How to choose and register a domain name

You buy a domain once and live with it for years. Changing it later is possible, but it costs you search rankings, breaks old links and reprints your business cards.

How to choose a domain name

One rule covers most of it: the domain has to survive a phone call. If you find yourself spelling it out letter by letter or explaining where the hyphen goes, something is wrong.

What works against you: hyphens, numbers, doubled letters where two words meet, and any spelling a person could guess three different ways. They will guess wrong and land on someone else's site.

Length matters less than people think. Longer and obvious beats short and cryptic.

Which extension to take

.com is still the default, and there is a practical reason: people type it out of habit even when you tell them otherwise. If your audience is global, take it.

Country zones make sense when your customers are local. They tell Google where your business operates, which helps in local results.

Themed extensions like .studio, .shop or .tech look fresh, and picking the best domain extension here is mostly about your audience. Keep in mind the habit problem above: if you take one, having the matching .com redirect to it saves you lost visitors.

For customers in Europe there is .eu. It can be registered by EU citizens and by people and companies that live or are established in the EU or the European Economic Area. If your business is registered elsewhere, you most likely cannot get it, and .com is the easier choice.

How to check if a domain is available

Any registrar's search box answers is domain available in a second, and whois services show who owns a taken one. Do this before you get attached to a name.

If your first choice is gone, resist adding a number or a hyphen. Try a different word or a different extension instead. A domain with a "1" stuck on the end reads as the backup option, because that is exactly what it is.

Check the name on social platforms too. A site under one handle and an Instagram under another is friction your customer does not need. If the name itself is not settled yet, start with what a brand is actually made of.

How to register a domain name and what it costs

To register a domain name you need an account with a registrar, the owner's details and a payment. It takes about ten minutes, and the domain starts working immediately or within a few hours.

Prices depend on the extension. A .com runs roughly ten to fifteen dollars a year. Country zones vary. Themed extensions can be cheaper or several times more expensive, and some raise the price sharply on renewal — check the second-year cost, not just the first.

The mistake people make most: register the domain in your own name. If a contractor does it on their account, the domain is legally theirs. When you part ways, getting your address back becomes a negotiation.

What goes into the price of a domain

The price you see in a registrar's search is usually the first-year price. Many registrars discount the first year and charge the full rate from the second year on. Sometimes the gap is small, sometimes it is several times the first-year price. So compare renewal prices, because that is what you will pay year after year.

Other things that can end up in your cart:

• WHOIS privacy. Without it, your name, phone or email may show up in public whois records. Some registrars include it for free, others charge for it. Many extensions hide private owners' details anyway.
• Email, a site builder, an SSL certificate. These are often added to the order with the box already ticked. Untick what you don't need before you pay. Most modern hosting providers issue SSL certificates for free, so you rarely need to buy one with the domain.
• Paying for several years. You can pay for two to five years up front. It isn't always cheaper, but it means you won't forget next year's renewal.
• Transferring to another registrar. For .com and most generic extensions, a transfer costs about the same as a year of renewal, and that year is added to your term.

A separate note on premium names. Registries sometimes charge more for short words or popular combinations, and that higher price can apply at every renewal. If the domain you picked costs suspiciously much, check whether it is a premium name.

How do you compare registrars in practice? Take two or three options and work out what the domain will cost over three years: the first year plus two renewals. Add the services you actually need, such as privacy. Often the registrar with the cheapest first year turns out to be the most expensive over three years. Look at the control panel too. You won't log in often, but when you do, it is usually because something needs fixing fast.

Who should own the domain

"Register it in your own name" sounds simple, but it is easy to get wrong in practice. The owner of a domain is the person or company whose details are listed as the registrant. Who paid the invoice or who built the site doesn't matter here.

Check four things:

• The registrar account is set up with your email, and you know the password.
• The registrant is you or your company.
• The recovery email is yours, not your contractor's or a former employee's.
• Your developer only has access to what the job requires. Many registrars let you grant separate access without handing over the whole account.

If the domain is already registered to someone else, ask them to move it to you. Within the same registrar this usually takes a few minutes. Between registrars it moves with an authorization code and takes longer. Sort it out now, while you are still on good terms.

What happens if a domain expires

On the expiry date the domain doesn't disappear, but the clock starts. There is usually a window of a few weeks when you can still renew at the normal price. After that comes a period when you can get the domain back, but only for a separate, much higher fee. Then it is released and anyone can register it.

The exact timing depends on the extension and the registrar, so find it out in advance. The worst part is that your email on that domain stops along with the site. Customers see an error instead of your site, and messages to you bounce back to the sender. Why email on your own domain is worth that care is explained in our article on corporate email.

Why do released domains get picked up so quickly? A domain that has been around for a few years has links from other sites and some traffic. That has value for people who resell addresses or put their own pages on them. Sometimes a company's old domain ends up showing ads or someone else's site, and former customers land there out of habit. Getting it back later means paying whatever the new owner asks.

To avoid that, link a card to auto-renewal that won't expire soon, and make sure the registrar's reminders go to an inbox you actually read.

How a domain, hosting and email fit together

A domain is only an address. The site itself runs on hosting, and the domain points to it through DNS records. That is why you can buy the domain and the hosting from different companies. It is even convenient: if you switch hosting, your address stays with you.

Email works the same way. An address like info@yourdomain.com relies on its own records in the domain settings. If your team needs that kind of address, we set up email on your own domain.

So don't edit DNS records at random. Delete the wrong one and your email stops arriving, even though the site keeps working as before.

Checklist before you pay

1. The name can be read out over the phone without explanation.
2. The domain is free, and the name isn't taken on social platforms.
3. The name doesn't match someone else's trademark. A search in public trademark databases takes a few minutes and can save you a dispute with the owner.
4. You know the renewal price, not just the first-year one.
5. The domain is registered to your account and your name.
6. Auto-renewal is on, and reminders go to your email.
7. Extra services are removed from the cart.

A few more domain name tips

Turn on auto-renewal. An expired domain goes on sale, and automated services grab decent ones within minutes of release.

If you are short on domain name ideas, start from what people already call you rather than from a clever abstraction. The name your clients say out loud is usually the right one.

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