Who has the keys to your domain...and your web hosting account...and your PayPal account...and all the other online accounts that make your business tick?

As a business, personal, or non-profit website owner, if you didn't answer this question with a resounding "I DO!," you are putting your website and possibly even your entire enterprise at risk.

Many companies such as domain registrars, website hosts, PayPal, banks, and others that are required to keep your sensitive online information safe WILL NOT COMMUNICATE with anyone other than the person who is listed as the main contact in their records. And they certainly will not release user name, password, and other account information to anyone other than the officially designated contact.

Knowing this to be true, consider what might happen in the following scenarios if you are not listed as the primary contact and you do not have a copy of your login information:

• Your employee leaves the company.
• You decide to switch web designers, or your designer retires or closes the business.
• Your spouse divorces you.
• Your relative turns untrustworthy.
• You and your friend or business partner have a falling out.

Now further imagine that one of these common situations arises and you need to:

• Change your account password or contact information.
• Change your web hosting service.
• Change your domain registrar.
• Change your website designer or search engine optimization (SEO) company.
• Access your PayPal account in order to add new payment buttons.

Ouch! You could be in a world of hurt, as one of our new customers discovered recently.

The bottom line is that YOUR contact information should be on ALL these accounts, and YOU should have a copy of all the login information for these accounts: that means URL addresses (e.g., paypal.com, namecheap.com, gmail.com, etc.), user names, and passwords. PLEASE do not rely on others to keep this essential information safe for you!

Tip: Here is one way to find out who is listed as the primary contact for your website's domain and to learn the nameservers for your website hosting account:

1. Go to http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx
2. Type in your domain name (e.g., pcartsonline.com). Omit the www.
3. Check the domain whois record box.
4. Click GO. (Note: If you have changed the information recently, it may take about 24 hours to see the most recent changes.)

Oh, in case you are wondering, when Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev sets up an account for you, we never list our company as the registration, administrative, technical, or billing contact. We always list you — the company owner (or your designee) — and we always provide you with the complete login information for every account that we set up on your behalf. PLEASE STORE THIS INFORMATION IN A SAFE PLACE!

Questions? Please contact us.

There's always someone willing to part you from your hard-earned money or steal your identity. Domain name scammers are among them! These nasty Internet denizens will send you an official looking letter or email with dire admonitions that your domain is about to expire and you must renew or transfer your domain name with them (or risk losing it forever).

One of our customers got taken by this scam, and his domain expired anyway! That's because the company (Domain Renewal Group) did not renew or transfer his domain; they simply took his $30 check and cashed it! Fortunately, were were able to renew his domain with his official registrar. Our customer may have been lucky only to lose his money. Some of these scammers take much more because they are identity thieves, trolling for credit card and other valuable information!

Unless you are 100% sure they are legit, do not respond to these letters!

If you receive a letter about renewing your domain name — especially if you don't recognize the company as YOUR domain registrar — please contact us right away, before you send a check or give them your credit card information. We'll try to verify whether the communication is a legitimate message from your current domain registrar. (As an aside, most domain renewals cost about $10 per year. If yours costs significantly more, ask us about transferring your domain to another registrar.)

All this said, please do not ignore an expiring domain! You've invested time, money, and Goodwill in your domain name, so it's important to stay on top of expiration dates and keep your domain registration current. Also be aware that if a domain expires, no one can access your website until the domain registration is updated or the site is moved to a new domain name. And if someone happens to grab your domain after it has expired, you probably will be unable to retrieve it.

For some specific details about this domain scamming problem, check out this link or this one.

Want to know more about domain scammers? Search Google for "domain renewal scam" or type the name of the company that has sent you a letter (between quotation marks) and add the word scam, like this:

"Domain Renewal Group" scam