Register a domain in your own name now, even while you work under a firm, and point your cards and profiles at it. When you move, the address and its search history move with you.

An address that belongs to the firm

Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, financial advisers and insurance agents are often given a web page by the company they work under. So are many franchisees.

It usually lives at the firm's domain with the person's name added: a page in a folder, a subdomain, or an address the head office registered on their behalf.

It is free, it meets the firm's rules and it appears when clients search for the person's name. For years it seems like the perfect arrangement.

Then the person moves to another brokerage or office, and the address stays where it was.

What stays behind

The second costs the most. For months after a move, a client searching your name can land on a page you no longer control, sometimes redirected to the firm's other agents.

Why it is set up that way

For the firm, it makes sense. Its brand, its compliance rules and its search presence are all in one place, and every agent's page adds to the firm's domain.

For someone new, it is one less thing to arrange in a busy first year. The question of who owns the address does not come up until it matters.

By then the agreement, signed years earlier, often answers it: pages, domains and content created under the firm's systems belong to the firm.

Read what the agreement says

Find the agreement now, while nothing is at stake, and look for what it says about websites, domains, listings, reviews, email and phone numbers.

Franchise agreements often say who keeps the phone number and the online listings at the end of the term, so read those clauses closely.

Then ask the question it may not answer: if you leave, will the firm redirect your old page to your new address for a while, or at least show a notice saying where you went?

Get the answer in writing. A promise from a manager who has since moved on is worth very little at the moment it is needed.

Register your own name now

Register a domain in your own name, or your own company's, with your own contact details and paid on your own card. Do not let the firm or a web company register it for you.

Your name, or your name with your profession, is usually the best choice. If your name is common and already taken, add your town or your trade rather than a string of hyphens nobody will remember.

A .ca needs a Canadian presence, and when the registrant is an individual, their contact details are kept out of public lookups.

Set it to renew automatically, and keep the login somewhere you will still have it in ten years.

A worked example

A basement suite renovator spent five years as the local franchisee of a national renovation brand, building legal suites in houses across two suburbs.

His website was the brand's page for his area, at an address on the brand's domain. It carried his project photos, two dozen testimonials and a phone number the head office supplied.

When he chose not to renew and started trading under his own company name, the page passed to the next franchisee. For months it still carried his photos of finished suites, under the newcomer's name.

The phone number stayed with the brand, and so did the search results for basement suites in his area. His new site started with nothing pointing to it.

What would have helped was small: a domain in his own company's name, registered in his first year, and his own copies of every photo and testimonial.

He now has both, and his number is a mobile in his own name, printed on everything.

Using it while you are still there

Owning the domain does not mean leaving. While you stay, it can simply redirect to your page on the firm's site, so your cards carry an address that will always be yours.

Use a plain redirect rather than masked forwarding, which hides the real page inside a frame and causes problems of its own.

Where the firm allows it, a small site of your own can follow its advertising rules, with the firm's name and logo where required. Some firms also require client email to go through their own system for record keeping.

Keep your own copies

Keep copies of your photos, your biography and any testimonials you have permission to reuse, outside the firm's systems. A folder on your own computer, updated every few months, is enough.

Client records are different. Who may keep them depends on your agreement and on privacy law, so ask before taking anything.

Reviews left on profiles in your own name, rather than the firm's, travel with you automatically.

If you have already moved

Ask the old firm to redirect your page to your new address, or to replace it with a notice. Some will, if asked politely and soon.

Update every profile and directory you control, contact the sites that link to your old page, and expect the new address to take some months to be found for your name.

Then put the new address on everything you hand out, starting with the cards and the email signature.

The counter-case

Some firms forbid personal websites altogether, and some teams share one brand by design. Someone new to the business may not yet know whether they will stay in it.

Even then, the domain itself is cheap. Registering it and leaving it parked, or pointed at your firm page, keeps the option open.

Whatever the arrangement, the address on your cards should be one you will still control after you move.

Before the next box of cards

  1. Find your agreement and read the website clauses.
  2. Ask about redirects if you ever leave.
  3. Register your name as a domain.
  4. Name yourself as the registrant.
  5. Point it at your current page.
  6. Print that address on new cards.
  7. Keep copies of photos and testimonials.

Step four is the detail that decides everything. Whoever is named as registrant controls the domain, so one registered by the firm or a web company in its own name is theirs, whatever was intended at the time.

Making sure the domain is registered to the right legal name is covered in the website after the business incorporates.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to my page if I change firms?

It usually stays with the firm, along with its search history, links and testimonials. Clients searching your name may land on a page you no longer control.

Can I own a domain while working for a firm?

Usually, yes. Register it in your own name and point it at your firm page, or build a small site that follows the firm's advertising rules.

Whose name should be on the registration?

Yours, or your own company's, with your contact details and payment. A domain registered by the firm or a web company under its name belongs to them.

What should I ask my firm now?

What your agreement says about websites, domains, reviews, email and phone numbers, and whether they will redirect your old page or show a notice if you leave.

Should I use masked forwarding to my firm page?

No. A plain redirect is better. Masked forwarding hides the real page inside a frame, which causes problems for search engines, bookmarks and phones.

I have already moved. What now?

Ask the old firm to redirect your page or post a notice, update every profile you control, and contact sites linking to the old page.

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.

Your website on your firm's domain?

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