Don't Panic: What to do if your provider stops offering domains, hosting or DNS Services

After a few Irish hosts and DNS providers decided to cancel service, tons of customers have had to scramble to move their DNS hosting to other services. For example, recently, a large ISP announced suddenly that they would stop offering their DNS service. If you didn’t get the notice or didn’t have time to change your DNS settings, your web services would go down.

This brings up an interesting point that we wanted to write about.

What happens if you’re losing your DNS host, your web host, or other domain providers?

We’ll talk about each scenario and how we can help with them all. Domains and managing DNS is at the core of our service offerings.

First, a quick explanation of terminology before we go into more detail about each. DNS hosting is usually included when you register a domain name – it can also be called domain hosting. This allows you to point your domain at the server or web service you need to use it with. Web hosting or web services, are your website, your email, etc. any service that you would use online. Most of the time, domains/DNS and web hosting work together, but they don’t necessarily have to be together in the same place.

DNS / Domain Hosting Services Ending

So, your DNS services or domain hosting services are stopping?

Providers can end service for lots of reasons, but in the example of a DNS provider, more than likely the cost of running it is too much compared to the benefit it used to provide the organisation. DNS is the plumbing of the internet, and if a DNS service goes down, it will take all the domains and servers associated with it. Most people host their DNS records with the place they registered their domain name. Some people, for whatever reason, may need to use a third-party DNS provider (domains registered elsewhere, pointed at a separate DNS provider). It’s important not to forget that you’ve done this and make sure that your services don’t go down unexpectedly.

Don’t Panic

First, don’t panic. If you wake up one day and find your web services down due to DNS changes. All you need to do it update your DNS settings on the relevant domains, and often within minutes, you should be back up and running (sometimes it can take longer depending on DNS time to live (TTL) settings). This is easy enough if you only have one or two domains. This becomes more complicated if you have dozens of domains with associated services and hundreds of different types of DNS records. That’s where someone like Blacknight can help.

Consolidating and Moving Domains to an Accredited Registrar

Sometimes domains are registered quickly and in disparate places. This can be a nightmare for managing an entire portfolio. Again, if you have one domain, this doesn’t matter. But if you’ve got 10 or 20 or 30, it’s important that they all be registered in the same place so you can quickly and easily manage their DNS and hosting settings. So, move them to us. As an ICANN accredited registrar, we can handle all aspects of the domain lifecycle. We can also create flexible billing for different corporate accounts, just talk to our sales team. If you have to change DNS providers, you might as well transfer all your domains to a single registrar (like us!). Better to have everything under one roof.

ISP Refugees Welcome

We’re getting reports of companies that had hundreds of domains and DNS records with various Irish ISPs from the ‘early’ days of the internet. Many set the records and forgot about them. Now, that service is ending, and it’s time to think about them again. You need to consolidate your domains and your DNS settings in one place. Of course, we can help you with that. Things have changed quite a bit since these early days. One of the key features we offer is an actual user interface where you can manage your DNS settings without having to contact anyone and wait for changes (many of the legacy ISPs didn’t even have this!).

Expand Your Services

Once you move to more modern DNS providers, you get all kinds of new features and opportunities that you didn’t have before. Blacknight’s DNS services are based on rock-solid compliant DNS infrastructure with our years of experience managing it. Our nameservers are fast and powerful, managing hundreds of thousands of domains. Once you consolidate your domains in one place (and transferring is easy – and we can facilitate bulk transfers), you have the opportunity to use new products. For example, we can now provide you with Registry Lock on select domains, which allows you to ensure the absolute security of your important business assets. We can also help you setup DPML by Donuts Inc., which allows you to protect your brand trademarks across the entire Donuts Domain portfolio.

Web Hosting Services Ending

So, your Web Host is closing?

Hopefully, your web host has given you plenty of warning that they’re discontinuing service. If they have not, hopefully, you have recent backups (always store web hosting backups ‘off-site’ for both your files AND your databases!). Hosts close down all the time, and thankfully computer data is the most portable thing humans have ever created. It can be magically moved anywhere in practically an instant.

Don’t Panic

If you have an end date, then get new hosting as soon as possible. Obviously, this is something we can help you with. We have a wide array of hosting options available to suit the needs of any size business, from a single website to a server hosting hundreds. We can do it all, and help you with migration.

Migration

Our Irish support team can help you get your website or websites migrated, and make sure they work and that nothing is broken. We can also get you up and running with new email, apps, and any other web-based services your business may need. You can, of course, do your own migration once we set up the new hardware. It’s entirely up to you. But if you’d rather not have to mess with moving files, databases, DNS settings, etc., we can do it all for you.

Expand Your Web Services

If you have to move web hosts, you might as well take the opportunity to think about what kind of web hosting you’ll need. If you have multiple websites that get lots of traffic, then it might be time to consider getting a Virtual or Cloud Server. If you run hundreds of websites or host your own clients, then consider getting a dedicated server that you have complete control over.

Then It’s All in One Place

If you register/host your domains with us and also host your web services with us, then it’s all in one place. This adds a ton of efficiency. Your services will work faster as they’re all under one’ roof.’ It will also be easy to manage as all your DNS settings are in the same place where your web services are hosted. Instead of panicking about this loss of service, consider this an opportunity to level-up your web operations. You will have peace of mind, knowing that we’re not going anywhere.