Note: This article on determining corporate domain names and has been updated for 2021. The updates reflect recent internet security best practices and emerging threats and trends in the industry.
When it comes to registering domain names companies and organizations often struggle to cover all their trademarks, brands, product names, concepts and variations without: a) missing some, or b) registering domain names that are not as relevant as originally thought.
For companies seeking to protect their intellectual property online, we’ve put together three simple steps that can help you maintain an accurate and relevant domain name portfolio and reduce opportunities for name squatting.
Step One – Ensure you purchase domains prior to launching new products, projects or services.
As you know, domain names can be purchased within minutes, therefore it is important that companies register domain names before announcing new products, projects, and services, in order to prevent others from registering relevant or related domain names. It is important to register the .ca, and .com – and if you have the budget, any other relevant gTLD extensions based on the nature of your project.
Step Two – Consider registering variant domain names.
You’ve got the ideal domain name for your business. Perfect name, perfect extension. However, different variations of your domain name are also available, be it different extensions or slightly different spellings. Should your business invest in securing these other domains? That ultimately depends on how your business is looking to leverage these variant domain names. Variants are purchased for a couple different reasons. Be it establishing a unique site for a promotional campaign or registering a regional domain for to cater to a specific geographic region.
Step Three – The third suggestion is very straight forward: register misspelled domain names.
Names that are trickier to spell and/or type can lead your customers to the wrong websites. Some of these websites can be used for phishing, ultimately harming potential visitors. The surest way to catch customers typing in the wrong domain name is to find out what they’re typing in instead. The simplest way to discover common misspellings of your domains is to leverage tools like Google Analytics. Not only will this work to discover common misspellings, but all of the most common search terms and keywords used by visitors when searching for your website. All of this information can be used to identify which alternate domain names may be worth acquiring.
So the next time your organization plans to register domain names around a new project or product launch, strike up a brainstorming session and apply the three points above and we’re certain the resultant name suggestions will be valuable. Thank you for reading and feel free to share your comments and suggestions with us.
Note: Our writer Josh contributed to updates to this article in February 2021.
