What are the most important tips for domain re­gis­tra­tion?

It can be chal­len­ging finding a domain name because it should be concise and appealing for potential visitors as well as search engines. We have sum­mar­ised the most important tips for domain re­gis­tra­tion.

Re­gis­ter­ing your own domain

Whether it is an online shop, blog or a private website, every web project begins with an ap­pro­pri­ate domain name. This name consists of a top-level domain (TLD), which ends in .co.uk or .com, and a second-level domain, which is the name part of the domain. The desired name can be found quickly and it barely takes any time to check with the provider whether the desired name is still available.

The provider, also known as a domain registrar then takes over the re­gis­tra­tion with the relevant domain registry. A specific or­gan­isa­tion is re­spons­ible for taking care of the re­gis­tra­tion for every TLD.

Before re­gis­ter­ing a domain, every user should ensure that using the desired domain name does not infringe on any existing domain trademark laws. Domain copyright in­fringe­ment is one of the most commonly made domain re­gis­tra­tion errors.

How do you create an optimal second-level domain? And how do you choose the matching top-level domain (without violating trademark and name rights)? We have sum­mar­ised the most important tips for you in the following sections.

Creating a second-level domain

In the UK you have re­l­at­ively free rein when creating a domain name. Some technical re­quire­ments must be met, however. You can use letters from A to Z, numbers from 0 to 9 as well as hyphens, although the hyphen cannot be placed at the beginning of the second level domain. Other symbols such as full stops, slashes or question marks are not permitted. A domain name is generally expected to consist of up to 63 char­ac­ters.

It could also be the case that some domain names, which could not be re­gistered several years ago, are now a pos­sib­il­ity. An example is a domain name with two char­ac­ters such as hi.com.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ised Domain Names were in­tro­duced, which make it possible for country-specific special char­ac­ters to be displayed in the domain name. For Germany, umlauts ä, ü and ö are now allowed, and for France accents are permitted. These special domains first need to be converted, since the DNS system still only re­cog­nises the character encoding ASCII. If, for example, a German company wanted to secure the domain möbelhaus-name.de for their furniture shop, the prefix xn would be placed in front of it during re­gis­tra­tion, the umlaut is omitted and another character string is appended. The umlaut domain is then re­gistered as xn-mbelhaus-name-nda.de.

Choosing a top-level domain

The top-level domain forms the highest level of the name res­ol­u­tion and the last section of the domain to the right of the dot. Currently the most commonly used endings are .com, .net, .org and the country-specific suffixes such as .de, .es and .us. They generally vary between:

• generic TLDs: Generic top-level domains give clues about the type of website on offer. Therefore, you would expect a com­mer­cial website from .com, whereas .org as a TLD would result in an or­gan­isa­tion.
• country-specific TLDs: These country-specific TLDs give in­form­a­tion about a website’s origin. Usually two letters are used when referring to a country, for example, .de for Germany, .hu for Hungary and .es for Spain.

A further tip for domain re­gis­tra­tion is that it is wise to secure several domain endings and name vari­ations. Providers often offer cheap packages so it is therefore worth­while to register your desired name with numerous TLDs. The search­ab­il­ity of a website then increases and all the important domain vari­ations are secured, and, as a result, are not available to third parties.

New TLDs

New top-level domains belong to the generic TLDs. Since 2013, this new gen­er­a­tion of domain ex­ten­sions has been available, including com­mer­cial terms such as .shop and .business and regional locations such as .miami, .nyc, .vegas, .london and .wales. The new TLDs are a good al­tern­at­ive for when your desired name has already been allocated to a current top-level domain, but you still wish to hold on to your selected name.

Using .uk as a domain ending

While .co.uk is for com­mer­cial entities, the .uk domain can be used by anybody. The deadline to claim reserved .uk domain names ended on the 25th of June 2019. From 1st July 2019, any pre­vi­ously reserved .uk domains that had not been re­gistered were made available on a first-come, first served basis. If you’re looking for a .uk domain as your first website, it could prove difficult to find your desired option because of this.

Switching your provider

You should have no problems if you want to change your provider, but want to keep your re­gistered domain. You simply need the au­thor­isa­tion code for your domain, which you can request from your current provider. If, for example, you plan to transfer from one provider to IONOS, you will need to fill out a special domain-transfer form to confirm the transfer. All further steps will then be carried out.

How long the domain move takes depends on the par­tic­u­lar domain registrar’s rules of procedure. Five to six working days is to be expected with generic TLDs and nTLDs and the sub­sequent DNS update requires a further 24 to 48 hours.

No domain without trademark rights

If you decide to sell Adidas shoes in your online shop, you might think it makes sense to include the brand name in your domain. You have to be really careful here as it is re­l­at­ively easy to infringe on trademark and name rights as a domain owner. Use of a brand or company name is only possible with prior consent of the copyright owner. Therefore, explicit written consent should always be sought. You could receive a warning if you use the brand or company’s name in the domain name without per­mis­sion. Therefore, the object and dispute value should not be un­der­es­tim­ated otherwise you could end up with a hefty fine. If you want to protect yourself from fines and legal pro­ceed­ings, it is best to play it safe and check the desired domain for the following aspects before you register it:

• Brand and company names: It is tempting to use a big brand name for your shop in order to attract visitors, but in most cases this is not allowed, even when the brand name would address the target group more easily. Many company names are protected by naming rights and must not be used in third party domain names.
• Names of celebrit­ies: Names of people in the public eye can be protected by naming laws, therefore many first and last names are protected unless they are generic.
• Typing error domains: Typical typing errors such as ebey.com, gogle.com or amason.com are not allowed as domain names as many big brands and names are often protected from similar character sequences so that these kinds of typing errors cannot harm a brand.
• Well-known titles: Whether it is a film, newspaper or TV series, the title of any well-known pub­lic­a­tions should not be used in the domain. These terms are usually copy­righted and un­au­thor­ised use is not permitted.

City names, au­thor­it­ies and other gov­ern­ment entities should be avoided when re­gis­ter­ing your domain as this could mean your domain violates trademark laws. Basically ’A brand violation occurs when someone is profiting from publicity’. Very big, well-known names such as Mercedes or BMW are not obliged to register as brands in order to be protected.

Verifying domain trademark laws

The trademark law of a domain refers to com­mer­cial website subjects. Private websites without com­mer­cial use are excluded from the rules. If you want to make money from your blog or your website, your domain should be chosen in strict com­pli­ance with trademark laws. The names and ter­min­o­lo­gies, which fall within the scope of trademark laws, can be found at ap­pro­pri­ate trademark and patent offices. It is easy and free to verify using re­spect­ive sites. The following sites are suitable for quick research:

• UK brands: Seach for a trade mark on GOV.uk
• European brands: EUIPO Europa
• In­ter­na­tion­al brands: WIPO In­ter­na­tion­al