How to Prevent Domain Sniping and Secure Your Domain Name

HostGator cannot guarantee protection from domain sniping, and truly, no registrar can. Domain sniping is a common threat, which is why it’s crucial to understand how to protect your domain name from unauthorized registration or theft.

When registering a domain, payment should be completed immediately to secure and protect your investment. Payment processing takes time, so one effective strategy is to buy your desired domain name before purchasing hosting.

There are several ways a domain can be lost to sniping. Here are some of the most common scenarios:

• Another person may register the domain name before you do, even if it appears available when you check.
• A customer may place a domain order but fail to submit payment. During this gap, another user can legally register it.
• Some unethical domain registrars “monitor” searched domains. They may register these domains and auction them back at a significantly higher price.

How to prevent Domain Sniping

ICANN helps discourage domain sniping by limiting how many domain refunds registrars can process. If a domain cannot be refunded, unethical registrars are less likely to risk money registering domains only to resell them.

Here are the best practices to secure your domain name:

• Make sure to renew your domain name on time
  Preventing your domain from expiring is one of the best ways of keeping your domain's ownership. As the domain owner, you are responsible for your domain name. Here at HostGator, you have the option to renew your domain within your Customer Portal automatically. We strongly recommend keeping Auto-Renew ON to ensure that you get notified of your domain's expiration date. If you disable the auto-renewal feature, you will need to renew your domain at the right time manually. If not, you may lose your domain once it expires without you knowing. For more information on enabling your domain's auto-renewal feature, please check out the article, How Do I Renew My Domain Name?
   
• Keep your WHOIS information up-to-date
  Important updates and notifications, such as domain expiration, are sent to your WHOIS email address. To ensure you get the expiration notification, you will have to keep your contact information updated. To know how to update your domain's contact information within the Customer Portal, please refer to the instructions in the article, Updating WHOIS Information.
   
• Lock your domain
  Yes, Domain Locking is a security feature that prevents the unauthorized transfer of your domain. You can manage this in your Customer Portal too. By default, your domain's locking feature is turned ON; however, you might encounter the need to turn it off temporarily for some reason. If that is the case, you have to pay attention to this crucial feature and remember to enable it again after you're done.
   
• Enable Domain Privacy
  Domain Privacy plays an important role in protecting your domain's personal and business contact information (WHOIS) from prying eyes. Keeping your WHOIS contact information (and that includes your name, address, email address, and phone number) private also lessens the risks of being a target of domain snipers. Here is a helpful article discussing Domain Privacy, its importance, and how to enable it in your Customer Portal: How to Enable Domain Privacy.
   
• Ignore domain-related spam messages
  Let's say you forgot to enable your Domain Privacy, or perhaps your email address was already caught by domain snipers before you enabled your Domain Privacy. You may receive spam messages from these domain snipers, who intend to manipulate you with their request emails, threats, etc. You may block these domain snipers or report them to your email provider or host if this happens.
   
• Be vigilant!
  As the domain owner, you are responsible for your domain, and your domain name is yours for a reason. You've worked hard to strengthen your domain's value and ranking. You are provided with the tools to keep your domain name safe. Be on a constant lookout for your domain's expiration date, keep your domain contact information private, and make sure that all the safety features (Domain Privacy and Locking) in your portal are enabled for your domain. They were created to secure your domain from these domainers.

Additional Information

• Domain Overview - Here is our consolidated guide of domain-related articles.
• Domain Concepts - Want to learn more about domains? This article is a good read.
• Domain How-To's - You may check our go-to domain management articles.
• Domain Troubleshooting - Need articles for troubleshooting domain-related website issues? Please check out this article.