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Breitloh

Your domain, in your own name

A domain is the one thing a business cannot replace. Everything else can be rebuilt, but the address people have had for a decade cannot. It is also the thing most often registered to a developer who has moved on, expiring on a card that was cancelled in 2019.

Book a callWebsite support and maintenance
A domain held in your own account, with every record in the zone listed and understood

Where it usually hurts

Somebody else holds it
Registered to a former agency, a contractor, or a member of staff who left. It works, right up until a renewal fails or a relationship sours, and then you are negotiating for your own name.
Nobody can read the records
The DNS zone has entries nobody recognises, added for a tool that was retired years ago. Nobody dares delete anything, so it grows, and each unexplained record is a way in for somebody sending mail as you.
Every change is a held breath
A change made at four on a Friday, with no idea how long it takes to apply and no plan if it is wrong. The site and the email share one zone, so a mistake meant for the website takes the phones and the invoices with it.

What the job covers

  • The domain moved into an account in your company's name, with you as the owner and me as an invited user if you want one
  • Every DNS record documented in plain English: what it is for, what would break without it, and what can go
  • Registrar lock and auto renewal turned on, with the renewal notice going somewhere more than one person reads
  • Changes planned properly, with the time to live lowered first and a way back that takes minutes
  • Email authentication records tidied at the same time, because they live in the same place

What it has to talk to

Your registrar
Whoever the domain is bought from. Some are fine and some are painful, and the difference matters most on the day you need support rather than on the day you pay.
Your website and your email
Both answer to the same zone, which is why a careless change can take out things that feel unrelated. They get planned as one job for exactly that reason.
Everything that verifies you
Google, Microsoft, your payment provider, and your mail tools all leave a verification record. Each one gets identified, so nothing is deleted that quietly proves you are you.

A worked approach, not a client

How I would take back a domain and tidy the zone

  1. 01

    Establish who actually owns it

    Registrar, registrant, and billing contact, which are often three different answers. Getting the domain into your own account is first, because everything else is easier once you are not asking permission.

  2. 02

    Explain the zone before changing it

    Every record written out in plain English. Usually a third can go, a third is load bearing, and a third is a verification token nobody remembers. Nothing is deleted until it is on a list somebody agrees with.

  3. 03

    Change it in a way you can undo

    Time to live lowered a day ahead, changes made outside working hours, and the old destination left running until the new one is answering. That turns a frightening change into a boring one.

Questions I get asked about this

The ones that come up on almost every first call. If yours is not here, ask it and you will get a straight answer.

Our old agency owns our domain. How do we get it back?

By asking, in writing, for a transfer authorisation code and the registrant details. Most hand it over. If they will not, the registrar has a dispute process, and for a UK domain Nominet has its own. Either way, start it now rather than the week before it expires.

How long does a DNS change take?

Anything from a few minutes to a day, depending on the time to live on the record and how stubborn the resolvers in between are. Lowering that value the day before turns an unpredictable change into a predictable one, which is why planned moves feel calm and unplanned ones do not.

Will moving hosting affect our email?

It should not, and it often does, because both live in the same DNS zone and it is easy to move the whole lot when you meant to move the website. Handling them as one planned change is the answer, and it is the same care an email migration needs.

Should we buy the .co.uk and the .com?

Buy the one you will use, plus the obvious near miss if the price is trivial. Buying twenty variations to stop somebody typing one wrong is a cost with no return. If a competitor already holds the other one, that is worth knowing but rarely worth panicking over.

What is a CAA record, and do we need one?

It names which certificate authorities are allowed to issue a certificate for your domain, so nobody else can quietly get one. It is two minutes of work and it is one of the few records that is purely protective. Yes, you should have one.

Who should the renewal notices go to?

A shared mailbox that more than one person reads, never an individual's inbox and never a personal address. Domains lapse for one reason, which is that the reminder went to somebody who left. That is also a good argument for a shared mailbox that is genuinely shared.

Can you manage DNS for us, or should we?

You own it either way. Some clients want a single person to call when something needs changing, some want to do it themselves with a record of what is what. Both work. What does not work is nobody knowing where the zone is.

Related

Tell me what you have now

Half an hour on a call, and a straight answer about whether this is the right job and whether I am the right person for it.

Book a callhello@breitloh.com