How domain man­age­ment boosts success

Whether through tools for efficient domain man­age­ment or the know-how of external providers, with domain name man­age­ment you strengthen how your brand is perceived. Domain man­age­ment includes ad­min­is­tra­tion tools for your domain portfolio as well as the re­gis­tra­tion, updating and main­ten­ance of new domains and sub­do­mains. An early domain-first approach is important for suc­cess­ful online marketing.

Why is domain man­age­ment becoming more important?

A domain used to be a static web address re­sem­bling a business card, an ad­vert­ise­ment or a summary of in­form­a­tion and services. Today, business domains and website content are con­tinu­ously evolving alongside new trends in di­git­isa­tion. While companies used to have a man­age­able number of domains, today’s domain portfolio may well be in the triple digits.

One reason for this are sub­do­mains, product and service pages, blogs, online magazines, in­form­a­tion available via the extranet or web page redirects. For companies with a large domain portfolio, it can be hard to keep track and monitor the quality of all domains. Pro­fes­sion­al domain man­age­ment lets them organise, monitor, maintain and update new and existing domains.

What makes for pro­fes­sion­al domain man­age­ment?

Whether you manage your own domains or outsource them to external domain man­age­ment services, the following aspects are crucial for suc­cess­ful domain man­age­ment:

• Con­tinu­ous mon­it­or­ing of the domain portfolio
• A fast search, re­ser­va­tion and re­gis­tra­tion of new domains
• Regular update and main­ten­ance of existing domains
• A clear, cent­ral­ised user interface and domain man­age­ment tools
• Domain mapping for quick access to domains and sub­do­mains
• A secure DNS in­fra­struc­ture for fail-safe al­loc­a­tion, res­ol­u­tion and for­ward­ing of requests
• Domain migration when changing provider
• A budget and dedicated de­part­ment for con­tinu­ous domain man­age­ment and 24/7 domain mon­it­or­ing

Im­ple­ment­ing a domain man­age­ment means that your domains are ac­cess­ible all times, are updated and secure. Since this requires a certain level of expertise, it’s best to decide whether you want to organise your own domain ad­min­is­tra­tion or consult experts for pro­fes­sion­al domain man­age­ment.

What does the domain-first approach stand for?

Domain man­age­ment requires not just ex­per­i­ence and know-how, but also an un­der­stand­ing of current trends and technical details. Even a different TLD (Top Level Domain) can divert traffic away from your domain. For example, ‘stray’ traffic regularly arrives on tesla.de which is the domain of German company Tesla Low Code GmbH and not the official tesla.com website. When you register similar domains or even typo domains like appl.de or googl.com, errant traffic can be re­dir­ec­ted to the correct address.

Because there are many other criteria for es­tab­lish­ing your brand or op­tim­ising your online marketing, the domain-first approach has a com­pet­it­ive advantage. The slogan ‘domain first’ means it’s important to have a clear, catchy message to boost audience reception. If you make domain man­age­ment a priority right from the start, you’ll set an important course early on for suc­cess­ful branding, building a customer base, and high traffic.

A re­gis­tra­tion strategy is just as important as brand building through top level domains and dis­tinct­ive domains. This includes re­gis­ter­ing typo domains or securing of brand-relevant TLDs to prevent domain misuse. Making campaign or product domains available alongside content marketing and search engine op­tim­isa­tion and mobile SEO de­term­ines the success and scalab­il­ity of your domain portfolio.

What are the ad­vant­ages of efficient domain man­age­ment for companies?

The ad­vant­ages of pro­fes­sion­al domain man­age­ment hinge on the tools you choose for domain ad­min­is­tra­tion. On the other hand, the pros depend on whether you decide to use an external service provider for domain man­age­ment. Self-man­age­ment using powerful tools can be worth­while for a small and man­age­able domain portfolio. A complex, evolving portfolio, on the other hand, suggests the support of external providers.

