Beware of the past
Before you buy a domain name, check if you are creating it or if it has already been in use (or abuse). View old pages in archive.org and ask searhengines for references.
Verify that it is not banned in some quarters. Verify that the sites corresponding email adress isn't blacklistet, for spam or phishing.
Beware of typosquatters
When you buy a domain name, consider buying alternative spellings and misspellings (and let them redirect to the real site).
If you don't somebody else might, to lure visitors from your trafic. If your site grows popular it also becomes tempting to steal traffic...
Be also careful when you type a popular domain name in a browser.
Misspellings are already lurking in cyberspace, waiting for visitors.
Be more careful when you type to create a link. If it's a popular site, you risk that any popular typo already exist as a fake site.
Merely verifying links lives doesn't check this.
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Maintain your links to other domains
Old links may grow stale: links may be alive even if the site is no longer alive. Some sites are abandoned but still online for years...
Even official links can go rotten: linkcheckers wont alert you if a site changes owner and content or is highjacked.
A recent example: last year the british sf writer Brian W. Aldiss got his official website highjacked.
Someone forgot to renew the name, it expired, and somebody else promptly bought it to create a site selling completely unrelated stuff.
As the site had more than 700 inbound links and had existed for years, I can easily see why this scam was tempting.
Morale: Verify your link and content, annually as minimum. Be alerted to ownershift of sites you're pointing at, and thereby recommending.
In the end, when a site is terminated, remember to close connections too.
Disconnect inbound links, ask search-engines who list your site...
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Maintain your domain name
Automatic renewal as minimum. And register your domain name for more than a single year.
If you plan your site to live 10 years from now, why not registrer it for 10 years? It's possible.
In the end, when you dispose of a domain name, remember it still has some traffic and live inbound links. Plus credibility of age.
Assets to spammers waiting to cash in on the free traffic. Who do you want to sell to..?
I'll suggest to pay for the name a last year, so traffic and links cools off and disconnects.
Keeping only a frontpage online telling visitors: gone for good. Besides,
searchengines also need time to purge expired pages.
Related sites and samples
An ironic example
Read and write reviews of any site
Check, submit and verify phishing mails
Domain names appearing in spam
Wikipedia about Domain names
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