The digital marketing grey zone. 5 digital properties your “web guy” probably still owns.

When you’ve been in the digital marketing and agency business for as long as we have, you get to see alot of different business challenges that we help clients understand and fix. But with more than twenty nine years or so since Tim Berners-Lee launched the first website in 1991, and business people and marketers saw this brave new frontier as a revolutionary new industry, there is one business/marketing challenge that shows up to us over and over and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

I remain surprised by the sheer number of businesses that do not own their digital assets and don’t even know they don’t own them. I have weekly and sometimes daily conversations with business owners and marketers who simply do not know who controls their digital assets or how to access them.

This is like asking someone to build your house, but they built it on their land and they have the keys to the front door. Here are the top six digital properties you should check to see that you or your company has primary dominion over (top level access).

1. Domain Name

2. Website/Hosting

3. Email Account

4. Google My Business page

5. Google Analytics/AdWords accounts

6. Social Properties

The biggest and most common is a business does not actually own their domain name; This is the most common mistake. If a business doesn’t have control over their domain name, or don’t know if they have control here are steps to find out. A domain name is the cornerstone of most businesses' digital strategy and in many cases, is tied to other important business processes like corporate email accounts which makes it doubly challenging. Typically business owners who wanted to build a website years ago, found a web firm or “web guy” and that hired person or firm went ahead and bought a domain name in an account they own and never bothered to transfer it to the company or tell them that they don’t own this asset. If a company now wants a new website or use a new web provider, the treasure hunt begins.

Thankfully there is an organization who is responsible for keeping track of such things. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, maintains a database of domain names and other important data (called WHOIS) and traces its roots back to 1982 when the first data started traveling across Arpanet (precursor to today’s internet). Here are some simple steps you can take to try and recover your domain name.

Step #1; The WHOIS lookup is a great place to start. If your domain name has “Private Registration” then the actual company and contact information of the registrant may be masked.

If you believe someone else owns your domain name, you have to ask them to transfer it to a domain name provider account (such as GoDaddy or network Solutions) that you set up.

Step #2; Set up an account with a domain name provider. Here are links to setting up accounts with some of the more popular domain name providers but do your research and make sure its a reputable company.

Set up GoDaddy Account here.

Set up a Network Solutions Account here.

Step #3; Formerly request the domain transfer. Even if you don’t know the identity of the person who owns your domain name, someone will be notified of this request. Domain names are corporate or business properties so belong with a company, especially if you’ve paid a service provider for their services.

GoDaddy Domain Name Transfer Request

Network Solutions Domain Name Transfer Request

The domain will have to be unlocked from the person who owns it and provide a transfer key. The challenge comes in if there is no response. It may be nearly impossible to retrieve “your” domain name but you may have some legal recourse. Consult with an attorney before proceeding, as the cost of recovery may outweigh the value in that domain name.