Whatever you choose, the benefits of domain man­age­ment are a stronger market position within eCommerce:

• Re­gis­tra­tion strategy to secure domains relevant to companies, campaigns, products or brand impact
• Selection of important domain types such as TLDs .com, .net or .org and country domains in case you need country-specific sub­do­mains
• Fast purchase of existing domains via domain trade and domain auctions
• Reliable, compliant sale, transfer or re­lo­ca­tion of domains
• Mon­it­or­ing domain avail­ab­il­ity even with domains from different providers
• Or­gan­isa­tion and main­ten­ance of more complex domain port­fo­li­os
• Updating DNS records and DNS zone scans
• Automated and reliable billing
• In­creas­ing brand value and pro­tect­ing the brand
• Min­im­ising ad­min­is­trat­ive work and costs
• Extend domain usage rights and durations in a timely manner or auto­mat­ic­ally
• Adhere to ICANN guidelines or Whois policies

Important aspects of domain man­age­ment

For com­pre­hens­ive, efficient domain man­age­ment, the following criteria must be observed:

Decide on a domain strategy before buying a domain

Before you buy a domain, you should decide on a strategy. This serves as a guideline and ori­ent­a­tion to get an overview of the most important aspects. First, decide whether to organise the ad­min­is­tra­tion of your domains or outsource it to external service providers. One of the first questions a domain strategy should answer is: how to buy a domain?

There are also questions as to the required budget for domain man­age­ment, the ap­pro­pri­ate domain extension, domain names and the number of possible sub­do­mains. Part of a domain strategy is securing similar domain names, top level domains, country-specific domain types and word com­bin­a­tions in order to prevent domain grabbing and cy­ber­squat­ting as well as phishing. You should also have a strategy for defensive domain re­gis­tra­tion in place.

Choose a domain name and ending

From business websites, artist port­fo­li­os, product pages to temporary campaign domains, the right domain name de­term­ines success. A domain name should be relevant to your business, offerings and services, easy to un­der­stand and easy to remember. Short domains could be company or product names, product cat­egor­ies or services and content. Although the domain name itself doesn’t directly influence your search engine ranking, you shouldn’t neglect SEO during domain selection.

The domain extension is important for the re­spect­ab­il­ity and vis­ib­il­ity of your brand. Top level domains such as .com or .net are usually prefer­able but, depending on the focus of your offering, country-specific domains such as .de for German companies and services. Customers usually trust websites with popular and well-known domain ex­ten­sions more than those with less well-known ex­ten­sions.

Secure domains relevant to your industry

The number of awarded domains and TLDs continues to grow each month. This means there’s a high prob­ab­il­ity your preferred domain may have already been re­gistered. Be sure to secure brand-relevant domain names in time by re­gis­ter­ing similar domain names and domain types or buying them on domain mar­ket­places. This way you cover domain names that redirect customers to your main domain. You also prevent cy­ber­crim­in­als from using similar domains in attempted fraud and damaging your brand impact.

Select provider

You’ll also want to pay attention to selecting the right domain provider. A domain provider should offer a wide range of TLDs and country-specific endings. Company, industry or service-specific domain endings such as .store, .event or .art should be available for selection. Reputable providers offer trans­par­ent and flexible pricing models, reliable service and ad­di­tion­al services such as hosting en­vir­on­ments, storage space and databases.

Domain portfolio man­age­ment

For success in eCommerce and online marketing, a single domain is often not suf­fi­cient. Many companies have a domain portfolio con­sist­ing of multiple domains and sub­do­mains. Pro­fes­sion­al domain portfolio man­age­ment is useful to manage and monitor more complex domain in­fra­struc­tures. This includes the ac­cess­ib­il­ity, security, main­ten­ance and renewal of domains. Auto­ma­tion of billing and a legal strategy are important to prevent possible fraud attempts in your name or under your domain.

