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Internet Marketing Oops!

You've spent the last year building your Internet business. Most likely, you registered your domain name as the first step in this process, just after developing the idea. You spent three months waiting for your web developer while a custom website was built to your specifications.

Then, just when you thought the online business venture was going to die on the vine, your web guru called to ask "would you like to see your site?"

Quickly you type in the url of your domain, and there, for all the Internet world to see is your website. The online catalog is complete, your merchant account is set up - has been for two months, because you've been paying the monthly fees anticipating the date of your site launch. Your email at your domain is configured and your business online is underway!

You do, or contract, all the search engine optimization to drive traffic. You send out emails to everyone on your mailing list to let them know that your ecommerce venture is open for business. And slowly at first, but growing steadily, you begin to make online sales. The twenty-third one is nearly as exciting as the first one. Soon, you do more in one day than you've done every day previously. Business is good!

On the morning of your one year anniversary since buying your domain name, you head to your office and turn on the computer with thoughts of checking your email. Your email program throws an error. Something about "could not connect to server." Well, you think, the hosting company must be having a network issue this morning. You decide that they are probably already aware of it and rather than bothering them with another phone call on top of the ones they are most likely already getting, you decide to wait a half an hour and try again.

Thirty minutes later, you still get the same error. Now you wonder if they really are aware of the problem. You decide to wait ten minutes and try again. If it doesn't work then, that's when you'll call.

Nine minutes go by. The error is still showing up. One more try, and yes that damn "cannot connect to server" error pops up again. You pick up the phone and call your hosting company. The clock on the wall clicks over to 9:15 a.m.

Once you get a tech on the phone, you explain to them that your email is not working and you really need it to be up and running so you can follow up on the orders that came in from your online store last night. You spend the next ten to fifteen minutes double checking settings on your email program and still nothing works.

Sooner or later, and maybe not the first tech you talk to, someone thinks to check on the domain name. The response is not welcome news. Your domain name registration expired at midnight.

Although you are generally protected for a short period of time after the registration expires on your website, your email, and your online business will not work until your domain registration is made current. If it has been down for several hours, as is usually the case in these types of situations, it may be several more hours, possibly as much as a day for the website to be visible and functioning again.

In the meantime, the customers that you have worked so hard to gain and keep may take their purchase dollars elsewhere assuming that you may have gone out of business. Don't let this happen to you. When was the last time you checked on the status of your domain name registration?

Learn more about this author, Michael Raymond.
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