Web Site and Orphan Domain Salvage

Web Site Salvage

Employees move on, small web design businesses vanish, hosting companies get taken over... there are many ways and reasons for which a web site can become lost, broken or inaccessible.

The most common situation is for a web site administrator to move on and leave no clues for passwords or admin email addresses, you then have the pleasure of a 24/7 help line, which provides non-stop piped muzac at premium-rate during the day, and at night is answered by someone in another part of the World who is unable to provide help.

Very often hosting is set up and purchased ad hoc, years later nobody knows who provides what.

They can all be hosted by different people in different places.

I have a lot of experienced with many ISPs and have helped clients retrieve their web sites, and their data too.

Domain Consolidation

Domain registrars adopt many different policies when it comes to transferring domains, mostly only semi-compatible with each other. Some even require real pieces of paper to change hands... for a domain!

It is quite common for a company to purchase assorted domains willy-nilly from different registrars, IT companies and private individuals. This is fine until something technical needs attending too and the administrative contact cannot be found. Corporate Communications can gather your disparate domains and put them with one registrar, we can look after them for you or you can have your own account and then look after them yourself.

The important thing here (and this applies to anyone) when you purchase a domain is, make sure that the real owner (you, or your company), is listed as the registrant and that the technical contact is you, or whoever deals with your IT or tech support. Some registrars make themselves the technical contact, this is wrong, it needs to be your technical contact, i.e. someone that is contactable by you.

Orphaned Domains

When registrant and technical contact details associated with a domain become out of date, or corrupted, it can be really difficult to regain control, despite the registrar continuing to take your money and renew it for your each year or two. This isn't born out of deceit, it is the result of mostly automated systems that are largely unregulated and incompatible with each other, and that are serviced by very few real people.

I have accounts with registrars both UK and global, and have successfully retrieved many orphaned .uk .eu .org .net and .com domains.