Blog - Losing Domains

Domain names are important, but a lot of people never really grasp why.

The image shows an example of what happens when you lose a domain. This isn't a great example as the site was just getting about 250 hits a month and then plummeted to 30 hits a month although later showed signs of recovery.

I had a previous client which demonstrated this issue much better where they had about 1200 hits a month and had great search engine rankings and then dropped to similar levels of less than 100 a month.

In both cases, as well as others, the domain that the site was running on was allowed to expire. In the case we are looking at now the client demonstrated a total ignorance of the delicate balance of things at all levels, whilst at the same time still being a nice guy all round. Its ironic. The client had their domain with a third party, not TWS. I don't know why in this instance but often this is for security issues, at a guess. However, over the years his relationship with the third party deteriorated, and he cancelled his broadband and or IT support contract with that third party but failed to take account that the third party hosted his domain. Then, when the domain came round to being renewed, it was allowed to lapse.

When the client found out there were headless chickens running about as you might expect, but the client didn't want to attempt to convince the previous party to go through the pain of transferring the domain or even renew it. His actual words were along the line that the relations were so sour that he didn't want to face it. As such, I purchased the .co.uk counterpart to the .com that had been lost and reconfigured the site accordingly.

However, the simple change from .com to .co.uk was of major significance. In this case the traffic dropped from 270 to 30 hits a month, not to mention lost emails, changing of emails and lost communications via the website.

Essentially, the client, like many other people, simply didn't understand the importance of domains. i can even imagine them defending themselves saying that they do, they do, but its not that important and they don't care.

This defence could be valid.

On consideration of the traffic load, it is an interesting case. 270 hits a month is low in its own right, and I could imagine it to go into the 1000+ level under better arrangements, however, it was limited to the scope it had and it ran at the level it did. That level would be possibly looked at as irrelevant. However, is it? The site virtually lost all its business generation power for several months. I think what I am saying is that any volume of traffic is precious and just because a person might be greedy or complacent about current traffic volumes, there is nothing like loosing it all to sober a person up and bring them to their senses, for rather a condition of continued denial.

In this instance I yesterday caught the .com domain and should be able to repair the damage. The graph also shows some limited recovery after the replacement with the .co.uk domain.

The lesson here, is don't ignore your domains. But also, don't just swap them around on a whim. I have seen that before where people just change their domain name when something else changes, perhaps a re-branding. I see this a lot in the County Industry directory which automatically checks for dead domains. At a guess 30% of the time I follow up a dead domain, the company is still trading but they have changed their domain. The effect is the same.

It also brings a warning about considering who manages your domain. TWS has been trading for over 14 years. Your domains are safe here. Even when clients purchase domains themselves they often buy them on hosts that evolve, merge and get bought out, passwords change, credit cards expire and essentially domain get lost.

In the other more dramatic example, a client, who is now effectively out of business had a fantastic web site that PERFORMED excellently. They were getting about 1200 hits a month and ranked highly for many key terms. However, they had purchased their domain from Iomart in Glasgow. Each year I noticed that they just didn't bother paying the renewal and I had to fight with the admin staff to get them to pay it even though the domain and payment were not to me. It was solely in their own interests to do so.

One year, as im sure you can guess, they simply didn't pay it at all. I contacted them numerous times and every-time got the assurance that they would d renew the domain. However, they never did, and the domain was caught on release by a third party that created a bogus ad focussed page. Their hits went from 1200 to 30 odd. The company went on for about 2-3 years, and I managed to recover the traffic levels to about 4-500, less than half of what it had been. As far as I know know, they are out of business. They certainly don't have a web site.

In this case, there could have been other reasons for what happened. However, regardless of that, and especially in light of the fact that they continued paying for their website for a number of year, the cost of a domain was trivial. And as a fact, loosing the domain lost 1100+ hits and possible business enquiries a month. I can also say that much of that traffic was highly qualified.

The point of this blog is that its important to understand that a domain name is critical to the performance of your website, its a central factor and you cant treat it with indifference.

Many people have awkward domains, lengthy domains or domains with odd extensions such as .ltd.uk. However, no matter what sort of domain you have, you should always carry out a complete due diligence and risk assessment before changing them in any way. TWS carry out these services, but you can easily do them on a scrap of paper. Just ask yourself, how much traffic/business do I get, and how would I be effected if I lost it all? Simple. However, many people don't even know how much traffic they get and so have to guess based on enquiries they think they might have got.

There are tools in Googles Webmaster Central kit that can help migrate domains from one to another, but they are of no hope if you have lost your domain as you have to prove ownership. Modifying htaccess files is also similarly pointless.

Obviously, in conclusion, if you have any considerations about domains, then all you need to do is contact TWS, we can help. we can provide consulting on domains, at a charge, offer due diligence and risk management, provide asset audits for domains and advise of clean domain migrations and managed damage limitation (you cant prevent the impact of a domain change in Google rankings, but you can prepare for it and observe it). We can also offer domain recapture services to hopefully catch an expired domain as it comes back into the market.