DOMAIN OWNERSHIP
A great many businesses do not control their own domain. It is on a former designer's account, registered to someone who left, or held by an agency the relationship with ended badly.
This is not unusual and it is not a sign of carelessness. It is the natural result of a domain being registered once, years ago, by whoever was doing the website at the time.
This guide covers how to establish who actually holds a domain, how transfers really work, and how to recover one when the account is not yours.
In this guide you will learn:
Registration is a licence, not property. What follows from that.
RDAP, privacy masking, and what you can still learn.
Three roles that get conflated, with different consequences.
Auth codes, the sixty-day rule, and where transfers stall.
Evidence, process, and how long it really takes.
Registrar lock, registry lock, and what each prevents.
Accounts, contacts and cards that survive people leaving.
What a dispute or a sale will ask you for.
Chapter 1
Registration is a licence, not property. What follows from that.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 2
RDAP, privacy masking, and what you can still learn.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 3
Three roles that get conflated, with different consequences.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 4
Auth codes, the sixty-day rule, and where transfers stall.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 5
Evidence, process, and how long it really takes.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 6
Registrar lock, registry lock, and what each prevents.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 7
Accounts, contacts and cards that survive people leaving.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Chapter 8
What a dispute or a sale will ask you for.
This chapter is not written yet. Drop the prose into
guide-bodies/<body>.html and rebuild.
Check yours
Everything in this guide, checked on your domain in about ten seconds. Free, no account, every finding shown in full.