Domain Brand Protection: Keeping Control of Your Name

Domain brand threats generally fall into a few categories. Understanding them helps you decide what's worth defending against.

Typosquatting

This is when someone registers common misspellings or typos of your domain. "Gogle.com" instead of "Google.com" (Google owns it now, obviously). For smaller brands, typosquatters might set up phishing sites, show ads, or just park the domain hoping you'll pay to get it.

The most vulnerable typos are usually adjacent-key errors (hitting 'n' instead of 'm'), doubled letters, and missing letters. Think about what your customers might accidentally type.

Competitor Registrations

Sometimes competitors register domains that include your brand name, especially combined with negative words or comparison phrases. "YourBrandSucks.com" or "YourBrandVsOurs.com" can be used for comparison marketing or worse.

More subtly, competitors might grab domains that sound like your brand but aren't exact matches—close enough to cause confusion but far enough to avoid clear trademark issues.

Domain Speculators

Professional domainers watch for brands that might become valuable and grab related names early. If your startup gets press coverage, expect speculators to register variations within hours. They're not always malicious—many will sell at reasonable prices—but you're negotiating from a position of weakness.

Expired Domain Snipers

If you ever let a brand-related domain expire, someone else might grab it. These could be automated systems that snatch up any expiring domain with traffic, or they could be people specifically watching your properties. Either way, getting it back is expensive.

You can't register every possible variation of your brand. And you shouldn't try—that way lies madness and a large annual domain bill. Instead, focus on strategic defensive registrations.

The essential set:

• Your exact brand name on .com (if you don't have it, that's a problem)
• Your brand on relevant country-code TLDs where you operate (.co.uk, .de, etc.)
• Your brand on major generic TLDs (.net, .org, .co)
• One or two obvious typo variations that would actually trick people

Worth considering:

• Your brand + "app" or "hq" if you're a software company
• Common misspellings that autocorrect doesn't catch
• Your brand without hyphens (or with, if yours has them)
• Plural versions if your brand is a word

Probably overkill:

• Every possible TLD (there are hundreds now)
• Every possible typo combination
• Your brand + random words (unless they're trademark-relevant)

Think of it this way: register what someone might type by accident or what a competitor might use against you. Skip the stuff that nobody would plausibly type or care about.

You can't defensively register everything, so monitoring fills the gap. Watch for new registrations that include your brand name or close variations, and you'll know when someone might be causing problems.

What to monitor:

• New domain registrations containing your exact brand name
• Registrations with common typos of your brand
• Changes to domains you've identified as potential threats
• Your own domains approaching expiration (seriously, set up alerts)

When monitoring catches something, you can evaluate whether it's actually a threat. A fan site might be fine. A phishing site needs immediate action. A speculator might be worth approaching for purchase. The point is to know about it while you still have options.

If someone already controls a domain you want, your options depend on the situation.

If it's a speculator or investor:

They probably want to sell. Reach out through a broker or anonymously (so they don't know it's the brand owner and jack up the price). Many transactions happen for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Know your walk-away number before negotiating.

If it's trademark infringement:

You have legal options, but they take time and money. The UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) process can transfer clearly infringing domains to trademark holders, but it's not instant. For urgent cases like phishing, contact the registrar directly and work with legal counsel.

If it's a gray area:

Someone running a legitimate criticism site or a competitor doing comparative marketing might be annoying but not actionable. Pick your battles. Sometimes the best response is improving your own SEO so your real site outranks the problematic one.

Manually checking for brand threats doesn't scale. You'd need to search multiple times a day across multiple TLDs, and you'd still miss things.

shadom.co watches domains for you. Add the variations that matter—typos, competitor possibilities, important TLDs—and get notified when something changes. When a domain you're watching expires, you'll know immediately instead of finding out after someone else grabbed it.

The goal isn't to catch every possible threat. It's to catch the important ones while you still have time to act.