Protecting Your Domain Name

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010

Be prepared and avoid common mistakes that can result in the permanent loss of your domain. Regardless of who registers the domain, make sure that you are listed as the domain owner and primary contact person. Once you register your domain name you should protect it because it may become one your most valuable business assets. As you develop your online business many of your customers will know your business through your web site. Think of your domain name as a revenue generating part of your organization. Losing it would mean losing one of your most valuable assets.

Let?s say you have registered your domain name for a new product your company will bring to market in the near future. The domain you have registered is yourcoolnewproductdotcom. Fast forward five years, and now you have a successful business web site built around the new product hosted on the yourcoolnewproductdotcom. One of you competitors might have registered the same domain name with the .net top-level domain.

Now, your competitor owns yourcoolnewproductdotnet. You could potentially lose a lot of revenue. To reduce this risk, and protect the value of your domain name consider registering the domain name in all three main top-level domains. Registering the domain name in all three main top-level domains is a small investment to pay to protect your company.

Internet users to the same website is a relatively inexpensive way to ensure that a variation of the domain name is not used to re-direct customers to another company?s website.

For a small investment, you can register common misspellings of your domain name. It will help reduce the risk that an online searcher will misspell the domain name and be directed to another business?s website. Some of the most commonly misspelled searches online are Wallmart (Wal-Mart), Geneology (Genealogy), and Wikepedia (Wikipedia).

In case your registered domain name acts to identify the source of your products or services, it may be possible to register your domain name as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It is true that federal law protects both registered and unregistered trademarks; registered trademarks offer somewhat more protection the unregistered marks.