The other day a customer asked us about domain name essential add-ons,
What are the essential things that should be added/bought/subscribed to after buying a domain name and getting hosting?
We thought this was a really interesting question. Often times, we think we know everything we need to know about a product until we talk to an industry expert who opens our eyes to a whole different side of things. Many people register domain names for the purpose of building a website so once they settle on the basics like a name and a hosting plan they think they’re set sailing. Unless they specifically ask a question like above, they may never think of logistics regarding online privacy and security domain name add-ons.
Two domain name essential add-ons we would recommend for your domain name are Private Registration and an SSL Certificate.
Private Registration
When purchasing your domain name, you are prompted to add Private Registration to your domain name in order to keep your personal information private. If you don’t, anyone can look your domain up in the public ICANN WHOIS database and gain access to your information such as email address, phone number, name, and company.
Private Registration shields your information and filters unwanted spam to ensure only legitimate parties can contact you. If you did not purchase Privacy Protection with your domain you should add it on immediately because scammers and spammers scrape these databases daily to find their next targets.
SSL Certificates
The second domain name essential add-ons we would suggest for every website owner is an SSL Certificate. Depending on the purpose of your website, having an SSL Certificate is either a necessity or highly recommended. If your website has any kind of form that collects personal information from visitors like name, email address or phone number, a login interface that stores usernames and passwords or an e-commerce platform that processes transactions you will need one because without your connection is not secure.
Let’s examine betches.com. An Instagram account with 5.9 million followers and a pop culture website with a customer login database and an e-commerce shop. The main domain http://www.betches.com/ does not have an SSL Certificate, and when creating a user account you are prompted to enter personal information including: First Name, Last Name, Email- all which can now be targeted by criminal and counterfeit activity.
When we click to shop Betches we see the e-commerce domain does have an SSL Certificate which means their customer’s credit card information is encrypted and cannot be accessed by third-party users. We can see the difference in the URL bar which shows an https, “secure” connection.
Without an SSL Certificate, any information entered on your website is not secure. Google Chrome and Firefox warn and even divert users from visiting websites without SSL Certificates.
Don’t be a basic b and make sure you have these two essential security features in place with your domain names!
