How You Can Get As Close As Possible To Owning A Domain Name For Life
If youre worried about the price of your domain skyrocketing or others beating you to the punch and buying it from under your nose just as youre about to renew it, dont worry theres a way to make sure none of this happens.
It may dawn on you to become a domain registrar yourself so the domain remains your own for as long as you wish. However, this is not a great solution as its a lot of work and very costly. Youd need to pay an annual accreditation fee to ICANN, a yearly fee for each domain you run , and also a commercial insurance policy which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. And of course youll also need to pay a fee to the administrator of each domain extension you have in your arsenal. Google is its own registry, for instance, but Google is also one of the biggest, richest companies in the world.
Luckily, you dont have to do any of that. If you want to avoid a rising recurring fee and protect your brand, heres what you can do:
Why You Cant Buy A Domain Name Forever
When you purchase a domain from sites such as Godaddy, Namecheap you actually buy the right to use it and not the domain itself. It is some sort of license that you need to renew from time to time.
**Registrars are just the companies you interact with and the other 2 big players in the industry are the Registries and the nonprofits or the government-related entities that oversee both registrars and registries. This format is used for most popular domain name extensions but there are some exceptions too.
The policy of renting instead of buying a domain is in place for those reasons:
You Dont Buy A Domain Name
A historical rule of the internet is that a domain name cant be bought. Registrars attribute domain names according to their availablility: each domain name is exlusive.
The price varies depending on the top-level domain , but registrars and registries regularly implement promotional pricing on domain name creations.
If your domain name is already being used, you cannot register it but the registrar might suggest some alternatives.
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Web Hosts And Domain Names
You needn’t go to a dedicated registration service to buy a domain name, though. The best web hosting services, such as DreamHost, HostGator, and Hostwinds routinely offer a registration mechanism as part of the sign-up process. Hosting services typically offer a free domain name when you sign up for a web hosting package.
Keep in mind, however, that free domain names are usually free only for one or two years, after which the registrar will bill you for the annual or biennial fee. In other words, the provider of the free domain name pays only for the first billing from the registrar. Also take note of whether or not the provider charges a fee for setting up a domain name. Most services offer to transfer an existing domain name to their servers at no cost, but sometimes you’ll find a setup fee over and above the registrar’s fee.
Please note that not all web hosts give you the option to register a domain name. Cloudways, for example, is a solid web host that requires you to purchase a domain name from elsewhere.
Registrars offer a wide variety of registration durationsone year, three, five, and even ten. Be careful about registering for more than a year, though. First, there might be restrictions on your ability to transfer the domain name should the registrar give poor service. Second, the registrar could go out of business, leaving your domain name without a host. Check the policies closely.
Can You Get A Free Anonymous Domain Name
For a quick ad hoc solution you can get a free domain at. However, it will not be registered under your name.
You should also note though that when a domain is not registered under your name, you wont have any ICANN protection. Therefore, you also risk losing the domain with no line of defense.
For hosting you can use GitHub Pages which is free too and requires just an email address to register.
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Can I Buy A Domain Name Without Hosting
Yes, you can. Domain registration and web hosting are two different services. You dont need to buy or have a hosting plan to register a domain name.Check if your preferred domain name is available, then buy and register it at a domain name registrar.Whether you have a website or not, the domain name will be yours as long as you renew the registration before it expires.
What Is A Domain Name
A domain name is a website address that people know to enter at your website. Now you may think that how can everyone remember the website domains as there are tonnes of websites on the Internet? Yes, it is a common query from beginners. So the domain name is according to your brand name, business services, and any other relevant thing that gives it a unique identity. For Example, you are making an online brand named brandezyx, so your website domain name will be brandezyx.com.
In other words, the website is your home, and the domain name is your address that others know to visit your place.
The Internet is a whole globe that consists of a giant network of computers. Every computer has a specific number referred to as the IP address. You may be familiar with IP addresses that are similar to 66.249.66.1.
How many of you remember the IP address of your computers?
We think no one will remember their IP address. It is common, but do you think you need to remember this kind of address to enter your required website? It’s impossible to recognize these types of addresses rather than simple domain names.
So, in the beginning, it was a more significant issue, but then domain names were invented to resolve this issue.
According to studies, in the year 2021, more than 56500+ .com domain names were registered. Moreover, more than 158.6 million .com domain names are already registered, and 366.3 million domain names are in all the TLD.
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Buying Or Selling A Domain Name Doesn’t Need To Be Complicated Every Year Tens Of Thousands Of Clients Trust Us To Assist With Their Negotiations
Buying domain names on the aftermarket can be difficult and confusing. DomainAgents works to ease the challenges buyers and sellers face, allowing each party to focus on the negotiation without distraction. When an agreement is negotiated or a domain is purchased directly from our marketplace, DomainAgents assists both parties through the escrow and transfer process ensuring a safe, secure & efficient process for everyone.
We stand behind our service and are the only service provider to offer a service guarantee when making an unsolicited offer: *If we are unable to contact the domain seller and present the buyer’s offer, we will provide a free DomainAgents credit to make an offer on a second domain name or attempt to present the buyer’s offer again on the same domain name.
