Sorting out Domain Names
.com or .co.nz or .org.nz
If your intended audience is the world or the United States, then register a .com domain. However, if you want to rank well mainly in New Zealand, choose a local domain, i.e. co.nz or .nz. Generally, .org.nz is for non-profits or community groups within New Zealand. Or you can go with something completely different.
Pitfalls to Avoid
One shortcut small business owners often take is getting the web design company to register your domain names. This may not cause any problems if your relationship with your web designer stays on reasonable terms or your web designer sets up a separate domain account to which you have complete access.
However, several customers have come to me with significant issues with gaining control of their domain names. The web design company claims they own the domain name under a licence. Or a client, when they wanted to move to a new web designer, discovered that the domain name was registered to someone they had no obvious way of contacting.
It can be a time-consuming process to sort out these issues. Your domain may be listed on dozens of directories, you have valuable backlinks and authority, and unless you can gain control, it is all lost or may take hours and hours to fix.
All is fine if your name and email are the legal registrants for a domain name. Email the company holding the domain with that email address, and you will be issued with your UDAI (you-dye), i.e. the legal password for your domain name. With this password, you can move to a new account.
The Best Way
Register your domain names with a separate domain company from your hosting company. Use a personal email account that you plan to keep for years or a Gmail account that you can always access to set up the account.
You can check your domain details at https://dnc.org.nz/.