Your domain name is the memorable name people use to access your website - like http://www.bbc.co.uk/ Usually your domain is also tied in to your email addresses - so who owns it? You do - right? It's your business, your website - you paid someone for it - it's yours! All too frequently this isn't the case.

When you had initial meetings with your web developer, they may have offered a 'turnkey' service - where they took care of everything on your behalf. You are too busy running your business, you might not be 'technical' and glaze over when faced with these endless web acronyms like FTP, DNS, SMTP and POP3.

So, having your web developer do it all for you is a great solution, until something goes wrong.

At one UP, we've seen many scenarios where a company have been adversely affected by the loss of a domain name. Sometimes it can be as simple as the web developer being no longer in business and the domain isn't renewed at the end of the registration period. The renewal information goes to the person who is registered as the owner (often domains are registered for 2 or more years - a lot can happen in that time!) Other times, people end up in dispute - over levels of service - upaid bills and the 'owner' decides to route all web traffic and email for your domain into a big black hole.

However it happens, you lose your website (and any online business). You lose all your email addresses (and even more business as people can't contact you and think you are ignoring them.)

How do I find out?

There are any number of companies offering domains for sale, they all have availability checkers. By putting in your domain name you can find out who owns it. We recommend Exa Networks, a dedicated and award winning Business ISP, click to use their domain availability checker. Your contact information should be listed as the registrant.

So, what can be done?

The two most common domain names are .com, and .co.uk. These are governed by the laws of the issuing countries, not by the laws of the person who might claim they are the rightful owner.

'dotcom' domains are registered with and goverened by the United States. If you have a dispute on your .com domain name, be prepared to have to outlay a considerable amount of money in your attempt to get it back. Network Solutions are the issuing authority for all .com domains so if you have a dispute, you should contact them. Don't be too hopeful unless your name is on their bill though...

In the UK, Nominet are ultimately in charge of issuing all domain names ending in '.uk' like .co.uk, .me.uk etc. Fortunately, Nominet are a very approachable and if you are able to put together a compelling case that the domain is yours, you may get it back, in time. You would have to illustrate that you had been using the domain for your business website, but even so - you may face disruption to your business in the time it would take to resolve a dispute.

Prevention is better than cure.

In this case, it's certainly well worth paying for your peace of mind. If you don't own your domain and are on good terms with your web developers, say you've had an IT expert do some disaster recovery consultancy and they highlighted your domain name as being an issue. Ask to have the domain transfered to yourselves in the first instance, and offer to pay all the fees plus a small consideration for their time, loss of mark up on the domain etc. Any reputable company seeking to maintain a good relationship with you will not have a problem with you doing this.

Far better to resolve this at a time when you are in contact, and on good terms.