Is Your Identity at Risk?
Is Your Identity at Risk?
by Dr Tony Berg
Nominet's first annual report on domain names makes quite interesting reading.
7% of domain names re-registered within 10 seconds of cancellation and 25% are re-registered within a day.
On the other hand 13.8% of domain name renewals are made after their due date.
With so much time and effort expended on developing the domain name as a well identified brand, it is more than surprising to see how casually so many companies risk losing their domain name and then to be forced into buying it back from the speculators.
How can this happen at such high levels?
Why aren't there safety procedures in place?
Well there are.
Nominet gives plenty of advance warning of elapsing registrations to the domain management companies. Many have an auto renewal system in place for their clients.
Does yours? Does your accounts department realise how important it is not to let the Nominet invoice sit in the pile?
The same report shows that here in the UK we are increasingly using the .co.uk domain to identify our web presence as UK based. More than 60% of UK marketing professionals choose a .co.uk domain name.
Research carried out earlier this year illustrates that British Internet users are six times more likely to choose a .co.uk rather than .com address when looking for information via an Internet search engine.
More than 72% of those surveyed said they would preferentially visit a British web address over any other.
We in the UK are more likely to search on a .co.uk domain than a .com.
Don't lose your online identity
Dr Tony Berg
Managing Director - Realnet Ltd
tonyberg@realnet.co.uk
Article originally published in Cambridge Network Connection magazine Issue 37, 08/01/2008.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank you (Realnet)... for putting together a website for me that has produced the overwhelming majority of business for my company."
Jim Muelchi,
Absolutely Safe Surfaces