Edit DNS records

To ensure the ac­cess­ib­il­ity of your domains, it’s necessary to maintain related DNS records and update your DNS in­fra­struc­ture. This is es­pe­cially important for the creation of sub­do­mains and when migrating domains, switching domains or changing your domain. Main­ten­ance of DNS records ensures that users can reach your website and the content matches the search in­ten­tions of your target audience. The use of secure mail servers or the as­sign­ment of web hosting and your own name server depend on correct DNS entries.

Keep Whois data up to date

The Whois database lets you search for re­gistered domains in a publicly ac­cess­ible list. According to ICANN and Neustar, domain owners are obliged to keep the Whois contact data of a domain up to date. Es­pe­cially in case of a move, transfer or a change of name it’s important to adjust Whois data. In case you prefer not to be publicly as­so­ci­ated with one of your domains, some domain providers offer a privacy option. Selecting it will display an al­tern­at­ive name in the WHOIS registry.

Renew domains

Re­gistered domains usually have an ex­pir­a­tion date. Auto-renewal is not always guar­an­teed. And the larger your domain portfolio, the easier it is to overlook an upcoming deadline on a domain renewal. When you wish to use a domain per­man­ently, you can activate the auto-renewal feature provided by your host. This sets an automatic renewal of your domain term and prevents the domain from being deleted or re­gistered by others at the end of your term.

Set up sub­do­mains

With a main domain you can easily create ad­di­tion­al sub­do­mains via DNS entry. Depending on your provider and host, you can choose any subdomain name and a large number of free sub­do­mains. Sub­do­mains help you to organise your website and fa­cil­it­ate the overview for visitors by category and theme. Here, too, pro­fes­sion­al domain portfolio man­age­ment is required to update or delete sub­do­mains.

Set up for­ward­ing

For domains you’re not currently using, it’s re­com­men­ded to set up domain for­ward­ing. In this way, you will direct traffic via inactive domains to your main domain. For­ward­ing is always prefer­able to domain parking. You can redirect traffic to parked pages that present visitors with them­at­ic­ally similar ads, but often look dubious.

Delete or release domains for transfer

Unused domains, those used for expired campaigns or un­avail­able products and services should be deleted or released for transfer. In this way, you’ll keep your domain portfolio neat and tidy, and prevent websites from becoming in­ac­cess­ible or outdated. By trans­fer­ring and selling a domain, you could even make profit when trading on domain mar­ket­places. The success of this depends on the domain name. It’s a good idea to determine the domain value before a transfer.

Use all-in-one solutions or tools for domain man­age­ment

Pro­fes­sion­al tools for domain man­age­ment help to organise and maintain your domain portfolio. For this purpose, you can choose from all-in-one solutions or needs-based services from external providers for domain man­age­ment as a managed service. Al­tern­at­ively, you can use specific tools to manage your domain portfolio yourself. Free and paid tools can cover avail­ab­il­ity checks, purchase, re­gis­tra­tion, valuation, re­lo­ca­tion, transfer and domain security.

In­de­pend­ent domain man­age­ment requires time, in­vest­ment and expertise. If your domain structure is complex, it’s best to seek the help of pro­fes­sion­al domain ad­min­is­trat­ors. They can provide an all-round solution or access to the most useful tools and services.

Useful portfolio man­age­ment tools include Rage Domainer, Domain Punch or AutoDNS. For hosting,, SiteGround, Bluehost, DreamHost, GoDaddy Web Hosting or WP Engine are suitable.

Con­clu­sion: get started managing your domains as soon as possible

Domain first is a motto adopted by small and medium-sized en­ter­prises but also larger, globally active groups. With a forward-looking domain man­age­ment, you optimise your Internet presence and increase your brand value. A domain portfolio strategy maintains your domain in­fra­struc­ture and keeps your content up to date. This ensures your domains remain ac­cess­ible and re­gistered, but also protects you from cy­ber­at­tacks and cy­ber­squat­ting. Whether you take domain man­age­ment into your own hands or outsource it to external service providers is a question of budget and your re­quire­ments. However, with an extensive domain portfolio, it’s a good idea to make domain man­age­ment a priority.