Do it before you speak to any developer: create a registrar account with your own email, buy the name, turn on auto-renew, and put the expiry date in your calendar. Ten minutes, about ₹700–1,200 a year, and it removes the largest single risk in the entire website purchase.
Why this is worth doing first
Because every other protection is smaller than this one.
A vendor who disappears after taking an advance costs you money. A vendor who disappears holding your domain costs you your business name, your email, and every card, signboard, listing and link pointing at you. Those are different orders of loss, and only one of them is prevented in ten minutes.
That names have real value isn’t theoretical here. When the Reliance–Disney merger was announced, a Delhi developer had already registered JioHotstar.com and publicly asked the company to fund his education in exchange for it. That’s squatting rather than client work, but it makes the point plainly.
The ten minutes, step by step
- Choose a registrar. Any established one works — GoDaddy, BigRock, Namecheap, Hostinger. This decision matters less than the next four.
- Create the account with your own email address. Not a staff member’s, not a developer’s, not one you might lose access to. Preferably an address you’ll still read in five years.
- Search for your name and buy it. Take the
.comand the.inif both are available and the name matters to you — a second extension costs little and prevents a competitor taking the obvious variant. - Turn on auto-renew and confirm the saved card is current. An expired card is a common cause of unintended lapse.
- Put the expiry date in your calendar, with a reminder 30 days ahead. Do the same later for hosting, whose date is separate.
That’s the whole thing. You now own your business name online, permanently, as long as the renewal is paid.
What you then give the developer
Access, not ownership. This is the part people don’t know is possible.
Registrars let you share DNS access or add a user without handing over the account. Your developer needs to point the domain at hosting — they don’t need to be able to transfer it or let it lapse.
Say it in one line:
The domain is already registered in my account. I’ll give you the DNS access you need to point it at hosting.
Any competent vendor is fine with this. Resistance is informative.
Choosing the name, briefly
Since you’re doing this before hiring anyone:
- Check availability before printing anything — cards, signage, packaging, vehicle branding.
- Prefer short and speakable over clever. You’ll read it aloud on the phone constantly.
- Avoid names a well-known brand could object to. That dispute is not one you win.
- Take
.comand.inif the name is central to your business. - Register the same day you decide. Names get taken, occasionally by people watching new company registrations.
What this prevents, specifically
Four outcomes, all documented elsewhere on this site:
Being unable to move. Any change of developer needs the current one’s cooperation when they hold the domain.
Missing renewal notices. They go to the account email. A missed domain renewal takes down your website and business email together, and recovery gets expensive fast — grace period at normal cost, then a costlier redemption window, then release to anyone.
Being leveraged in a dispute. A payment disagreement becomes a hostage situation when the other party controls whether your site exists.
Losing the name entirely. If the account lapses and the name is released, someone else can register it. Recovering a name you have no trademark on is difficult and often expensive.
If you already have a website and don’t hold the domain
Recover it now, while the relationship is good:
- Run a WHOIS lookup on your domain. Read the registrant email and the expiry date.
- Search your own inbox for a registrar welcome email. The account may already be yours and just need a password reset via your own address.
- If it’s genuinely theirs, request the transfer framed as routine records-keeping — not as a departure. Far easier now than during a dispute.
- If that fails, contact the registrar directly. They have ownership-claim processes and will weigh evidence: GST registration, invoices, payment records, trademark.
One detail worth knowing: domains recently registered or transferred are typically locked against transfer for around sixty days. That’s standard and not obstruction.
What to do this week
- Register your domain in your own account today, with your own email.
- Turn on auto-renew and verify the saved card.
- Put the expiry date in your calendar with a 30-day reminder.
- Register the
.inor.comvariant if the name matters. - Give any developer DNS access rather than the account.
If you want it done the certain way
We’d tell you to register the domain yourself before hiring anyone — us included, and we’ll walk you through it in five minutes if you’d like. Where we set it up, it goes in your name, your account, your email, with auto-renew on and both expiry dates handed to you in writing. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Whose name is your domain registered in?
- Who really owns a domain?
- How businesses lose their own domain name
- Your website vanished over an unpaid renewal
FAQ
How do I register a domain in my own name?
Create an account at any established registrar using your own email, buy the name, turn on auto-renew with a current card, and put the expiry date in your calendar. About ten minutes and ₹700–1,200 a year.
Should I register the domain before hiring a web developer?
Yes. It removes the largest risk in the purchase, and you can give the developer DNS access without handing over the account — registrars support that directly.
What if my developer already holds my domain?
Run a WHOIS lookup, check your inbox for a registrar welcome email in case the account is already yours, then request a transfer as routine records-keeping. If that fails, registrars have ownership-claim processes that weigh invoices and business registration.
