Domain Name Management
As a result, domain name management at Bayer is a critical process and requires careful consideration of corporate branding, intellectual property and IT-security. No matter of which chosen channel, from the moment of publishing information on the web — domain name management plays an important role.
The domain name life cycle includes:
- Choosing a name according to Bayer conventions.
- Finding a configuration that supports the ranking in search engines.
- Continuously evaluating demand for the domain.
- Initiating decommission through MIRA when the domain is no longer used.
The life cycle management process for every Bayer domain is supported in MIRA. Working with MIRA offers the possibility to overview and manage the domain portfolio according to several Bayer guidelines and regulations. MIRA provides general information about domains, such as brand, country and owner, the website the domain refers to, and other technical details.
The costs incurred are charged centrally.
Basic domain name rules
Sample of Crop Science international website domains:
Global Engagement website: | [www].cropscience.bayer.com |
Global Forwarding Farming | [www].forwardfarming.com |
Global Sivanto website | [www].sivanto.bayer.com |
Global Integrated Weed Management | [www].iwm.bayer.com |
Global Non-Productive Domain | [www].dev-iwm.bayer.com |
Sample of Crop Science national website domains:
Australian website domain: | [www].crop.bayer.com.au |
Brazilian website domain: | [www].agro.bayer.com.br |
German website domain: | [www].agrar.bayer.de |
American website domain: | [www].cropscience.bayer.us |
National Non-Productive Domain |
[www].dev-cropscience.bayer.us |
Sample of Crop Science national product & campaign domains:
Australian Prosaro Scale Warning system | [www].theprosaroscale.com.au |
Brazilian Sivanto Product domain | [www].sivanto.com.br |
National Non-Productive Domain |
[www].dev-sivanto.bayer.com.br |
Additionally or alternatively product sites can be registered as subdomains of the relevant Bayer domain in the form of sivanto.bayer.ccTLD: [www].sivanto.bayer.com.br
Registering a domain name
Registering domain names can be a wise business investment for those who understand how to capitalize on relevant domain name registration trends. It is also important for anyone planning to register a domain name for business use to understand which types of names will be most memorable for potential visitors and customers.
As a basic rule for Bayer: Every Crop Science domain has to be registered. The domain applicant is a Bayer Crop Science employee (task can’t be delegated to agencies or freelancers) and determines whether a specific domain should be registered, for what purpose and takes an active role in its communications by clearly defining each domain as a
- Bayer Crop Science website,
- Bayer Crop Science product website, or
- Bayer Crop Science topic or campaign website
Dos and don'ts
Dos
- Domains should be relevant, memorable and easy to spell.
- Keep your domain name short – 1 or 2 words is best.
- Promote your domain, across online and offline properties.
- Create portmanteaus. A portmanteau is a combination of two words (or more) or morphemes and their definitions to create one new word, like Groupon or Pinterest.
- Take your audience into consideration. Choose your Top Level Domain (TLD) depending on the audience of the website. As a rule for Crop Science register for a German website the TLD.de, for American website the TLD.us, for a global website the TLD.com.
- Begin the registration process early. Register your preferred domain at the beginning of your website project.
- Reevaluate on a regular basis. Constantly review your domain portfolio and decide if a domain should be maintained or decommissioned.
- Transfer domain ownership when changing your role/responsibility.
- Websites must be registered both with and without “www”.
- Follow the appropriate registration process. Register domain names using MIRA according to the Bayer naming strategy described in the Webguide.
Don'ts
- Avoid hyphens and numbers in our domains.
- Don’t misspell your domain. Don't register domains with grammatical or spelling errors.
- Preventive blocking – register domains with no intention to use them, just to avoid others to use it. In case you feel it is necessary to register a domain to protect the reputation of Bayer, consult the following local departments: Communication, Marketing and Legal.
- Don’t register domains with external agencies and/or providers.
- Don’t announce a domain name before the domain is actually owned by Bayer.
- Don’t use “bayer” or “bay” with other words to coin new names to not dilute the Bayer brand. For example [www.]bayplant.com or bayer-alion.com would not be suitable domains.
- Don’t use third-party services. Don't check the availability of a domain by using a third-party service.
Domain renewal
It is critical that you do not allow your domain name to expire as you run the risk of that name being snatched up by a competitor or worse still an unethical company who is holding your domain name to ransom and asking you to pay big bucks for it. To avoid this scenario from happening, register your domain names with Bayer Domain Management – our Bayer internal reputable service provider who will constantly keep you in the loop for any domain issues.