Several years ago, I had a domain that I paid for through the web hosting provider I had at the time. That company went under about four years ago. Today I did a Whois for that old domain of mine, and it’s still showing as registered to me through this defunct web hosting company.
How would I go about getting control of this domain and paying to have it point to a webhost that’s actually functional?
Is the contact info for you on the domain still correct? Initiate a transfer from a new registrar, and you’ll be contacted there.
If it’s dead, then contact your new registrar first, explaining the situation. I had to do something similar a few years ago, and it basically amounted to faxing a form letter with proof of identity.
You’re listed as the “registrant” in Whois, right?
Also: your host may have been reselling the service of a real domain registrar, like enom. You might be able to get in touch with the real registrar and get a username and login for domain management.
The domain contact information is all mine and still correct according to the Whois results.
As for whether my host was reselling a registrar service, how would I go about finding that out? The Whois result lists my old host as the registrar.
Don’t know. On the one domain I still have like that, the actual registrar, not the reseller, is listed in whois.
Shouldn’t matter though. If you initiate a transfer from a new registrar, you’ll get email at your whois contact info to approve it, and it’ll be done in a few days.
If you’re shopping for a registrar, godaddy is the biggest fish. Its website is a shocking horror of relentless self-promotion, but it all works and they’ve never given me gip.
If the domain is locked, and the registrar is defunct, you wouldn’t be able to complete the transaction, though, would you?
also, the email address I have on that old domain registration is a verizon account I no longer have.