that no other check addresses.

That does not require sharing a password directly; a password manager or a second account on the registrar covers it.

Review it annually alongside the rest, since staff and suppliers change.

Keep it to ten minutes

Which is the discipline that keeps it happening.

Anything that turns up needing more than a few minutes goes on a list to do separately rather than expanding the check.

A registrar consolidation, a registrant change, or a DNS clean-up are projects, and treating them as part of the annual check is how the annual check stops happening.

Find, note, move on.

The value is entirely in doing it every year rather than in doing it thoroughly once.

A short check that happens beats a comprehensive one that gets postponed until something breaks.

That is the same reasoning as everywhere else in this subject and it holds particularly here.

The list is the asset, not the check

Which is the point worth carrying out of the whole month.

A business that can produce a current list of every domain it holds, where each is registered, what each points at, and who can log in has already solved most of what can go wrong here.

The annual check is simply what keeps that document true, and a document that stays true is worth considerably more than any individual fix in it.

It is also the thing an accountant, a buyer, a lender, or a successor will ask for, and the only moment it can be assembled cheaply is when nothing is wrong.

Everything in the last four weeks was really about producing and maintaining one page of information.

The counter-case

A very small setup barely needs this.

One domain, auto-renewing, with a current card and one person who manages it has almost nothing to check.

Annual is also the wrong interval for a business making frequent changes, where things drift faster than a year.

And a check that finds nothing four years running is a reasonable candidate for every two years.

Pick a week attached to an existing annual routine, run the seven checks with the list open, note what you found, and keep it to ten minutes.

The ten minutes

1. Open the domain list.
2. Type each domain into a browser.
3. Check expiry and auto-renew.
4. Check the card and address.
5. Check the registrant and the lock.
6. Confirm two people have access.
7. Note the date and what you found.

Step six is the one that matters most and is checked least, since every other item on this list assumes somebody can still log in to act on what it found.

Building the list in the first place is covered in every domain you own, listed once.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.