Protecting Your Brand Online Starts Here

If you're a business owner, one thing you definitely need is that perfect domain name to create your online presence. But often companies don't think about registering more than one domain, especially when they're in the early stages. If you are going to build your brand, you'll need to protect it and to do so we recommend registering your domain name in multiple TLDs.

As you can see on our TLD page, we currently offer about 30 different domain options. TLD stands for top-level domain and there are two types: gTLDs or generic top-level domains and ccTLDs or country code top-level domains. gTLDs are domains that don't belong to any one region and are open to everyone, for example, our gTLDs include .COM, .NET, .ORG, .BIZ, .INFO, .TEL, .MOBI, and .NAME. ccTLDs are assigned to each country in the world, but many of them are not restricted to use in that country and anyone can register them just like gTLDs. Some ccTLDs have even positioned themselves for specific uses such as Tuvalu's .TV domain being marketed for online video sites and Montenegro's .ME being marketed for personal sites and blogs.

You will notice that some of the ccTLDs do have restrictions, so you may not be able to purchase your domain name in all TLDs even if it is available. Think about what TLDs would apply to you and your company the best. If your domain name is available in any of the gTLDs we recommend you claim them before someone else does. For the ccTLDs you will want to claim some of the domains that have positioned themselves for other uses, which would include .TV (online video tutorials for your business?), .ME (your business blog?), .CO (alternative to .COM), .CC (alternative to .COM), and .WS (alternative to .COM - "WebSite"). In addition to these domains, you may want to focus on certain ccTLDs depending on the geographic areas you are planning to target. ccTLDs such as .DE for Germany and .CO.UK for the United Kingdom, two of most popular ccTLDs in the world, are widely used and trusted in those regions. Having a website on these ccTLDs gives you and your business credibility and even Google has been known to rank your website better for queries from those regions.

Once you've registered your domain name under different TLDs, you will also want to consider registering common misspellings. For example, since Dynadot can also be spelled dinadot, dinodot, or even dunadot, so we own all of these domains in the .COM version. We simply redirect any traffic that goes to those domains to our main website using something called domain forwarding, which can easily be set up in your Dynadot account. Owning these additional domains will ensure you don't lose this traffic. This can be especially important if your site is a common word with an unusual spelling. Unfortunately, the common spelling of your site may already be taken, in which case you'll need to decide whether or not it is worth it to pursue the owner to see if you can purchase it from them. If you're interested in doing so, both Afternic and Sedo have domain brokerage services that can help you try to get the domain you want.

If you don't register your domain name in additional TLDs, someone else will and it is much more difficult and expensive to get a domain once it is already owned. Some brands choose to file a UDRP or a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, which is a trademark-based dispute, but this is not always successful especially if you are a smaller business. If you don't own the domain, you are likely losing valuable traffic. Depending on who owns the domain they may have chose to park the domain, which can sometimes result in your traffic going to a competitor's site! Don't let this happen to you - protect your brand online today!

Post by Robyn Norgan