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Last Updated on March 8, 2022 by Work In My Pajamas
Protecting your domain name or domain privacy lets you hide your contact details from the WHOIS directory using the registrar’s contact details and a random email address. It’s a paid service given as a premium add-on when buying a new domain name. Domain privacy protects your private data from identity theft, phishing scams, and fraud. It protects your website from malicious hackers and unwanted spam. Here’s how you can protect your domain name from cybersquatting.
In This Post:
Register Your Domain Name as a Trademark
Registering your domain name as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office protects your business from brand identity and customer theft. A trademark protects your business in the event of variations or misspellings on the top-level domain. If another company tries to register a domain name similar to yours, you can take legal action.
To qualify for a trademark, your domain name should reflect your brand to prevent others from creating variations to draw your customers to their site. Consider hiring an experienced trademark attorney like Cliff Schneider to help you determine if your chosen domain name is suitable for registration, register it as a trademark then assist you in maintaining its registration by filling the required affidavits of continued use.
Lock Your Domain Transfer
Domain locking is a protective technique by a domain registrar for its clients to avoid unauthorized transfers to another web host or registrar and domain name loss. It prevents transferring, modification, domain renewal, and altering domain contact details. Locking your domain is a protective measure because it protects your domain from malicious transfers, blocks misdirection of your name servers, prevents unauthorized domain administrative details changes, giving you peace of mind.
Focus on Administrative Details
When registering your domain name, ensure you’re listed as the name’s legal owner, the only person with the right to alter the domain record and address any domain technical concerns. You mustn’t allow your employees, web developers, or other third parties to be included as administrative contact or registrant. Remember that any incorrect information on record with your domain name registrar can lead to the automatic cancellation of your domain.
Monitor Your Domain Expiration Dates
Before your domain expires, your web host or domain registrar sends you automated emails reminding you that your domain name is about to expire so that you can renew it. Failure to renew it before the expiration date and the issued grace period may result in you losing your domain name and a parked page replacing your website. To ensure your domain name does not expire, switch on your renewal reminders, enable auto-renew, use the same registrar for all your domains, domain monitor, and leverage grace periods.
Register Your Domain Name Variations
The simplest way to protect your business is to register your domain’s similar variations before other people do or before anything goes wrong. You can register it with hyphens if it has more than one word — for example, horse-racing.com and horseracing.com. You can also register your domain’s plural and singular versions. For instance, service.com and services.com. Since typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting, be sure to register familiar misspellings — for example, freecounsel.com and freecouncil.com.
Endnote
Your domain represents your online presence, which might be your business’s most valuable asset. Use these tips to protect it from unauthorized usage and secure your company’s private data.
