© 2015 MarkMonitor Inc. All rights reserved.

Domain Management Best PracticesReducing Costs, Uncovering Value and

Protecting Critical Assets

Elisa Cooper

VP Product Marketing, MarkMonitor

Matt Serlin

VP Global Client Services, MarkMonitor

Overview

� Domain Name Environment in 2015

• Current Landscape and Challenges

� Domain Management Best Practices

• Containing and Reducing Costs

� Paring Back the Bloat

� Making Smart Decisions

• Uncovering Value

� Its All About That Traffic

� Finding Gold

• Protecting Critical Assets

� Implementing Appropriate Levels of Security

� Handling New Brands with Care

� Q&A

The Current Landscape - Top 10 TLDs

Source: Verisign March 2015 Domain Name Brief

The Current Landscape: Top New gTLDs

Source: ntldstats.com

Top Corporate New gTLDs

Verticals Register Selectively

Issues Facing Corporate Domain Owners

Domain Management Challenges

New

gTLDs

Domain

Security

Budgeting

and Billing

Misaligned

Portfolios

Bandwidth and

Resources

Visibility

and Control

Domain

Utilization

Domain Abuse

and

Cybersquatting

DNS and SSL

Management

Policies and

Procedures

Containing and Reducing Costs

Contain Costs and Reduce the Bloat

� Ensure appropriate levels of coverage

• Categorize brands

� Core

� Key

� Important

� Limited

• Align with trademark and marketing strategy (search and keyword)

� Retire low-value, low-risk domains

� Implement and enforce policies

� Leverage policing and blocking

Core Brands

What They Are:

• TMs in more than 30 countries

• More than 5000 instances of potential abuse in .com

What to Register:

• Exact match + variations + typos, top 50 TLDs, TM countries, limited NgTLDs

Key Brands

What They Are

• TMs in 15 – 30 countries

• More than 5000 instances of potential abuse in .com

What to Register

• Exact match, typos, limited variations, top 25 TLDs, TM countries

Important Brands

What They Are

• Specific to a particular country or region of the world

What to Register

• Exact match, top 10 TLDs, TM countries

Limited Brands

What they Are

• Limited-time, regional

What to Register

• Exact match, top 5 - 10 TLDs

Retire Low-Value, Low-Risk Domains

� Low Value

• Brands or products that have been discontinued

• Promotions/sweepstakes that have expired

• Companies that have been dissolved and are no longer in existence

• Outdated marketing campaigns that are no longer in use

� Low Risk

• Expensive, highly regulated TLDs

� .Travel

• Typos and hyphenated names with no traffic, in non .com TLDs

Implement and Enforce Domain Policies

� Without a policy, over-registration often occurs

� Important questions to address

• What should be registered?

• When should domains be registered?

• Who is allowed to request a registration?

• Who is allowed to approve a registration?

• What’s the process to register a domain?

• What’s the process to purchase domains from third parties?

• Budget limitations?

• Where do names point?

• What’s the process for deciding which names to let expire, or sell?

Leverage Policing and Blocking

� Acknowledge that defensive registrations no longer ensure

protection

• Registering every variation, typosquat, and misspelling is impossible

� Monitor for abusive registrations

• Take action ONLY when necessary

• Start with C&D

• Leverage URS or UDRP

� Utilize blocking

• Be aware that short or generic brands may not be eligible

Uncovering Value

Uncovering Value

� Score existing portfolios

� Ensure domains resolve

� Recover highly-trafficked infringements

� Consider selling unused assets

Ensure Every Domain Resolves

� 40% - 60% of corporate domains do not resolve

� Every domain must point to appropriate content

• Misspellings, typo squats, variations => core sites

• Product names => product pages

• ccTLDs and IDNs => native language pages

• Gripe sites => static pages

� Track query volumes and web forwarding hits

• Understand and quantify value of holdings

Ensure Every Domain Resolves

� If you don’t, someone else will

Consider Selling Unused Assets

� Generic words

� Acronyms

� Numbers

Source: DNJournal.com Domain Name Sales 2015 YTD

Protecting Critical Assets

Protecting Critical Assets

� Implement appropriate security measures

� Consolidate portfolios

� Use consistent, role-based Whois profiles

� Take special care with new brands

Implement Appropriate Security Measures

Lock core domains at the Registry level wherever possible

Employ 2FA for accessing domain management / DNS management portals

Implement DNS monitoring to identify unauthorized changes at the registry

Never share login credentials for domain / DNS management portals

Disable ability to edit core domains for all users

Continually manage and review secondary user accounts

Require mandatory password updates

Implement IP access restrictions

Receive automated notifications of every domain name update

Utilize a corporate-only, hardened registrar

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Utilize Consistent, Role-Based Whois

� Standard Whois information should be used whenever possible

• Only legitimate information should appear

• The domain contact listed should be generic whenever possible, such as “Domain Admin” or “DNS Administrator”

• The email address for all contacts should also be generic, such as domains@companyname.com, and should be able to send and receive email

� When local presence information is needed, the same local

presence information should be used whenever possible

Check global availability using trusted Whois

Determine coverage based upon brand value and promotional strategy

Utilize 3rd-party registrar when confidentiality is required

Be Aware of Timing

Treat New Brands with Care

Questions?Please submit questions via the WebEx Q&A tab

Thank You!

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