Eleven Steps To Safeguard Your Domain Names
Make sure that you really have control over your domain names. You can use any Whois service to do this (use the network tool in IM Toolpad or any other software). Your name (or your organization name) and address should be listed as the domain name registrant. You also should have access to the administrative email contact for the domain. Some times the web hosting company will register the domain name for you but keep the administrative contact pointing to some one within their company. This should be avoided at any cost!
Renew your domains on time. Make sure that all your domain names are renewed at least 30-60 days before the expiry dates. For extremely important domains consider a 5 or 10 year renewal. Some registrars allow you to specify an auto-renew option for domain names, take it if possible! You can use a software like Domain Punch Professional or Watch My Domains ISP (see screen shot below) to keep track of your domain name renewal dates.
Lock Your Domain Names from being transferred and / or modified. You can do this from the domain name management interface of your domain registrar.
Monitor the administrative emails for any messages that indicate some one is trying to modify or transfer domain names.
Monitor the websites corresponding to your domain names to check if the domain names are being illegally redirected to other sites. Again you can use the Webpage Monitor tool in IM Toolpad to do this. It even allows you to take full length snap shots of your web pages.
Keep all your passwords safe and difficult to guess. Remember that even your email passwords should be strong. Some one can gain access to your administrative contact email and then use it to obtain access to your domain name management interface.
Make sure that all your domain contact information is accurate. ICANN agreement with domain registrars empowers them to take your domain name away if the contact information is inaccurate. It is very important that you respond to registrar’s inquiries regarding any inaccurate information in your domain records.
Practice safe computing habits. You should never click on any links contained with emails that appear to come from your registrar. Actually it is not a good idea to click on any links contained within any unanticipated email because it is easy to create fake links that appear to point to the correct URL but point to another site. This is called phishing. Also, use a good anti-virus and spy-ware monitoring tool.
Be careful about Spam Filters! Make sure that you receive all the emails from your domain registrar. Add their domain names to any Spam filter white lists.
Avoid using any free email address (that could get suspended if you don’t use it often) as domain administrative contact. For example, Yahoo will suspend your email address if you don’t login for a specified period of time.
Keep your email domain safe. If all your domain names use an administrative contact email on a specific domain (say, admin@mydomain.com) and you lose that domain you will be in very serious trouble. In such a case renew that domain for 10 years so that the chances of that domain expiring is remote.
