Here are keys to keeping your online business identity in check

Lauren Dingus

Speros

Updated: Mar 3, 2016, 7:38 PM

Published: Mar 3, 2016, 7:49 PM

Jeb Bush recently made headlines for allegedly forgetting to renew his domain name. It was discovered that JebBush.com was pointing to Donald Trump’s official campaign website. Since this news originally broke, we have learned that Bush never owned JebBush.com, and Trump never had control of that domain. A company in Australia owns it.

This brings to light the important, and often overlooked, point that maintaining your domain name is crucial for your business. While Bush didn’t actually lose his domain to Trump, well-known businesses have let their domains expire in the past. Big-name brands like Google, Microsoft and the Dallas Cowboys have all let their domains expire, and a mistake like that can be very costly for any business.

What happens when your domain expires?

If you forget to renew your domain, and it expires, you will lose access to it. Domain registrars, such as GoDaddy, will give you a certain period of time to buy it back, sometimes with a penalty attached. Once that grace period has ended, your domain will be auctioned off or awarded to someone who has it back-ordered. If no one has bid on or back-ordered your domain, it becomes available for anyone to register.

You may think that a temporary lapse in your website being available is no big deal, but letting your domain expire can cause a serious hardship for your business. For example:

• You and your employees will have no access to your company email. Meaning any electronic communication between you, your staff and customers is lost.
• You can lose customers to your competitor if they are searching for your services online and can’t access your website.
• Your competitor can purchase your domain and have it redirect to their own website.

An individual or business can purchase your domain and require you to pay a premium price, sometimes thousands of dollars, to get the rights to it back.

Protect your domain name by taking these precautions.

It’s easy to forget about renewing your domain. Logging into your registrar is not something anyone needs to do for the normal day-to-day operations of their business. However, ensuring that your domain doesn’t expire is essential for your brand image. Follow these steps to safeguard your good name:

• Renew your domain name for multiple years in advance. Registrars will often allow you to pay in advance for more than one year, sometimes up to 10 years in advance for a dot-com. It is a good idea for you to renew your domain for as many years in advance as you can. Just be sure to make a note in your calendar of the expiration date, so you can renew again before your domain expires.

• Set your domain registration to auto renew. Pay attention to emails and renewal notices from your domain registrar so you know when you should expect a charge. Also, log in to your account periodically to make sure all of your information is up-to-date, especially your credit-card information and email. All too often, business owners lose their domains because the credit card on file was expired and they never received a renewal notice.

• Make sure you are in control. If you have someone else managing your website, make sure your domain name is registered under your name and that you have all of the login credentials. An issue we run into when building a website, or setting up email for our clients, is finding out what the login information to their domain registrar is, who set up the domain and who has access to this information. A lot of business owners pass off the job of renewing their domain to someone else in their company when they should be the one in control of it.

Remember, your domain name is an extension of your business. It plays a major role in your online reputation with your customers and search engines. If you follow the advice above, you can save yourself the frustration and expense of trying to recover a lost domain name.

Dingus is the web and graphics designer at Speros, responsible for the website development division, including: graphic design and branding, content writing, and consulting on digital marketing strategies. For information, contact her at ldingus@speros.com or 912-354-8900.

Record April boosts Savannah's container trade at port

The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

GardenCityTerminal — The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

Bryan County News

Updated: May 23, 2018, 1:59 AM

Published: May 23, 2018, 2:00 AM

The Georgia Ports Authority's busiest April ever pushed its fiscal year-to-date totals to more than 3.4 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), an increase of 8.8 percent, or 280,000 TEUs, compared to the first 10 months of fiscal 2017.

"We're on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority," said GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch. "We're also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs."

April volumes reached 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units, up 7.1 percent or 23,700 units. As the fastest growing containerport in the nation, the Port of Savannah has achieved a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent a year over the past decade.

"As reported in the recent economic impact study by UGA's Terry College of Business, trade through Georgia's deepwater ports translates into jobs, higher incomes and greater productivity," said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood. "In every region of Georgia, employers rely on the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to help them become more competitive on the global stage."

To strengthen the Port of Savannah's ability to support the state's future economic growth, the GPA Board approved $66 million in terminal upgrades, including $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.

"The authority is committed to building additional capacity ahead of demand to ensure the Port of Savannah remains a trusted link in the supply chain serving Georgia and the Southeast," Lynch said.

The crane purchase will bring the fleet at Garden City Terminal to 156 RTGs. The new cranes will support three new container rows, which the board approved in March. The additional container rows will increase annual capacity at the Port of Savannah by 150,000 TEUs.

The RTGs will work over stacks that are five containers high and six deep, with a truck lane running alongside the stacks. Capable of running on electricity, the cranes will have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons.

The cranes will arrive in two batches of five in the first and second quarters of calendar year 2019.

Also at Monday's meeting, the GPA Board elected its officers, with Jimmy Allgood as chairman, Will McKnight taking the position of vice chairman and Joel Wooten elected as the next secretary/treasurer.

For more information, visit gaports.com, or contact GPA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Robert Morris at (912) 964-3855 or rmorris@gaports.com.

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