WHOIS info. What info should one enter?

[Blue Wren]

Hello

Newbie Q.

Adam recommends public WHOIS so potential buyers can find you easily. What are the bare minimum requirements when entering WHOIS information, and what is recommended to write in the WHOIS areas?

If you can assist thank you. If you're laughing at the newbie... enjoy your laugh because it makes me smile that I gave someone that feeling.

Thank you
Blue Wren

[silentg]

Whois info should be your name and your address. Use a separate email for the domains and a different email for account management.
I use domains@myname.com for all the domains and a different email for the accounts. GoDaddy, Enom and Moniker lets you use two different emails. You should not share the account email with anyone. Share only the domains@ for domain purchases or sales.

[Blue Wren]

Whois info should be your name and your address. Use a separate email for the domains and a different email for account management.
I use domains@myname.com for all the domains and a different email for the accounts. GoDaddy, Enom and Moniker lets you use two different emails. You should not share the account email with anyone. Share only the domains@ for domain purchases or sales.

Thank you silentg for your reply.

[cbk]

No one is laughing. Create two separate accounts at the registrar. One for domain names you want to sell and post around. And the other for domain names you want to keep and develop or existing websites.

The most important whois info you want for selling domain names is an accurate email. You are not going to lose a sale with inaccurate personal info on whois.

When creating the account at the registrar enter a name for your corporation or company when prompted that puts that name as the registrant and you as the technical and administrative contact for whois. Good thing about that is people searching your domain name are never sure the technical and administrative contact is the registrant, gives you the seller a little more privacy without losing a sale.

[Blue Wren]

No one is laughing. Create two separate accounts at the registrar. One for domain names you want to sell and post around. And the other for domain names you want to keep and develop or existing websites.

The most important whois info you want for selling domain names is an accurate email. You are not going to lose a sale with inaccurate personal info on whois.

When creating the account at the registrar enter a name for your corporation or company when prompted that puts that name as the registrant and you as the technical and administrative contact for whois. Good thing about that is people searching your domain name are never sure the technical and administrative contact is the registrant, gives you the seller a little more privacy without losing a sale.

That is fantastic help, thank you cbk.

Are any rules regarding what information should be filled out and what can be left blank on a WHOIS?

[cbk]

The information on the whois is supposed to be true and correct. Your name, address, phone number,email all show on whois and cant be left blank. You wont go to jail or have your domain name revoked because an address or phone number accidently overlapped.

[Blue Wren]

The information on the whois is supposed to be true and correct. Your name, address, phone number,email all show on whois and cant be left blank. You wont go to jail or have your domain name revoked because an address or phone number accidently overlapped.

I ask for 2 reasons:
1. To gauge what others have done before me and learn
2. I'm in the process of setting up business structures for domaining purposes.

I would like to hear how others have structured themselves. Maybe a new thread is called for.

[katherine]

If privacy is a concern and you are going to incorporate, list your company as owner of the domains.

[Maxwell]

I personally don't care what information is out there. The only address anybody knows is my CMRA address, which is usually the primary concern of most with respect to giving their address to anyone, including a registrar to display on the whois.

That's for physical location. For communication which does not have any fixed location, namely email and phone, I hide nothing. It's all out there in the open. The emails are pushed to my blackberry, and my phone rings when you dial the number.

If you want to keep things private but not go to the trouble of incorporating, here's how I'd do it...

Give a false name on the whois, such as Wanda Anderson. If anybody asks, Wanda is your wife. She's a control freak and insists that everything is in her name. For whatever wacky reason; we'll say a prenup wasn't worth the money.

This way, when somebody inquires, addressing Wanda, you can just say "This is Wanda's husband, you can talk to me about the domains."

For an email address, I personally prefer the gmail type addresses, since if it's obviously not a big company owning the domains, I consider the domains@example.com bit to be a tad pretentious. Perhaps wandaandjoe@gmail.com or similar.

As for the phone number, you do have to keep in mind that some people might call you to inquire. If you don't want to give out your regular phone number, you may want to look into an inexpensive cell phone, which can be had for as little as $15 per month, which will get you a working number to receive calls. Or even a Skype or Google Voice number. That could be easier.

I'm a privacy freak myself, so I've very strategically mitigated what gets known about me to people.

Hope this helps you out!

[draggar]

Whois info should be your name and your address. Use a separate email for the domains and a different email for account management.
I use domains@myname.com for all the domains and a different email for the accounts. GoDaddy, Enom and Moniker lets you use two different emails. You should not share the account email with anyone. Share only the domains@ for domain purchases or sales.

This is so true, it is also great for security. If people try to hack your registrar account they'll use the wrong email address.

With GoDaddy - set up your account with your private email address and then when you register names, change the default email address to the one you want public.
I think it is the same with Moniker?

[Entropy]

Whois info should be your name and your address. Use a separate email for the domains and a different email for account management.
I use domains@myname.com for all the domains and a different email for the accounts. GoDaddy, Enom and Moniker lets you use two different emails. You should not share the account email with anyone. Share only the domains@ for domain purchases or sales.

Upon reading this post I did a quick mental check and realised that for one of my registrars I have used the same email for both account and WHOIS data (a potentially fatal oversight, indeed). So thank you very very much, SilentG, for posting this advice here. I'm very glad that I came across it when I did, as are many others I'm sure!

Cheers,
Entropy