Think about all that goes into buying a house — and what it takes to turn it into a home. Your home. You do everything to keep it safe from theft or accidental damage. The same goes for your business website. This post will discuss brand protection as it relates to business assets such as websites and domain names.
The umbrella of a business brand is big — it covers everything from the business name itself to the logo, slogan, package design and website.
While it’s easy to forget, every business website must have a domain name to serve as its web address. Without that domain name, the business website would simply disappear from view.
Editor’s note: Domain Privacy & Protection from GoDaddy keeps your personal information away from spammers and your domain name locked and under your control.
Your domain name is an intangible asset
Your business domain name is a piece of digital “property” — you can think of it as an intangible asset that has value.
Once your website begins attracting visitors, it (and the underlying domain name) becomes valuable.
Now, as with any physical property, its value depends on a number of factors:
- The quality of assets represented by it (e.g. human, monetary)
- The success of the business
- The level of domain privacy
If you promote your website well to extract value and drive business, its value will eventually rise. And while there is no governing body to determine the true value of domain names, the value they gain over time and how they are guarded through brand protection efforts increases how much your business would sell for. That is the best indicator of its aggregate market value.
Related: Find out what your website domain name is worth here.
Any business asset can be stolen
Anything of value inevitably attracts attention and not all of it good. In the case of domain names, the owner can inadvertently help thieves along through various oversights:
- Opting for the shortest registration period and not enabling auto renewals. This can lead to a lapse in domain ownership, unlocking the door for others to legally claim the business domain name.
- Not having multi-step authentication, which gives sophisticated scammers easy access to it.
- Using a low-reputed registrar can result in poor customer support or the registrar going out of business.
- Not activating domain locking which prevents transfer of the domain name into someone else’s name.
- Simply forgetting to change the payment details on your account when a credit card expires.
- No Domain Privacy Protection, a key feature that hides your personal information from public view and keeps spammers from collecting your name, email, etc.
Spoofed emails that appear to come from a real domain registrar can even trick legal domain owners into sharing their login details. At that point, the domain is as good as gone.
Related: Brand name suggestions for the non-creative
Domain Privacy Protection keeps your domains safe
In the world of domain registration, all owner information entered and verified at the time of domain purchase must be listed in the WHOIS public directory. But if you noticed, the directory is public, and that means your information is too. It’s no secret that spammers scour this directory for email IDs they can use.
But there is a way out to ensure adequate brand protection (and it’s within your reach).
Domain Privacy Protection is a service that hides your personally identifiable information and helps you keep hold of your domains. It literally keeps the unthinkable from happening — you losing control of your domain name and your website disappearing for good.
GoDaddy offers three levels of Domain Privacy
Popular registrars like GoDaddy have comprehensive domain privacy and security packages.
When you register a domain name with GoDaddy, they automatically hide your name, street address, phone number and email address in the WhoIs directory at no charge.
The global domain giant also offers two other levels of domain protection for a fee:
- Full Protection replaces your contact details with GoDaddy’s and guards against hijacking and accidental loss due to expired banking details. It also requires added verification in order for anyone to transfer away, cancel or change the contact information on your domain name.
- Ultimate Security includes all the features of Full Protection plus Web Security Essential, which automatically scans your website for malware and removes any it finds.
Bottom-line benefits
In case you have not been reading the news, these are the potent security threats we all face:
The risk of being hacked
Fraudsters are always on the prowl, and now use personal information contained in public databases to gain access to business websites and digital assets.
Finding your personal data on the dark web
Even legitimate entities can scrape your information from the WhoIs, while illegal parties can sell it to data brokers. Unsolicited emails follow.
Prone to financial scams
Scamsters have been known to reverse engineer banking sites and extract payment information from account holders to drain their accounts.
Chance of malicious hacks
Your data can be used against you to lock you off your website. This is called ransomware and it’s on the rise around the world.
Brand protection includes digital assets
The message is quite clear: Domain Privacy Protection is a great bet to ensure digital brand protection from external threats that could damage your business prospects.
When you consider how quickly a clever hacker might take control of your domain name (and therefore your business website), this is one investment that’s worth its weight in gold.
The information contained in this blog post is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an endorsement or advice from GoDaddy on any subject matter. Always consult a professional with questions about asset protection.
