Recently, I have worked with several new clients to transfer their domain names to a new registrar so that we can manage their domain renewals and updates. The current owners did not have any login information for their current registrar and in the process of trying to retrieve the information we discovered that each of these domains did not have any email address assocated with the domain name other than the Admin Contact. Unfortunately, the Admin Contact was no longer at that email address so this didn't help us with gaining access to the account.
So, instead of the Primary Account or Technical Account email address being present a "placeholder" email was automatically put in its place by the registrar. The usual one was no.email@email.com or something similar.
The problem with this placeholder email is that domain renewals as well as username and password retrievals are sent to the primary account email address and if this is not a valid email they will never be received.
So, my advice for any domain name owner is to:
- Login to your registrar often and verify (at a minimum once per year) that your Primary, Admin, and Technical Contact email information is updated and correct.
Lastly, if you aren't comfortable monitoring/maintaining your own domain names consider having a company like mine take over the management of your domains to ensure the domain name remains valid into the future. Until next time, keep searching for that next domain name! Ron
