We’re seeing more instances of clients and their customers/clients losing access to their websites and emails connected to their domains. The reason why? Somebody missed a notice to verify their identity with their domain registrar.

Prevention is totally within your control. It just requires paying attention to a couple of things that are easy to overlook – as these two stories illustrate.

On a recent Sunday morning, a client called to report their website and email were down. The bad news is that most problems like these seem to happen on a weekend. The good news is that they can be fixed before they interrupt business. When internet systems go down, we look for technical issues, such as the connections between our clients and their host companies or problems with the host company.

In this case, it was an identification issue. Domain registrars, the companies that issue domains, periodically send out a request for the domain holder to verify who they are who they say they are. It should be a simple matter going into your account with your registrar and verifying the names and contact info for the domain owner and the technical contact are correct.

When you don’t respond, two problems typically arise. First, most domain owners miss the message to verify their information because it comes across as a phishing email and gets deleted or ignored. Second, it winds up in a spam folder that never gets checked.

For this client, it took us 2-1/2 hours to solve the problem. First, we checked with their website company, who reported not seeing any notice for verification. Then, we went into their email system and into a list of emails they had deleted and trashed. It’s like going through an electronic dumpster, but we found and retrieved the message – which was never opened. They were fortunate to discover the problem and fix it before the business week began.

In a second case, it took a client more than two weeks to resolve a verification issue for its domain. Outages of this length are usually the result of somebody not having the credentials to get into their registrar’s website to verify their information. You have to jump through hoops to reestablish your credentials.

You can avoid all of this by knowing your username and password for your registrar’s website. It’s your responsibility as the domain owner. If you don’t know the info now, make it a priority to find it or start the process to reestablish your credentials. Second, make it a point to check your spam files or junk mail at least once a day to make sure nothing important is buried there. Third, make it a point to log in to your account with your registrar every six months to verify your info.

If you can’t find your domain registration information or need to manage your email, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us. We can help you work with your registrar to verify or reestablish your credentials (and store a backup copy), and we can help you set up rules to better handle spam or junk mail.