Ask the account holder to add a second person as an authorised contact with their own login, set a support PIN, and leave a one-page sheet with the host, account number, registrar and who may call.

A Monday with the owner away

The website shows an error on a Monday morning in July, and the owner is on holiday somewhere without a signal. The office manager finds the host's number and calls.

The support agent is polite and immovable. Before discussing the account, he needs the support PIN or the last four digits of the card on file, and she has neither.

Her name is not on the account, so the host will not say what is wrong, restore anything or take instructions. The site stays down until the owner can be reached.

Why the host says no

A hosting account controls a business's website, often its email, and sometimes its domain. Anyone who can talk support into handing over access can take all three.

Strangers do try, by calling or emailing with a plausible story and an urgent tone. The host's refusal to deal with anyone not named on the account is what stops them.

So the rule that frustrates the office manager is the same rule that protects the business. The fix is to be named before it matters.

How hosts check a caller

Hosts differ, but most check every call or email against the account in one or more of these ways:

Every one of these stays with the account holder unless it has been deliberately shared. The person left in charge usually has none of them.

Adding authorised contacts

Many hosts let the account holder add other people, each with their own login and a level of access, such as billing only or technical only. Some call them contacts, others users.

Add them while the owner is around to confirm who they are: a second person in the office, and the web developer if one looks after the site.

Where a host has no such feature, ask support what it will accept from a second person, and keep the answer in writing.

The registrar is a separate account

The domain may be registered somewhere other than the host. That account has its own login, its own contacts and its own checks, and its renewal notices go to whoever set it up.

Name a second contact there too, and note when the domain renews. If the domain lapses, the website and the email stop with it.

If the host also holds the domain, ask whether the same contacts cover both.

A worked example

A small actuarial firm, two actuaries and an office manager, advises employers on pension and benefit plans from an office near downtown, with a modest website listing its services.

Its senior partner set up the hosting years ago with her own card and her own email address. In July, while she was on a canoe trip, the home page started showing a database error.

The host could restore the previous night's backup in minutes, for someone on the account. The office manager was not, and the site stayed down until the partner called from a marina two days later.

Back in the office, the partner added the office manager as a contact with technical and billing access, and the firm's web developer with technical access. A support PIN now sits in the office safe.

The host's notices now go to a shared office address. The next time something breaks during a holiday, the person who calls is someone the host can act for.

What to write down for the person in charge

Prepare one page for whoever is left in charge. It names the host, the support number and the account number, and says who is authorised to call.

It says where the support PIN is kept, which company holds the domain and when it renews, and where the email is hosted if that is somewhere else.

And it gives the web developer's number, with a note of what to check first: whether email still works, and whether the problem is one page or the whole account.

Keeping that page safe

The page is valuable to anyone trying to take over the account, so keep it on paper in a locked drawer or in a password manager, not in an email or a shared document.

Review it whenever someone joins or leaves, and remove people who no longer need access, at the host and at the registrar alike.

The card on file

One quiet cause of a summer outage is an expired card. The renewal fails, the warnings go to the account holder's inbox, and the host suspends the account after its grace period.

Keep the card current, and send billing notices to an address that someone reads while the owner is away.

An authorised billing contact can update the card or pay an overdue invoice, which is often all a suspended account needs.

The counter-case

A one-person business may feel there is nobody else to authorise. If the owner is the only one who could act anyway, a contact list seems pointless.

But that owner still takes holidays and still has weeks out of reach, and a developer can often fix in an hour what would otherwise wait. Naming one trusted technical contact costs nothing.

A business whose developer holds the hosting account in the developer's own name has the opposite gap: make sure the business itself is named on the account too.

Before the next holiday

  1. Find out who is named on the hosting account.
  2. Add a second contact with their own login.
  3. Set a support PIN and store it securely.
  4. Name a second contact at the domain registrar.
  5. Send notices to a shared office address.
  6. Check the card on file before it expires.
  7. Write the one-page sheet for whoever is in charge.

Step two is the one that must happen while the owner is still at the desk. Hosts add contacts only on the account holder's say-so, and that cannot be arranged from a canoe.

Donate buttons quietly pointing to another account shows why the list of people who can edit the website deserves the same care as the list of people who can call the host.

Frequently asked questions

Why will our host not talk to our office manager?

Hosts discuss an account only with people named on it, to stop strangers talking their way into control of a business's website, its email and sometimes its domain.

How do hosts check who is calling?

Usually with a support PIN, the last digits of the card on file, security questions, the account's email address, or a request sent from inside the control panel.

What is an authorised contact?

A person the account holder has added to the hosting account, with their own login and a set level of access, such as billing or technical.

Can we add a contact while the owner is away?

Usually not. Hosts add contacts only on the account holder's instruction, which is why it has to be arranged before a holiday, not during an outage.

What should the person in charge have written down?

The host, the support number and account number, who is authorised, where the PIN is kept, the registrar and renewal date, and the web developer's number.

Where should that information be kept?

On paper in a locked drawer or in a password manager, not in an email or a shared document, and reviewed whenever someone joins or leaves.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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