At least a dozen times a year we hear about a contractor whose website is down because their domain name has expired. Sometimes it’s as simple as having them renew it, other times, it’s when some slacker design shop they dealt with in the past registered the domain name for them.
Now the site is down and since they aren’t on any of the contact info, there isn’t a thing they can do about it. You want to make sure you or someone in your company is registered as the primary contact with your registrar, that way, if your domain expires, you don’t have to scramble to find your designer’s info.
We’ve heard of instances where the previous designer get’s a hair up his/her ass and refuses to cooperate or disappears entirely! That’s when the trouble really begins, so cover your butts and keep registration in-house!