Don’t let the website design companies fool you, because they can hold your domain hostage from you. Your domain should be owned by you and nobody else.
I’ve seen it happen in the past. I’ve seen it happen to me. I’ve seen it happen to friends. That’s enough headache on my end to warrant that you had better take this seriously.
When you have a website design/development/hosting company/agency/corporation design and manage your website, you had better be sure you ask them about how they will go about purchasing your domain name. If they say,
“Oh, we will take care of that. You don’t need to worry.”
Red flags had better be going up. At this point you should ask questions to clarify exactly what they will do or look for a different company. Why? Because they can take your domain name hostage for any reason and at any time.
Handling your domain name really isn’t as big as the website design companies make it out to be. The hardest thing they can do is offer you a link so you can purchase the domain name from a website hosting company, let you pay with your own credit card, and enter any important identifying information so the world knows that this is your domain name.
That’s really about it. Now that you know, don’t let this mistake happen to you and your friends in the future ok? 😉