Over the past year, I've worked with several small businesses who have lost their domain names because their name was registered by their web developer in his own name!

Once a business owner has decided to hire an outside website builder, he often just wants that builder to "take care of everything." And that includes registering the domain name.

Your domain name is really something you should take care of personally or in-house.

It's just too important.

If you have a falling out with your web developer or he becomes incapacitated for some reason, you have a problem.

At the very least, if you do have your web developer do the registering, make sure it's in your name along with your contact information.

One client's domain name was allowed to expire by her web developer and when she went to re-purchase it, a domain name broker had snatched it up. Now if she wants her domain name to be the same as her store name, she'll have to pay the domain broker for her own name!

In another situation, a store owner had a disgruntled web developer put distasteful material up on her website.

You can imagine the potential nightmares.

In addition, you should also be the one responsible for ensuring your domain name registration doesn't expire. You want to personally get the notices that fees are due.