We had a big domain name system (DNS) outage last week here in Australia, and it’s affected a lot of international internet traffic. This can have a big impact on your SEO, so it’s something you need to take a look at. The first thing you need to do is to check out the details on your domain name.
If you’re on a Mac, open up Terminal, type in “whois” and add the domain name. This will give you the registration information on your domain. The most important details are the Registrant ID and Contact Name. If you’re on Windows, go to whois.com or one of the other similar services you can find online. Type in the same information to find your DNS details.
It’s crucial that you own your domain name. If yours isn’t the Registrant ID name, then someone else owns your domain. If you try to move to another host, or try to change any type of services, you will experience difficulties. With the outage last week, more than 63,000 sites were affected and you can’t afford for your business to be one of them.
When you check your DNS information, if you find information that doesn’t make any sense, check with your systems administrator. It might depend on how your host deals with your website. If you’re using cPanel to handle your DNS, you’re not going to be able to switch to HTTPS. It’s just not compatible yet. That’s just one of many problems this outage has pointed us to.
If you don’t have all the details on your DNS, you need to get them right away. It’s never a problem until it is, and then it’s usually a big one. Get your DNS entries cleaned up before it affects your bottom line.
This article was originally published on stewartmedia.com.au.
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Jim Stewart is a leading expert in search engine optimisation. His business StewArt Media has worked with clients including Mars, M2 and the City of Melbourne.
