In the digital age, a domain is one of the biggest assets a company owns. You may have used it for years or have recently acquired it. Either way, it is susceptible to illegal activity, fraud and negligence – take steps now to ensure that you don’t lose it.

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1. Register the domain to the property entity

If your domain names contain your company’s trademark, it should be registered to the same company, or a company licensed to use the trademark. Avoid registering domains to an employee – they may get involved in a dispute or leave the company at some point in the future. If this is already the case, it may be time to select a new domain name.

2. Use a well established registrar

For most companies, the best option always is to use a corporate registrar, such as Brandlock, Cognito or MarkMonitor as their experience far outweighs the additional cost implications. If budget or specific requirements mean that you need to look at retail registrars, look for those that hold industry memberships and accreditations or have won awards for good service. Reputable providers should also have extensive feedback, long market presence and should also ideally be located in your country. Once you have quotes back from a shortlist of registrars, look for customer reviews to assess their credentials on dealing with the most likely issues that could arise for your company.

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3. Lock the domain

A basic setting that can usually be found on any reputable registrar’s domain management page will allow you to ‘lock’ the name. Now your valuable asset can’t be transferred to another registrant or registrar until the name is unlocked.

4. Create a strong password

Your registrar password should be treated with the same importance and diligence as an online banking password or any other website containing sensitive, high security information relating to your company. Disclose this information only to trusted employees who require it in order to do their job, and review this on an ongoing basis. If you don’t, you leave the door open for someone else to access and unlock your domains, which they will then be able to transfer without your knowledge.

Following these steps will help you to avoid many of the issues that can arise with these registrations. Failing to protect this asset could result in business disruption and even failure.