Of all the aspects of Internet
Marketing what is one of the least expensive items
to buy, but could be one of the most expensive to replace?
It may have cost you less than $10.00 to get, but just
think what your domain name means to your company. It’s
on everything from your business cards to your invoices.
It’s on promotional items, trucks, letterhead,
and on all your emails. Now think of all the money,
and time you spent promoting your URL and getting it
ranked in search engines. Imagine the cost if you had
to start all over because you lost your domain name.
If you think it can’t happen to you think again.
Years seem to fly by and you may have registered your
domain name for a two or three year period, so you don’t
worry about when it expires. You may also have a false
sense of security because you feel that the company
you bought the domain name from will inform you. You’re
right, the company will inform you, but it is not fool
proof.
Keep in mind, depending on which company you used,
if their main business is registering domains they probably
don’t care if your domain expires. Many of these
companies have backorder options. Backorder options
gives someone the ability to backorder your domain so
the very second your domain expires it is registered
with the person that backordered it. It may not seem
legal, but it is.
In addition, the company that backordered your name
can be kept anonymous – even if they end up with
your name. Your name can be sold to someone else that
may never use it and you may never be able to find out
who has it. Just think about it. An unethical competitor
can backorder your domain name and if you are not careful
they can own it and sit on it just to keep you from
having it. Or they can try to turn around and sell it
to you for thousands of dollars and it’s all legal.
Not ethical, but legal.
When you registered your domain name you most likely
included your contact information, but has that changed?
Is the email address still valid and do you check it
often? If you’re like me, you probably receive
hundreds of emails a day and many go straight into your
spam folder and get lost. You should not expect the
company that you registered your domain name with to
call you. They won’t.
Each year you should check the status of your domain
name. Have some sort of system to remind you such as
a tickler file or an email alert. When you check on
your domain name you may want to check to see if there
are other domain extensions available such as .net or
.mobi. You may not want to use these names right now,
but they are inexpensive, so it’s worth buying
them.
Be sure to register your domain name with a reliable
company. Also, make it easy on yourself and consider
registering it with your hosting company. Our hosting
company’s main business is hosting. Registering
domain names is a value added service. It may cost a
few dollars more to register the domain name with them,
but the convenience of having all the information at
one location is extremely valuable. We are able to go
into our hosting account information and on the dash
board see when the domain names expire.
Your domain name is a valuable asset to your company.
The age of a domain name also plays into rankings for
search engines. Just image if you lost your domain name
and everything you will have to do to change it or the
cost of trying to get it back. Consider the cost of
reprogramming your site, reprinting everything that
has your domain name and not to mention any online ads
you have running. Losing your domain name will cost
you thousands of dollars and could be the most costly
Internet marketing blunder you make. |
