Some businesses discover their company domain is registered under their web agency's name. What to check on domains, hosting, and contract terms before signing.
This is the part of building a website that gets the least attention — and the part that causes the biggest headache when you want to switch providers.
The domain must be registered in your company's name
It sounds obvious, but plenty of businesses only discover their domain is registered under their design agency's name when they try to move it. By then, you have no leverage at all.
Ask before signing: whose name is the domain registered under, do I have my own domain management account, and what's the process to transfer it out.
Which domain extension to choose
.com is the most familiar and easiest to remember. .vn and .com.vn read as a local Vietnamese business, and since they require legal business documents, they're harder to hijack. Many businesses buy both and point them at the same website.
Avoid domains that are too long, contain hyphens, or are easy to mistype. You'll be reading it out over the phone a lot.
Hosting: don't choose on price alone
The cheapest plans often cram hundreds of websites onto one server. When a neighboring site gets overloaded, yours slows down with it. Three things to ask about: storage, bandwidth, and whether automatic backups are included.
Backups: you only regret skipping them after you've lost something
Ask clearly: how often are backups taken, how many versions are kept, and can you restore them yourself or do you need to ask for help. Ideally, keep an independent backup copy somewhere else too.
Security certificates
HTTPS is now mandatory — browsers flag sites without it as “not secure,” and Google favors it too. Most hosting plans include it for free; confirm this is part of your package.
Checklist before you sign
- Whose name is the domain registered under, and do I have my own management account?
- Do I have full admin rights to the website?
- How often are backups made, and can I get a copy?
- If we end the contract, how do I move all my data out?
SMO Media hands over the domain, hosting, and admin rights under the business's own name from day one. See our full-service website design.
