subject: Look After Your Domain Name! [print this page] You cannot be too careful when it comes to accurately maintaining and caring for your web presence. You may have a particularly descriptive domain name, one that you have put a lot of effort into securing. The domain name may represent your primary keywords and be a very important asset in helping to drive traffic to your online presence. If you think about it, your domain name is vital and without it your revenues could suffer considerably. This is why you should stay on top of your domain registration and make sure that you do not allow it to expire, or worse still, to be taken away from you.
Are you aware of the renewal date for your domain? Did you know that there are people out there who are waiting to snap up domain names such as yours, whenever they can get their hands on them? If you have not provided an up-to-date e-mail contact address to your domain registrar you could be in trouble. When your expiration date rolls around and they have no means of contacting you, your domain can expire and be snapped up by a speculator as quickly as that. Don't expect to receive a renewal notice in the mail, as few registrars use this option. If they make a good effort to contact you by sending a notification to your e-mail address and it doesn't get through, you may be about to lose access. Some of the more prominent registrars will simply suspend your access for a few days, which could give you the prompt and notification that you need, but others will simply de-register your name and you could lose it permanently.
In some cases domain hijackers can fraudulently submit a transfer request to your registrar and believe it or not can gain access to your domain name in this way. It's important that you choose a good registrar in the beginning. If you happen to lose your domain name to a hijacker's activity, they will normally start by redirecting it to their own website, to try taking advantage of your traffic. You might find that your site is redirected to an explicit website or pornographic property or some kind. This can be a very difficult process to unravel and your registrar may or may not be able to help you at this point. In addition, legal recourse for web crimes such as this can be difficult to obtain, especially if your domain name is being redirected to a site which is hosted in an overseas country.
If you have selected a first-class domain registrar, always be sure to update your information whenever it changes. Under section 3.7.7.2 of ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreement, if you do not respond to a request for updated domain information within 15 days of the registrar's solicitation, your domain can be summarily cancelled -- so be careful!
There's a lot to think about when it comes to your online presence, but you should be particularly careful that you look after the security of your domain, as without it, you could be lost!
