A few questions regarding domain security/theft: 1. Is it ok to enter your private mailbox address (UPS Store) into the contact information? 2. Is it ok to enter my Google voice number into the contact information? 3. If your domain is stolen via Godaddy, what would be the steps to get it back? I've heard horror stories of registrars not caring or attempting to resolve domain theft issues. Is this true? 4. I'm considering purchasing Godaddy protected registration. However, private registration automatically comes with the service. I've heard that search engines see private registration as spammy. Any truth to that? Would you recommend purchasing protected registration? I'm starting to earn pretty good money from a few of my websites now, and I have this fear that my Godaddy account, or the email address associated with it is going to be hacked. So I want to take all necessary precautions. How do the largest websites on the web handle domain security? What's to stop someone from hacking into the email associated with a website like cnn.com for example, and transferring the domain? Any help is much appreciated!
1 Yes 2 Yes 3 Email , and phone up their customer support. If you catch it early you can more than likely get it back. 4 Lots of people use private registration, with no ill effects. If you're using a PO Box or UPS store then just use that address and save the money. Make sure your account email address is different than the whois listed address. And don't use gmail or other free email providers for your account email.
Also, use a strong password for the login at your domain registrar, and a different strong password for the email address. Strong password means something like "WAuQUTy{5Y|K" or "YSAwjV1cQiXEoX", not "imsoclever". When you are using a wireless internet connection to access either location, use secure (encrypted) HTTPS and STFP. If you can't, then don't use the wireless connection for that at all. Just wait till you can use a landline or secured connection. On a Windows PC, always have an up-to-date antivirus program running, one that automatically scans every file as it's written to disk, not a freebie program that you run once a day or once a week. Renew your domain registration each time before it expires.
Search engines don't care about whois info. They are only interested in the creation and expiration dates.