# Who controls your domain, your hosting and your email

Fill this in once and keep it somewhere you can find it. These are three
separate services, they can be provided by three separate companies and they are
changed independently. Confusing them is why, two years later, nobody knows
where anything is contracted or who to call when something breaks.

The comparison that works best is a shop: the **domain** is the address, the
**hosting** is the premises, and the **email** is the letterbox on the door.

## Your service record

### Domain: the address

| Detail | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Domain | |
| Where it is registered (registrar) | |
| **Registrant on the record** | |
| Contact email on the record | |
| Is auto-renewal on? | |
| Renewal date | |
| Who has the panel password | |

### Hosting: the premises

| Detail | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Provider | |
| Whose name the account is in | |
| What is paid, and how often | |
| Are backups included? Where are they kept? | |
| Who has access | |

### Email: the letterbox

| Detail | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Provider | |
| Real mailbox or forwarding? | |
| How many accounts, and which | |
| Who can add and remove them | |

### DNS: what joins the three together

| Detail | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Where the DNS is managed | |
| Who has access | |

Whoever controls the DNS decides where your website goes and where your email
goes. It is the most important of the four accesses and the least examined.

## The three rules with no exceptions

**1. The domain registrant is you.** A registration has several contacts and
only one decides: the registrant. Whoever is named there can transfer it, sell
it or let it lapse. Someone else managing it is perfectly reasonable; someone
else owning it is not.

**2. Auto-renewal on, with a valid card.** An expired domain takes down the
website and the email at the same time, and recovering it after the grace period
can cost considerably more than renewing.

**3. The domain's contact email must not be on that same domain.** If it
expires, the warning arrives at a mailbox that has also stopped working.

## What to ask before signing

- Whose name is on the domain registration? Ask to see the record.
- Whose name is each service account in?
- Who has access to the DNS?
- What is paid, and how often? All three have different prices and cycles.
- If it says "email included": a real mailbox or forwarding? Forwarding passes
  on what arrives, but does not let you reply from that address.
- If I leave one day, what has to happen for me to take it with me?

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*Díaz Oliva · diazoliva.com*