My commercial interests

I have commercial interests in the things this site writes about. This page says exactly what they are, so you can read everything else here with that in front of you rather than behind it.

Who pays me

I am Managing Director of HOSTAFRICA Kenya. I am an employee. HOSTAFRICA sells domains, hosting and related services — the same categories this site writes about.

I got there by selling them my own business. I founded a .ke registrar in 2005, ran it until 2022, and sold it to HOSTAFRICA in December that year. So my view of this industry was formed on the operator's side of it, and I have not stopped being on that side.

What I own

I own Ujiajiri. I don't do implementation work myself — Ujiajiri does, through the freelancers I train in Linux, DNS, hosting and WordPress. If something here tells you your domain is misconfigured and you would rather have it fixed than fix it yourself, that is who I would point you to, and it is a business I profit from.

What I gain if you act on this site

Plainly, so there is nothing to work out:

• If you buy hosting or domains from HOSTAFRICA, I benefit as its Managing Director.
• If you hire Ujiajiri to fix your DNS or build your site, I benefit as its owner.
• Nobody else pays me to appear here. No sponsored posts, no paid placements, no payment for a mention or a link.

The referral link on the domain search

When the domain search finds a name, the link to register it goes to HOSTAFRICA carrying my referral id. I do not take the commission. The id is there so I can see which searches turn into registrations, which tells me whether the tool is useful. You are free to register anywhere — any KeNIC-accredited registrar will do the job.

The obvious problem, named

This site publishes a free tool that finds problems with your domain. I own a company that fixes those problems. That is the mechanic who also owns the diagnostic machine, and you are right to be suspicious of it.

Here is how I have tried to keep it honest. Hold me to all of it:

• The check never recommends a provider. It reports what your records say. It will name who operates your DNS, because that is a fact about your domain. It will not rank providers, score them, suggest you switch, or steer you toward HOSTAFRICA.
• Every finding comes with the fix. In full, free, on the page. If you can paste a DNS record, you never need to hire anybody who reads this site.
• Nothing is gated. No email address is required to see your results.
• Severity is never inflated. A missing optional record is not an emergency and is not reported as one. Grading generously to manufacture urgency is the habit of the checkers people have learned to distrust.

Where the tools send you

When something needs changing, the check points you at whoever operates your DNS or holds your registration — whoever that turns out to be. If that is HOSTAFRICA, you get HOSTAFRICA. If it is Google, Cloudflare, Safaricom or anyone else, you get them. One rule, applied to every visitor. The site does not sort you by who you buy from.

Ujiajiri does not solicit HOSTAFRICA's customers. If your domain or hosting is with HOSTAFRICA, their support team handles it and I will point you there.

What I will not do here

I will not review, rank or compare HOSTAFRICA against its competitors on this site. I am not a neutral party on that question and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. If you want a comparison, get it from someone who does not run one of the companies.

I will not write about a HOSTAFRICA product launch as though I am reporting on it.

On my background

I held the CISA certification and I describe it as retired, because it is. I am not a practising certified auditor and nothing here is an audit.

Everything on this site is written in my personal capacity. It is my own view, not a HOSTAFRICA position or a HOSTAFRICA statement.

Tools and guides are not guarantees

The checks here read public records. What a domain publishes shows what it claims — it cannot prove that a message you actually sent passed authentication, and it cannot see inside your mail platform. Guidance here may not fit every configuration. Check anything critical against your provider's own documentation before acting on it, and test changes before you rely on them.

Holding me to this

If you find something here that breaks any of the commitments above, tell me and I will correct it. Use the contact page, and I will note what changed and when.