Dallas Cowboys Forget Domain Name Renewal
ByThe Dallas Cowboys are having a hard season. Not only has the team begun with a dismal record of 1 win versus 7 losses, they have had to dismiss their head coach Wade Phillips which will no doubt disrupt any sense of continuity the team had.
To add insult to injury, the team organization apparently ‘forgot’ to renew the Cowboys domain name for the team’s official site: www.dallascowboys.com. According to the publicly available whois records, the domain name was originally registered on November 3, 1995 to the registrant, ‘Dallas Cowboys Football Club, Ltd’. According to the Dallas Morning News, the specific email address administrative contact was for Jerry Jones Jr., son of owner Jerry Jones and executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer for the team.
You can see the holding page that was up until Tuesday November 9, 2010 below:
After the calamity, the domain was showing as being registered through November 2, 2020. Maybe they should set up a reminder on the team calendar or something…
Here is some advice from companies that understand renewing domains.
UK domain name registrar and dedicated server provider 34SP.com has tens of thousands of domains under management after a decade of domain registrations. The technical staff with the firm offered up an important piece of advice for securing your domain: make sure your email contacts for the accounts are up to date. Domains are tied to email addresses of the registrants, and notifications of expiration and renewal are sent through these email addesses as well. If your email connected with the domain registration isn’t reachable – then you will have problems renewing.
Lou Honick is CEO at HostMerchantServices and has helped thousands of domain registrants. Mr. Honick states, ”Your domain name is the most important piece of online property you own. Business owners should not take chances and not rely on remembering to renew yearly. Even if your registrar offers auto-renewal, there are many things that can go wrong, like credit card expiration, or a new credit card number from a lost or stolen card. You can and should renew your domain for the maximum time possible. It is a small investment for peace of mind and the prevention of embarrassing mishaps.”