It’s easy to avoid disasters with hindsight and hopefully 10yrs as a domain registrar, web producer and marketer has given me some. In my opinion, here are 12 defensive steps which you should take right now.

1. Ensure Your Domains Have Accurate WHOIS records

Sounds simple but you wouldn’t believe how many domain registrations have been made using the wrong details. Too often the domain vendor would slip their own details into the owner or administrative details. The person who dealt with the “internet” would register company domains with their personal email then move onto a new job a few months later.

Incorrect records can cause a nightmare when you come to update or transfer the domain in the future. The owner/admin email holder can transfer the domain away.

Ensure that your details and email are on the administrative and owner contact fields of the domain. Running a WHOIS check will help but the contact email addresses can only be seen through the private panels of your domain provider.

2. Make Sure You Own Your Domains Legally

It may come as a surprise but WHOIS records are not proof of domain name ownership. Make sure you have access to the account with the domain registrar and have printed off invoice receipts for your registration.

3. Setup Your Own Domain Expiry Reminders

Don’t put all your trust in your domain provider. They may drop the ball or fail to contact you for the renewal. Registries have little sympathy once you have lost your domain, nor does the domain speculator who snapped it up.

Setup expiry reminders on your chosen calender application, use a birthday reminder service like HipCal or a dedicated domain tool like URLPad. Make sure you have reminders on 2 different email accounts, in case one fails.

4. Backup Your Sites – Regularly!

Again many rely 100% on their hosts for this. For WordPress sites you can backup the whole blog or just the database on regular periods and send it to a newly created Gmail account. Cpanel, Plesk and other control panel systems usually provide backup facilities for your whole site – use them. Software like SyncBackSE (Windows) or Filezilla (Windows, Mac and Linux) will help you maintain a synchronized copy of your files on your local computer.

Make sure you keep a few copies of your backup. An external Icy Box and a few old hard disks is an effective & low cost solution.

5. Invest In Decent DNS

Too many low grade hosts have their name servers placed on the same box as their hosted sites. If the server goes down, so do the name servers which can result in many hours of downtime, even after the server itself has come back online. That downtime is expensive for your business.

For a small fee you can buy a high quality DNS service or you may find the DNS at your registrar is sufficient. These name servers should update very fast across the internet, be backed up and have a fallover system.

This move will give your sites some security against long periods of downtime. In situations where your host has failed completely you can also switch the traffic to another provider.

6. Own Your RSS Feeds

Service at Feedburner has been rocky in recent months. Alternative services such as FeedBlitz and PostRank are waiting in the wings. Other services may come in the future. The lesson here is to make sure your RSS feed is delivered on a URL you control. That will let you change providers without loosing valuable subscribers.

Make sure you use a service which lets you create a CNAME record to point their branded URL towards your domain. Both FeedBurner and FeedBlitz allow you to use your own domain name.

7. Buy Your Vanity and Brand Domains

It makes sense to grab the COM/ORG/INFO/NET versions of your company domain name and any key brands you have developed. If you have plans internationally then also grab these extensions in your target countries. Domain registration fees are nothing compared to the legal fees you run up reclaiming these.

On a personal level, register your name domain (firstname+surname.com). Keyword domains have a natural advantage in ranking for these terms – ensure they are under your control.

8. Start Filling Your Vanity or Brand Results

Defend against online reputation attacks by filling these SERPs with your own entries. These results will defend you against low level ORM attacks and targeted link building can make them even more powerful.

Finding good sites for this is not hard, look for authority sites where you can place your profile. Here’s a couple of good site lists to start your efforts.

9. Control Your Short URLs

The recent death of the Zi.ma service was a wake up call for everyone using a shortening URLs service. If the service fails, then all those links fail, leaving you with no way to redirect that lost traffic. If you using short links in link building efforts or for affiliate marketing then you need to roll your own solution.

These are many URL shortening scripts on the market, for a small fee GentleSource ($29), PlusPHP Short URL Script ($59) or for free, e.g. Shorty

10. Use Your Own Domains For Email

Defensible email means using your own domain rather than a branded service. If you use Gmail then use your own domain name with them or sign up to Google Apps. Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live Mail also offer services using your own domain.

Like your RSS feeds, this approach would allow you to switch providers without loosing your email address.

11. Keep Your Content On Your Own Domains

Always build content on your own domains, otherwise you’re at the mercy of the service provider. They may offer to export your data but that often means loosing links, traffic and historical trust that you’ve built up over the years.

So roll your own blog installation rather than using a hosted blog solution like WordPress.com or Blogger. Also keep it in mind when using third party sites like Squidoo, Google Knol or Twitter. These sites are useful but never forget that this material is most strongly defended on your own domains.

12. Set Up Malware Alerts

If Google, Firefox or IE flags your site as containing malware they will stop their users viewing your site. This can be as devastating as a hosting failure. The sooner you know about this the better.

Make sure you get early alerts on Google’s blacklist from Google Webmaster Center or SerpGuard.com. You can also set up Google Alerts for known malware keywords, as detailed here by Patrick Altoft.

** Hurricane Ike Prep by Cayobo one of the artists who make their work under a Creative Commons license at Flickr – thank you!

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