Anatomy of a Domain Name Record

When you look up the details of a domain name (sometimes called a WHOIS query) the format of the results of your query will depend upon the script being used to query the Internic, but the results should contain several key pieces of information.

  • Registrant - This is the company or organization of record for the domain name.  Make certain that your company is listed as the registrant on your record!  If you aren't the registrant, then your domain name is not really yours and you will not be able to make any changes to it.
  • Domain Name - This is the domain name that you looked up.
  • Administrative Contact - This should be someone (preferable the most stable) member of your organization.  This person has the ability to fix typos and reassign the Technical and Billing Contacts.  Make certain that a current member of your organization is the Administrative Contact.  ALSO make certain that the email address of the Administrative Contact is valid and STAYS VALID.  Unless you signed up for the Guardian Plan (and if you don't know what it is, you probably didn't) that email address is your key to the domain name.  Make absolutely certain that before losing access to that email address that you fill out a Contact Information Modification Form.  It can be a real nuisance if you want to make a change and are no longer able to send the necessary email.
  • Technical Contact - This is probably an employee of your Internet Service Provider, but it could be a member of your company or organization if you manage your own servers.
  • Billing Contact - You guessed it, this is the person who gets the bills for keeping the record active.  The e-mail address on this one can be important if you signed up for e-mail-based invoicing.  If the address is wrong, you won't get your bill and your domain name will go bye-bye.
  • DNS Servers (there should be at least two) - The DNS Servers answer Domain Name Lookup queries to the world when someone types your domain name into a web browser or sends you an email.  These servers are usually managed by the Technical Contact's company, though they don't have to be.  Often Internet Service Providers will outsource DNS hosting to yet another Service Provider.  So if the domain names on the Domain servers don't look familiar, it is probably okay.

Weboniks is happy to provide the following information to you regarding domain names:

Please contact us if you require assistance registering a domain name. Weboniks.com recommends and utilizes Dotster for all of our domain name registration needs.