Domain name audit

A domain name audit carries out an inventory of registered or unregistered names at a given time. An audit can be carried out for a trademark, a descriptive term or a portfolio of domain names.

Brand audit among domain names

Interested in a domain name for your new brand? Before you register it with the Institut national de la propriété industrielle(INPI), check that your brand name isn’t already registered.

Solidnames offers an exhaustive audit of domain names registered in all Internet extensions.

Another specific search exists for NFT domain names. These are domain names registered in .ETH or .CRYPTO, .WALLET or .X that work with the blockchain.

Depending on the settings, the search will identify domain names that are identical to your name, as well as similar to it (e.g. typosquatting, homoglyphs).

If domain names are available, Solidnames investigates the registration formalities.

You are then free topurchase your domain names from an accredited registrar.

Domain name audits often reveal registered domain names.

Despite their effective registration, these domain names are recoverable.

A domain name buyback is negotiated with the help of an agent.

If no financial agreement is reached, a domain name watch alerts you if the owner does not renew the desired name. More precisely, this service is called “backorder”.

The domain name inventory service for a new trademark is similar to a prior art search.

Domain name cybersquatting research

An inventory of domain names for an existing brand photographs its use on the Internet. There’s no doubt that this inventory is a lifesaver. At a given point in time, the brand finds the domain names in its possession.

Through this search, the various abuses to which the brand is exposed are characterized. Each domain name cybersquatting is evaluated according to its level of risk: counterfeiting, identity theft, customer misappropriation, etc.

A domain name inventory for a trademark can be carried out at any time. Brand monitoring among newly registered domain names is an essential complement to an audit.

Audit of domain names containing a descriptive word

A domain name audit is not limited to trademarks. The term questioned may be a generic word.

That said, who has any interest in searching for domain names with a descriptive term?

The French Medical Association can audit domain names containing the word pharmacie. The sale of medicines online is regulated in France. However, malicious third parties are registering domain names containing pharmacie to sell fake medicines.

The French Bar Council (Conseil de l’Ordre des avocats) has issued a reminder that the domain name of a lawyer’s website may not include a generic term of the profession without mentioning the lawyer’s name or that of his or her organization. An inventory of domain names including avocat shows that many websites do not respect this rule.

Domain name auditing can be used for all types of names.

Names of cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon or Marseille, for example) or protected designations of origin (PDOs) have an interest in auditing domain names that include their names.

Finally, a domain name inventory is also part of a competitive analysis. Your company sells shirts on the Internet. An inventory of all domain names containing shirts will reveal which competitors have registered this type of website.

In the same way as the audit analyzes the domain name holder extracted from the available “whois”, the other elements supplied are :

• domain name
• Internet extension: generic, country (such as .FR managed byAfnic in France), new Internet extensions
• status: available, registered, in the process of falling into the public domain
• webuse with a screenshot time-stamping the associated website
• DNS servers
• MX email servers
• creation date
• expiration date
• domain name registrar

Domain name portfolio analysis

Companies’ domain name portfolios are growing steadily. They are often divided between different domain name registrars.

Generally speaking, three departments are often concerned by domain names: legal, IT and marketing.

A domain name portfolio audit analyzes administrative and technical compliance.

From an administrative point of view, the deliverable finds cases of non-compliance, such as domain names registered by branches, employees or suppliers.

The audit inventories domain name ownership in the case of corporate groups or mergers & acquisitions. Updates of changes of address or telephone numbers are also carried out following the service.

Harmonizing a domain name portfolio helps consolidate it.

Centralizing the portfolio at a single registrar via domain name transfers optimizes renewal costs.

The rationalization of a domain name portfolio sometimes leads to the deletion of unused names. The audit shows which domain names have no particular value and should be abandoned.

Conversely, non-strategic generic domain names with a market value can be sold on the secondary market.

On the technical side, the domain name audit produces a screenshot for each domain name.

It characterizes the traffic lost on registrar waiting pages, poorly configured or even inaccessible pages.

A domain name strategy consulting mission offers an optimized technical configuration.

The cost of a domain name audit varies according to the number of results.

An inventory for several dozen domain names will be less expensive than for several thousand.