Did you know a domain name misconfiguration can cause your website and emails to go down?

When someone starts a business they go straight on the internet and buy a domain name. Usually they buy both the general .com version and the regional version such as .com.au in Australia. They purchase the domain for a multitude of reasons but the major one of course, to prevent its purchase by someone else. Once they establish their business overtime they use the domain for their website, to set up emails, and so on. The problems begin here.

The problem occurs when a business owner or their employee misconfigures a domain name that leads to emails, websites, and much more going offline. Over the last year alone I received over 10 requests for help with misconfigured domain names where a small business lost the ability to send and receive emails and for customers to access their website. Even worse, some of the businesses failed to realise their emails or website went down until their customers began to complain.

Cheap Domain, Costly Future Problems

Many small businesses manage their own domain names due to the cheap cost of $18aud to $25aud from domain providers such as GoDaddy, Google Domains, Crazy Domains, and many more. However, most domain companies offer these cheap prices with the hope that businesses subscribe to other services such as websites, emails, security tools, and much more. Make a loss on the cheap gateway product to make a profit on the addons, that sort of style. Also, the real consequence of the cheap prices only rears its ugly head when problems occur.

For example, a local small business approached me to manage their domain names because they ran into problems that cost them $1000’s of dollars in lost sales. This client of ours, a local florist based in Adelaide, received several complaints that her website went down. They asked their previous website developer for help but they failed to fix the problem after two weeks of unanswered help requests.

After about 2 weeks they lost their patience, asked around for people who knew any software experts and found us through word of mouth. We recognised the problem immediately and fixed the website in less than an hour.

They transact a significant amount of products through their ecommerce store, therefore, when the website went down sales immediately stopped. They managed their own domain which cost around $18.99aud per year but the number of lost sales from two weeks of an inaccessible website cost the business owner an astronomical amount more. They now pay us a small fee per year to manage her domain to prevent these types of problems.

Why Pay an Expert To Manage Your Domain

When I manage a domain for my client I provide full support, they send me an email or give me a call and I respond and fix any problems. Better yet almost no problems occur in the first place because nothing changes without my permission. No call centres, no ticket system, no email chains. Just a local Aussie ready to help.

I recommend to any small business owner to find a local software expert or IT support company to help manage their domain name. Unfortunately people label themselves as software experts but really know very little about software or general IT, which is why it pays to find trusted locals. To find a local IT expert like myself near you I recommend to try the following:

• Search for freelancers, boutique software or IT businesses on Google Maps.
• Ask friends and family for any known local Software Engineers or IT experts.
• Search for verified reviews on platforms such as Google Reviews or Trustpilot.
• When contacting a company, ask for their qualifications such as Tafe or University certifications.

Stay very cautious when you search for a company or freelancer because if you select someone bad it is even worse than managing the domain name yourself. Ensure you vet the company or freelancer thoroughly.

Conclusive Thoughts

Although domain names seem cheap and negligible they cause more problems than meets the eye. When misconfigured they cause a small business more hell than imaginable so it definitely pays to find a trusted local IT or software expert that offers domain management services. I find a business usually sees the value of domain management once their emails and websites go down and they lack the skills to bring them back up.