You've had a web page promoting yourself as an actor, or voice over for a while now. You’ve been actively driving traffic to your web site with consistent and repeated postcard promotions. Wonderful!
Then one day you go to pull up your site and low and behold—it's gone. YIKES! What happened?
Well, this is sadly a rather common scenario, especially with those who aren’t all that web-savvy. The fact is you may have inadvertently let your domain name (your web address) expire. Your web hosting and your web address are two separate things, believe it or not, and while your hosting may still be up to date, your domain name may have expired if it wasn’t set up at the same time. In other words, your web site still exists, however no one will be able to access it (including YOU) as the ‘road’ to it—your domain name—has vanished with the one-year expiration you purchased a year ago.
Here's the rub: there is a brief grace period of a minimum of 15 days and, in some instances, what can be as long as one full year before an expired domain name will be openly available for registration again. (Ouch. That would render all your promo inaccurate, as you're promoting your WEB ADDRESS that leads to your demo tracks, right?)
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What occurs is the Central Registry mandates a fee of approximately $100 in order to renew any expired domain names (even if they had once belonged to you—it doesn’t matter). And all this provided you contact them BEFORE the web address becomes openly available (again, it’s elusive as when that could actually happen, but it’s often during a two – three month grace period) and provided a “cyber-squatter” doesn’t get it first.
According to redalkemi.com, "Cybersquatting is a malpractice done by (CYBER CROOKS) who use (your) domain name with a bad intent to capitalize on the name and market value." The cybersquatter then offers the website for sale back to you, the original website owner, at an excessively inflated price, counting on the fact you've established this domain name in the market place and placed it on all your promotional materials.
The problem is: if the original owner (namely you) of the domain name doesn't re-register the name with an internet registrar prior to the domain's expiration date, then the domain name can be purchased by anybody after it expires. At this point, the registration is considered lapsed. These cybersquatters typically use automated software tools (called 'bots') to register the lapsed name the instant they lapse, making it impossible for you to renew your domain without first paying these crooks up to $500 or more to get it back.
There's only one reason these Cyber Crooks want your domain name: MONEY! You see, like you, they only paid $6 – $10 (or less) for the domain name from a site like GoDaddy.com, for instance. But they are counting on the fact that your business depends on this web address and that your clients know you by this route, and you'll be desperate to get it back.
In the meantime, all of your promotional momentum will have been brought to a screeching halt until you sort this all out. It can hold you up for months at a time, and all while you're trying to develop momentum—that's a real issue. Just ask your agent! Your voice over web site has all but replaced demo CDs. As far as any and all potential clients are concerned, if you're not online, you don't exist.
Should you neglect your expired web address for, say, six months or more, there is a good chance that you’ll need to register an entirely new domain name, as by that time it may well be registered to another party that's, frankly, holding it hostage. At that point, all you can do is check and hope for the best if you're intent on getting your original domain name back.
At SOUND ADVICE, we recommend at this point, you move on and move forward with a new web address. However, that would mean you'd need to re-do your graphics and promotional materials with this entirely new domain name. For instance, if your web address had been joetalent.com up till now, we suggest you register joetalentvo.com or joetalentvox.com, for example.
Going forward, we can't impress upon you enough how important it is to pay attention to web and domain renewal emails and RENEW your web address well before they expire to allow you the greatest opportunity to avoid this drama entirely. It's a disaster that can and should easily be avoided.
Beyond that, our best parting advice: when and wherever possible, first have your web site designed, then secure your web address and hosting AT THE SAME TIME, rather than months apart. And whenever possible, do so for a good ten years at a time to avoid any interruption of service or promotion. If that’s not possible, be sure to maintain your site(s) with consistency. It'll save you a great deal of money, time and effort if you follow this advice.
Besides, it's likely you are only just getting established in this field during the first two – three years of your career, and frankly, you want to avoid interruption of promotion, especially of your greatest professional tools: your voice over demos and/or headshots and on-camera reels on your web site(s).
