2020-11-24
Today’s digital world is transacting 24/7, so your business should be working accordingly.
The internet domain name is one of the most precious digital assets of your organisation. However, most organisations don’t pay serious attention to this. So, you might lose it to some other party. As a result, you might end up paying a fortune to have the domain ownership transferred or be forced to settle for a poorer alternative in place of the right domain.
Also, the owner of your organisation's domain name may use it for some unethical or illegal activity, which could reflect badly on your organisation or brand.
For that reason, pay serious attention to your domain name and have it registered under your organisation’s name. It’s an important piece of your organisation’s intellectual property and you must own it.
Ensure the safety of your web domain with the steps listed below;
Check the Domain Information
Verify that the domain Information is right. You may log on to https://www.whois.com/whois/ or https://whois.domaintools.com/ and type in your domain name to search domain information.
Registrant Contact
Registrant is the person under whose name the domain is purchased. For your organisation, the registrant should ideally be the organisation itself. Where an employee is the registrant, in case he quits, domain ownership transfer becomes a cumbersome affair. Also, the registrant email should be one that remains unchanged for the longest possible time.
Administrative Contact
The Administrative Contact is the individual who is authorised by the registrant to interact with the domain name registrar to answer questions about the domain name registration and registrant.
Technical Contact
The technical contact for your domain can be your IT Executive or Manager or even your vendor. This individual or organisation is authorised to manage any technical issues related to your domain.
Domain Registration Period
Minimum registration period is one year. We recommend that it be registered for a few years, if possible. Many domain names can be registered for up to 10 years, and doing so now makes it less likely that your domain name will lapse simply because you forget to renew it.
Monitor Expiration Dates
Add domain renewal date to you and your organization schedules and set reminders. If you have multiple domain names, you may consolidate renewal dates. Further, you may need to maintain a proper event calendar to follow them up.
Locking Domain Name
It's very easy to "lock" a domain name, a simple setting typically found on a registrar's domain name management page, and doing so prevents a domain name from being transferred to another registrant or registrar until the domain name is unlocked.
Using a Strong Registrar Password and Protect it Diligently
This should be treated with as much care as a password for an online bank account or any other highly sensitive website. Failing to do so could allow someone else to access your domain names, which they could unlock and transfer behind your back.
Make sure that other key personnel in your organization who’re responsible for managing domain related matters know the login credentials associated with your domain name(s) or know how to retrieve it.
Contact Email Address
Always use an email address tied to a position or to a common group, e.g. [email protected] rather than an individual e.g. [email protected]. Most of the time organizations remove personal email accounts when employees leave the organization. Make sure emails sent by your domain registrar will not be blocked by your spam guard software.
Pay meticulous attention to your emails to avoid a phishing attack. Hackers can email pretending to be your registrar and such an email could carry a link to a replicate site where you feed your information for them to capture.
Ensuring Domain Privacy
At an extra charge, domain registrars offer you domain privacy through a service called WHOIS privacy protection. WHOIS privacy protection is a service to protect you from people finding your personal information in the WHOIS records. Some domain registrars offer basic domain privacy for free, but you have to pay for advanced privacy features.
Dispute Resolution
If there’re any disputes concerning your domain, you should contact the relevant domain registrar in that regard.
Expiration of Domain
Most domain registrars will notify the registrant contact and the administrative contact of your domain a month before its expiration.
Renewal of Domain
It’s ideal to renew your domain registration before it expires. But, in case you forget to renew it, the domain registrar gives you a grace period of one week to renew it before they open it for auction. That apart, depending on your domain registrar, now you have the opportunity to activate the automatic domain renewal with your credit or debit card.
Being Aware of Domain Name Scams
Unfortunately, unscrupulous registrars and other bad guys online often try to trick domain name registrants into paying unnecessary fees or to transfer their domain names unknowingly. When in doubt, contact your registrar directly with any questions or concerns.
