Buyer's agent, Ernest Berkheimer, hasn't had much luck on the Internet. One ISP after another has changed hands, including his IBM.net e-mail to AT& T. So he felt he needed his own domain and e-mail addresses. Then he found Homes.com. Problem solved - until yesterday, when he received the following e-mail from Homes.com CEO Tom Orsi, reassuring him that although the company is filing bankruptcy, he should not be affected as a customer.

Berkheimer isn't buying. "I'm going to get my domain name transferred," he told Agent News. All he has to do is figure out where.

At least Berkheimer understands what many agents don’t, that to retain control of your Internet marketing you have to be in control of your domain name.

Are you a site or a page?

On the Internet you have two choices, to publish a Web site yourself or through a Web site partner via your own domain name or to buy a page on another company's site and piggy-back on their domain name.

In the first choice, you can buy a template Web site (Homeseekers.com, Best Image Marketing. Com-stock) or an original Web site design (Bill Koelzer, Bob Schwartz, and the Web site service provider may include other services such as hosting your Web site, maintaining your Web site and submitting your site to search engines and directories and other listing services such as HomeAdvisor.com and iOwn.com.

In the second choice, you are paying the Web site company for the use of their traffic, such as Realtor.com. When you buy a Web page from Realtor.com, you are a page in the Realtor.com book. www.yourname.realtor.com. Realtor.com takes care of all the portal relationships, advertising, and listings aggregation that will drive buyers and sellers to your listings and your Web page.

But, if you have purchased a Web site with a personal domain name, you are paying a company to host your domain for you so it can be found by people who are browsing the Internet. Some Web site companies such as Best Image Marketingtake responsibility for funneling leads to you as part of your premium Web site purchase. With other companies such as Realty Hosting you pay less for the Web site and do your own search engine and listings placement, but if you like doing it hands-on, easy tutorials will show you how.

So who has control of your domain?

"A lot of these companies are not in the domain business," says Saul Klein, cofounder of Internet Crusade, "they are in the Web site selling business."

While company policies vary, most will include ownership of your domain name within your Web site package. Prices vary widely for these services. What they do is register the domain when they sell the web site product. "When they go to register, you want to make sure that you own the domain yourself," advises Klein. "The company can do the registering as long as you get listed as the registrant."

Sometimes companies will register the domain without thinking of the implications of who owns the domain, and they will inadvertently use their own company name as the registrant. "This happened to many real estate associations," recalls Klein. "but it causes problems. If the Web master has a dispute with you for any reason, they can hold on to your domain."

There are ways to prove that you own a domain, and you can go to arbitration over the domain. "The bottom line is when you register your domain make sure you are listed as the owner," suggests Klein.

Here's how domain registration typically works:

When a company sells you a Web site they can provide you with a domain name one of three ways:

1. They can go to the domain name registrar of their choice and register it for you, listing you as the registrant
2. They can go to the domain name registrar, register your domain name, and list themselves as the registrant
3. Or, they can provide you with a secondary domain name by attaching your name to their primary domain name.

Your fourth option is to register your domain yourself, says Klein. "That way you are always assured that you own it and that you or your Web host of choice are the ones notified when your domain name comes up for renewal."

What if you aren't sure who owns the domain name?

Shawn Hackett, owner of Realty Hosting, says, "If the customer already has their own domain name pointed to the Homes.com site, they are in good shape, they can point it to us and we'll take care of it as part of their new Web site purchase. If Homes.com has a plan where it is a subdirectory off the site, where the agent's domain name would read something like homes.com/joerealtor, they might lose it if Homes.com goes under."

So, you have three choices. One is to transfer the domain name yourself to a new host, and the other is to get a Web site vendor to do the transfer for you. Third is to register a whole new domain name.

To register a new domain name or to transfer your domain to a new host, go to Internet Crusade, and find the Transfer button it will walk you through the transfer of the domain from one registrar to another. Once your domain is registered, you can get a Web interface with a registry key. The registry key is like a password. You go to Web site that asks for the password and you have complete control over your domain. The only thing you can't change is the registrant's ownership.

Web site vendors offer a wide range of service from do-some-yourself to turn-key service. "Best Image works hard so our clients never have to deal with the messy details of naming their site," says Lawrence Schoeffler, coowner of Best Image Marketing. "We have a full time Customer Service rep whose only responsibility is to register and transfer domains. This rep works with each Best Image client individually, helping them choose the right web site name; registering and procuring rights to the name on behalf of the client; and working with our IT people, and the IT people of other involved organizations, to get DNS set up properly."

"In addition, we assign each client at least one unique IP address," explains Schoeffler. "We don't aggregate client web sites under one or several common IP numbers, thereby obscuring their site by burying it behind host-header domain resolution techniques. That's very convenient and cost-effective for the service provider, but bad for the client's web site, and not honorable in my book."

Part III - How To Pick A Great Web Site will run tomorrow.

Published: March 29, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. For more articles by Blanche, click here.