Basic corporate domain name mistakes: missed domain renewal

Missed domain renewals – Domain names are not something anyone can own, rather they are leased by Registries for varying lengths of time. Often corporate brands will have hundreds to thousands of domain name and each one can have a unique renewal date. In some cases, brands will have domain names renewing every day of the year.

Managing large domain name portfolios and keeping up with varying renewal dates requires robust and carefully organised systems. It requires dedicated personnel with very strong attention to detail… Who never go on vacation.

Accidentally dropping a domain because someone forgot to renew it can be catastrophic for a business. It can bring down an entire online operation: web, email, applications, e-commerce, traffic, revenues, reputation etc.

Common Causes of Missed Domain Renewals

Domains with multiple Registrars. Having to access multiple accounts, keep track of multiple log in details etc can often see renewals missed.
Incorrect email associated with domains. If the whois information is wrong, then important information about your domain is not going anywhere (including your renewal reminders).
Many hands create many risks. Some brands will have multiple people involved in managing their domains. In theory that should mean more people are keeping their eyes on renewals, but often it just sees the function owned by everyone, but managed by no one.
Expired credit card. Some brands just auto renew their domain names through their credit card and therefore don’t pay attention to notices, but when a card is not updated, domain names will not be renewed.
Holidays. The problem with people reliant systems is that when people go on leave (or move on), there is not the same continuity of attention to detail on the function.

The Fix – Best Practice Domain Name Management

A missed domain renewal is easily avoided. Here are some best practice principles to ensuring that your domain names are properly renewed on time:

auto renew over manually renewing domains – most Registrars offer it.
outsource the function to a dedicated domain name management specialist.
consolidate all domains to one provider to simplify management of the function.
choose a corporate domain management specialist who invoices over credit card processing.
audit your domain portfolio and ensure the entity details, phone and email are accurate and current.
make domain name management a critical function of the business owned by an appropriately senior person within the business with a clear succession plan and ‘actions on’ when this person goes on leave.

About brandsec

Brandsec is a corporate domain name management and brand protection company that look after many of Australia, New Zealand and Asia’s top publicly listed brands. We provide monitoring and enforcement services, DNS, SSL Management, domain name brokerage and dispute management and brand security consultation services.