The significance of Internet domains in times of ever rising user numbers is becoming increasingly important for companies. As the number of companies on the Internet continues to rise, more domains will be required to enable the presentation of products and companies. If a company has not reserved any domain names, the imminent shortage will make it increasingly difficult to find an available name which is meaningful for the product or company name. In this case, the company should not wait any longer to start the process of finding a name and of consolidating and expanding the domain portfolio. A domain name exists only once and can be obtained, once it has been assigned to someone else, only at great cost or through long and wearisome court proceedings.

Moreover, a company should reserve domain names for all of the existing products and their variants to enable sites separate from the company for later campaigns. This must also be considered in the domain portfolio with respect to possible defection losses.

In the future, additional TLDs for new domain names which companies can register and use will be available (ICANN, “Announcements”). The domain portfolio can be expanded by the new name extensions and existing gaps can be closed. It is recommendable to query the Web sites of the responsible registries and registrars regularly for this consolidation.

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¹ Registry refers to an organization which manages resources for the technical operation of the Domain Name System. This also includes the delegation of domain names below a TLD.

² A registrar is an organization or company which carries out the registrations of Internet domains. The registrar carries out orders for end customers and is consequently an interface between the end customer and the registry. The registrar forwards the domain registration of a customer to the appropriate registry.