Manage my domain name?

Tip 1: Ensure you are listed as the registrant.

All domain names have a registrant (domain name holder) while they are registered. This is the party that is responsible for the domain name’s registration information being up to date, as well as having control over the domain name. You can find out who the registrant is by searching the domain name. 

Make sure your name (either your company name if you register the domain on behalf of a business, or personal name if it is for you, an individual) is listed as the registrant for the domain. If you register the domain on behalf of a company, make sure the registrant name contains the company name.

If the registrant that is listed is your web developer or your domain name provider (registrar), you will need to contact your registrar to get this transferred to the correct individual / organisation. 

You need to keep your registration details up to date with your registrar. The Domain Name Commission receive numerous requests from entities that claim to be the owner of the domain, but the domain is instead showing a different registrant (such as a previous staff member, or another provider of the part enquiring).

Not being listed as the registrant can cause domain management issues when it comes time to renew your domain name or transfer providers, this may cause your email or website to be down for a number of days.  

For more information, check out our guide on performing a change of registrant

If you have any issues or any questions in regards to a change of registrant, please contact us here.

Tip 2: Keep track of where you registered the domain name.

Regardless of whether you are registering domains for your business or yourself, you should keep a list of the registered domains with important information about each domain. This will make it easier to manage your .nz domain names in the future.

For each domain add at least the name of the registrar where you registered the domain and a link to the control panel. This will allow you to keep track of where the domain is registered when it's time to renew it or make other important changes like the nameservers.

Tip 3: Think about allowing auto renewal for your domain names.

Domain names operate on registration terms. You need to ensure that your registration for your domain name is up to date. 

If your registration term runs out, your domain name goes into the redemption period status. This is where the registrant has 90 days to reinstate the domain name before it is made available to register by the general public again. 

Learn more about reinstating a domain name in pending release.

Some providers allow you to auto-renew your domain name registration. This is something that you might want to enable.

These days it's very hard to guarantee that your registrar will notify you of an expiring domain; email notifications may go to your spam folder, delivered to the wrong team, or pass unnoticed.

Enabling auto renewal ensures that your domain is renewed before it expires and greatly reduces the risk of your registration term ending. Enabling auto-renewal may give you peace of mind and can avoid many of the challenges with manual domain renewal. Reinstating a domain name that is in the redemption period may be expensive and can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. 

During this time, your email address and website will not work, so it is important to make sure you stay on top of this.

If you do not reinstate your domain name, it will become available for anyone to register again, and may prove extremely difficult to get back after this. 

Tip 4: Make sure your contact information is up to date.

Make sure the registrant’s contact information is up to date on the registration record as the Domain Name Commission at times audits domain names based on the contact details on the record.

Failure to pass this verification process could result in your domain name being suspended, which means your website and domain email address will go offline.

It’s also not recommended to use your domain email address as the email address on the registration record; for example, if your domain was anyname.co.nz and you used the email address [email protected].

As reinstating your domain name may prove to be more difficult and time-consuming.