Awarded at Toronto "Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium" Nov. 2005.

Do you REALLY own your website domain?

If you have a domain registered in South Africa, go to this link below (it will open in a separate window)

Type in your domain name - in this case I am using a well known domain name of www.picknpay.co.za

I got this:

0a. lastupdate : 2004-12-30 16:31:54+02 0b. emailsource : dns-admin@mweb.com 0c. emailposted : Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:20:55 +0200 0d. emailsubject : domain registration - picknpay.co.za 0g. historycount : 8 0h. invoiceno : 0 0i. contracttype : NEW 0j. rcsversion : $Revision: 1.105 $ $Date: 2004/07/08 13:12:58 $ 1a. domain : picknpay.co.za 1b. action : U 2a. registrant : Penny Hinde 2b. registrantpostaladdress: P.O BOX 23087,CLAREMONT,7735 2c. registrantstreetaddress: Internet House, Greenacres Office Park 2d. amount : 0.00 2e. paymenttype : A 2f. billingaccount : WNA 2g. billingemail : dns-admin@wna.co.za 2i. invoiceaddress : Private Bag x14, Tyger Valley, 7536 2j. registrantphone : 021 658 1322 2k. registrantfax : 021 658 1322 2l. registrantemail : domainadmin@pnp.co.za 2n. vat : 3a. operationaldate : 2004/12/30 16:31:54 3b. cname : 3c. cnamesub1 : 3d. cnamesub2 : 4a. admin : Penny Hinde 4b. admintitle : Company Information Officer 4c. admincompany : Pick n Pay Retailers Pty LTD 4d. adminpostaladdr : P.O BOX 23087,CLAREMONT,7735 4e. adminphone : 021 658 1322 4f. adminfax : 021 658 1322 4g. adminemail : domainadmin@pnp.co.za 4h. adminnic : 5a. tec : DNS-Administrator 5b. tectitle : Role Account 5c. teccompany : MWEB Business 5d. tecpostaladdr : PO BOX 84631, Greenside, 2034 5e. tecphone : +27 11 340 7200 5f. tecfax : +27 11 782 3202 5g. tecemail : dns-admin@mweb.com 5h. tecnic : 6a. primnsfqdn : ns1.mweb.co.za 6b. primnsip : 196.2.16.3 6e. secns1fqdn : ns2.mweb.co.za 6f. secns1ip : 196.2.46.254 6i. secns2fqdn : 6j. secns2ip : 6m. secns3fqdn : 6n. secns3ip : 6q. secns4fqdn : 6r. secns4ip : 8a. netblock1start : 8b. netblock1end : 8c. netblock2start : 8d. netblock2end : 8e. netblock3start : 8f. netblock3end : 9a. description1 : //www.mweb.net 9b. description2 : on behalf of Penny Hinde 9c. description3 : 9d. description4 : 9e. description5 : 9f. description6 :

The Really, Really Important bits are these - you will see why shortly.

You can see that there are a few primary contacts that appear to look after your domain. First and foremost check to see if you are the domain owner. If not, you are possibly in serious trouble already. Unless you are a CocaCola or such with plenty lawyers and plenty clout in cash reserves you might have a tough time convincing Uniforum (the guys who regulate the .co.za domain name space) that the domain actually belongs to you.

In this case, PicknPay seem to be the registrants of the domain which is a good start. Fields 2l and 4g appear to be email addresses on the domain which means that we might assume that these are e-mails that someone at Pick n Pay might see.

But 5g is a potential problem. This is the Tech e-Mail address and lookee here - it belongs to dns-admin@mweb.co.za...

THIS is a problem. Why is this a problem?

Simply put, updating your domain (as in when you want to change your hosts) involves in South Africa anyway, a voting process. In order to 'move; your website from one host to another, you need to update the DNS details in fields 6a, 6b, 6e and 6f.

Suppose Pick 'n Pay had a fallout with MWeb and they decided to move their domain to a new host, say to one of OUR preferred hosts (!) they would have to update their DNS records as reflected in the form above to reflect the new hosts details.

The process is simple enough. You fill in a form and send it to Uniforum, the regulatory body. In their infinite wisdom, Uniforum put this update request to a vote. But in this election there are only three voters and they are the ones reflected in fields 2l, 4g and 5g!

And in any democratic voting process a single Nay vote will prevent the update form taking place. In effect, at the moment MWeb has the sole ability to prevent Pick 'N Pay from moving their hosting account, if they decided they wanted to be difficult about things.

OK look if you are Pick 'n Pay, it is much less of a problem for you since MWeb will not be likely to pick a fight with Pick 'n Pay. It'd lose. But ordinary you and I might well have a fight on our hands and by the time you eventually persuade Uniforum to intervene on your behalf you might have considerable damage and loss of revenue inflicted on you by your inability to control your OWN domain.

Check our your domain details today! Make sure that these fields are filled in with YOUR e-mail address because this allows YOU to control where you want your domain and what you want done with it. This is the way we think it should be - it is YOUR domain after all and you should not have to be beholden to anyone to ask their permission to change it!

Thankfully .com's are far better managed - YOU are the only one who can control your own .com domain. And typically if you update your DNS details the changes take place within an hour or two across the Internet and not a week or two as is the case with a .co.za domain (note that this is AFTER the domain update is processed at Uniforum - and yes SAIX - this is aimed at YOU - you know who you are and how slow you are!).

Check your domain out now and if you are not happy with what you see, mail us as to what you can do about it.

We are ethical South African search engine optimization practitioners based in Johannesburg, Gauteng. Internet marketing efforts in South Africa are still in their infancy. Search engine marketing and search engine positioning is built around 3 basic concepts - organic search engine optimization, optimizing for PPC (pay per click) campaigns and site functionality. All three areas must work together to succeed.