Is Your au Domain Registered Correctly?
The Domain Ownership Check Every Business Should Make
Imagine deciding to move your business website to a new hosting provider or hiring a new digital agency to refresh your website. You ask for your .com.au domain transfer details to get the ball rolling, only to hit a brick wall.
The domain authorisation details have been sent to an email address you don’t control. It belongs to your old web developer, a former employee, or an old email address that hasn’t been used for years.
This scenario is more common than many Australian business owners realise.
Many small business owners assume that because they paid for their website and domain name, they automatically have complete ownership and control of both. However, a simple administrative oversight, such as having a web developer’s email address listed as the Registrant Contact Email, can create serious problems when you need to manage or transfer your domain.
Your website and your domain name are two separate things. You can change your website developer, hosting provider or digital agency without changing your domain. But to do that easily, you need to know who the legal registrant is and make sure the domain registration details are correct.
Here is why this happens, why it matters, and what the official auDA rules say about your .com.au domain registration.
Setting Up a Domain Is Not the Same as Registering It Correctly
When you hire a developer to build your website, they will often handle the domain registration for you as part of setting everything up. This is convenient and, in many cases, makes perfect sense.
The problem can arise when the developer uses their own email address as the Registrant Contact Email rather than an email address controlled by the actual domain registrant.
It may have been done with the best intentions. Perhaps the developer wanted to make sure they received all the technical notifications while setting up the website. The problem is that this contact information can remain on the domain registration long after the website has been completed.
For a .com.au domain, the Registrant Contact information is particularly important. It identifies the person or organisation holding the domain licence and provides the contact details used for important domain-related communications.
The Registrant Contact Email is also important when you need to recover your domain password or transfer your .au domain to another registrar.
In simple terms, if the contact details on your domain registration belong to someone else, you may not have full control when you need it most.
Three Risks of Incorrect Domain Registration Details
Leaving an old developer’s or agency’s email address on your domain registration can create several unnecessary headaches.
1. The “Hostage” Situation
If your relationship with a developer or agency breaks down, having their email address listed as the Registrant Contact can make transferring your domain considerably more difficult.
A developer should not be using control of your domain registration as leverage. Your website developer may manage your website, hosting or DNS, but that does not mean they should control the registration details for your domain.
Your .com.au domain is a business asset. You should be able to move your website and services to another provider without having to negotiate for control of the domain itself.
2. The Ghosting Risk
Developers change industries, close businesses, retire or simply disappear.
If the person controlling the Registrant Contact Email is no longer available and that email account has been closed, recovering access to your domain can become a much more complicated administrative process.
What seemed like a harmless shortcut years earlier can suddenly become a difficult problem when you need to prove your rights to the domain or recover the domain’s authorisation details.
3. Missed Renewal Notices
If important domain notifications are being sent to an old or unmonitored email address, you may never see them.
Keeping your domain registration details up to date is important because renewal information needs to reach someone who can act on it. If a .com.au domain expires, the services relying on that domain, including your website and business email, can be affected.
That is a very different problem from simply forgetting to renew a website hosting account.
What Does auDA Say About Domain Registrant Details?
You don’t just have to take our word for it.
The .au Domain Administration (auDA) is responsible for developing and administering the rules and policies that govern .au domain names in Australia.
The auDA WHOIS service allows you to check publicly available information about a .au domain registration, including the registrant and contact information.
One particularly important point is that the Registrant Contact Email needs to be an address where the registrant can actually be contacted.
That does not necessarily mean you need to use your personal email address.
A business can use an appropriate role-based email address, such as information@yourbusiness.com.au or management@yourbusiness.com.au, provided the registrant can actually be contacted through that address.
What you don’t want is for your domain’s Registrant Contact Email to be an address controlled by a web developer, agency or other third party when they are not the registrant and cannot properly represent the business holding the domain licence.
There is an important distinction here.
A developer or web hosting provider can still be involved in the technical management of your domain. They may need to manage DNS, hosting and other technical aspects of your domain.
The technical contact and the registrant are not necessarily the same thing.
Your developer can help manage the technical side of your domain without being the person who controls the registrant contact details.
How to Check Who Owns Your .com.au Domain
Checking your domain registration details is simple and takes about a minute.
1. Open the official auDA WHOIS lookup
Go to the official .au WHOIS service and enter your domain name.
2. Check the Registrant information
Look at the Registrant and Registrant Contact Name fields.
For a business domain, make sure the legal entity holding the domain licence is the business or other appropriate entity that should actually hold the registration.
This is particularly important if your business has changed its name, structure or ownership since the domain was originally registered.
3. Check the Registrant Contact Email
Look closely at the Registrant Contact Email.
Is it an email address that your business controls?
Can someone responsible for your business actually receive messages sent to it?
If the answer is no, it is worth getting the registration details corrected.
4. Check your registrar
The WHOIS information can also help you identify your registrar of record.
Your registrar or reseller is the organisation you deal with to manage your domain registration. Knowing who your registrar is means you know where to go if you need to update your domain registration details, recover your domain password or arrange an auDA domain transfer.
What If Your Developer’s Email Is Listed?
Don’t panic.
If you discover that your old developer’s email address is listed as the Registrant Contact Email, the important thing is to get the details corrected.
Contact the domain provider managing your registration and ask them to update the registrant contact information.
If you don’t have the login details for the domain account, contact your current domain provider or web developer and ask them to help you regain appropriate control of the registration.
If the registration details themselves are incorrect, auDA advises that you can request a correction through your .au domain name provider.
The process can be much simpler when the business and its current provider work together to correct the information before a transfer or ownership problem arises.
Understanding .com.au Domain Transfers
If you decide to move your domain to another registrar, you will need the transfer authorisation code, sometimes called the domain password or EPP AuthInfo code.
This is separate from the username and password you use to log into your domain provider’s account.
The authorisation code is unique to your .au domain licence and is used to authorise a transfer to another registrar.
Importantly, auDA provides a password recovery process, and the recovery information is sent to the Registrant Contact Email recorded in the .au registry.
This is why having the correct domain registration details is so important.
If the recovery email goes to an old developer or an email account nobody can access, a straightforward .com.au domain transfer can suddenly become much more complicated.
Your Domain Should Stay Under Your Control
Your website developer may build your website.
Your hosting provider may host it.
Your IT provider may manage your email and DNS.
But your domain name is a valuable business asset in its own right.
You should know who the domain registrant is, where the domain is registered, which email address is listed as the Registrant Contact, and how to access or recover the domain’s authorisation details.
Taking a few minutes to check these details now could save you a lot of trouble later.
Protecting your domain is just good business hygiene. Don’t leave the keys to your digital front door in someone else’s pocket.