Most businesses will have at least one domain name for their website and some even have more than one. As far as we all know, it is just a name for our website which can be associated with our company or brand.

Losing a domain name can be like losing an identity or not being able to have a perfect marketing plan. Some businesses do have a domain name strategy as part of their marketing plan that can help a lot in positioning their businesses or even giving them much advantage in promoting themselves.

If your company is one of those above, then it would be something that you need to worry about. Most properly someone in the organisation would be entrusted to monitor these domain name availability or renewal date as well. Otherwise for most company, we will just need to make sure that our .com is own by us with our proper website and email addresses using our domain name.

There are times you will received emails or even calls from some hosting companies saying that another organization wanted to register a domain name that you already have and you are given a chance/priority to confirm if you want it. Some even said that you need to confirm it asap or the registration from the other party will go through within a day or so resulting in you losing that domain name.

You would be asking, how can this be? I was told it has been registered and I have my website and email addresses. You are right, that cannot happen unless your domain name have expired or being transfer out.

If you are one of those who have received emails or phone calls similar to the above, than most properly by now you already know why. Just like some of our customers who received such emails, they started to get panic and call us. At the end of the day, the sole purpose of these emails or phone calls are to get you to register the domain name with them which can be at a much higher price than the normal rate.

Most of the time they are only suggesting to you that the domain name can conflict with your business or what you are doing, but our eyes got tricked when we look at the domain name listed there and conclude that someone can be taking it from us.

Below are what you can do when you received such emails or phone calls:

Stay Calm

It is important to stay calm and think before reacting. Although a domain name can be important to your day to day business, if you are sure you have registered for it and still using it there is nothing to be panic about.

You can always do a whois check on your domain to make sure you are the rightful owner of your domain and its validity period. Some of these whois site below will tell you more about your domain name. https://whois.icann.org or https://who.is/ or http://whois.mynic.my/

Know your Domain Name

It is important to know and be able to recognized your domain name. Is yours a first level or a second level domain name. Even-though the name can be the same, it can be different. Example myexample.com is different from myexample.com.my or myexample.com.au

In other cases, the name can look very similar at first glance giving you a wrong impression that your domain is actually at risk, such as myexamples.com as compare to myexample.com

If you need to look through the spelling 1 by 1 or even symbols in between as compare to yours, please do so to be sure. You might not want to start calling and yelling at your staff only to realize that it is actually a different domain name after all.

Lock Your Domain Name

Most domain registrar can have your domain locked or "Client Transfer Prohibited". Make sure your domain name is Locked from being transferred and the doamin password is secure. You can check with your domain registrar so simply do a whois search can reveal your domain status.

Does it matter to you?

Finally ask yourself if that domain name really matter to you or your business if it is taken by others? If it does, than you have no choice but to get it from them and most properly it will be way above the market price as it is usually owned by them who is making the money of selling this name.

Well, you won't actually expect the domain name to be available for you to register online if they really take the trouble to contact you, right?

In conclusion, do know your domain name. It does help in your business so that you don't give out wrong email or website addresses to your customer over the phone or conversation.