Renewal Of A Domain Name: Which Registrar
Should you decide to keep your domain name, and you did not set it to auto-renew, you will have to return to the sameregistrar you used before to pay the next year’s fee.
This doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with a single registrar for life. You’re free to change registrars if you like.However, don’t wait till the last minute to change registrars, or you may run into problems. Transfers take a bitof time to take effect, and often require you to take action on both your new registrar’s site as well as your old.I suggest that if you want to transfer your domain, play safe and transfer it long before the expiry date.
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Choose The Right Domain Extension
When picking the extension or TLD for your domain name, .com is still the best choice unless you have a reason to choose something else. Roughly 43% of all domains have a .com extension, making it what people expect to see the most.
While Google confirms that your choice of TLD will not impact rankings, it does affect consumer perception. Many people view other TLDs as less trustworthy.
That said, .net or .org extensions are not uncommon, so they can be good secondary options if you find the perfect name and the coveted .com isnt available.
But if you do decide to go with an extension other than a .com, make sure you take a look at what type of website is currently on the .com extension. Someone is bound to go there accidentally while looking for your brand. If the site holds fishy or offensive content, you might want to steer clear of that name altogether.
Finally, avoid those niche domain name extensions like .space, .club, .pizza, unless you really think theyll enhance your brand.
Hostgator Best For Budget
HostGator is a web hosting company that guarantees uptime 99.9% of the time. It also offers 24/7 support an impressive 365 days a year via phone and live chat.
HostGator is also affordable. There are three hosting plans to choose from: the Hatchling Plan, the Baby Plan, and the Business Plan. If you go with the most affordable plan, youll pay just $2.75 a month for web hosting.
Keep in mind, however, that youll need to sign up for three years of web hosting to receive the lowest monthly price and your domain name is only free for the first year. After that, it renews at $17.99 per year.
But HostGators plans are incredibly affordable, to the point where they make it easy on your wallet if you dont want to settle for the most basic of hosting plans.
If you need shared hosting for more than one site, the Baby Plan allows you to host as many as you need for just 75 cents more per month.
What makes HostGator particularly scalable is their unmetered bandwidth and site storage on all shared hosting plans. That means you can accomodate as many site visits and use as much storage space as you need, within reason.
Most sites wont have to worry about using up too much of their servers resources. And youll never again have to count monthly visits to make sure you dont exceed your limit.
If you prefer a one-year term, the monthly fee increases to $3.95 for the Hatchling Plan and $5 for the Baby Plan, with a free domain for the entire one-year duration.
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Transfer Your Domain To A Different Domain Registrar
If your domain is managed by a provider that doesn’t support all the necessary DNS records, you can transfer it to a different registrar. When you transfer the domain, you change who you send payments to in order to renew and keep your domain name.
Request the transfer at the registrar that you want to move your domain to. Look on their website for an option such as Transfer DNS. Be aware that after they make the changes, it can take a few days update across the Internet.
Two Methods For Buying A Domain Name
Fortunately, it doesnt really matter where you buy your domain. At the end of the day, a domain is a domain, and you wont find any variations in quality based on where you buy one.
The biggest difference from one domain registrar to the next is the pricesome offer domains for just a few dollars a year and others can go as high as $20 per year or more. There are two ways to get a domain name, one of which is free for the first year and the other is not.
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Complete The Domain Registration
As soon as you have completed the payment, youll be redirected to the control panel. Inside, there will be a setup box that youll need to fill out to complete the domain name registration.
Youll need to fill in all the fields with the correct details, such as your name, address, andcontact information. This data will be stored on WHOIS, the official domain ownership database.
After submitting your details, the domain registration will be processed.
Its possible to modify the domain ownership details using the domain management section within the control panel. Once the changes are made, you will have to confirm them via email.
Can You Get A Domain Name For Free
So far, weve covered two ways to buy a domain name. But can you get one for free? The answer is yes. There are three ways to get a free domain:
While you can get a good domain name for free, you should consider how professional your domain makes your website look. Your TLD conveys legitimacy, authority, and trustworthiness to visitors.
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Choosing The Right Domain Extension
According to stats, there are more than 1500 top-level domains available for you to choose from. Although this sounds like a tough decision, you will probably consider only a couple of domain extensions like .com, .org, .net, or a couple of local ones that may be important for your site.
More often than not, people will aim to acquire a .com extension. This is definitely the most popular TLD, and most successful companies have their sites reflecting these kinds of top level domains. However, because of its popularity, it is getting hard to get a short and memorable domain name with a .com extension. The reason is simple most of them are already registered by other people. Sometimes, it is still possible to purchase one, but more about that later.
If you cant get a .com domain name for your website, it is completely ok to go for a non .com domain. Here are a couple of popular TLDs worth considering:
- .com in the early days of the internet, this used to identify commercial sites, but now can be used for anything, including personal blogs.
- .net stands for network but can be used for any type of website. This is a common replacement for people who cant get their domain in the .com version.
- .org great for non profit companies, and usually not recommended for any other type of businesses.
- .me great choice for personal sites like blogs.
- .us, .ca, .uk, etc. perfect choice for websites that represent local businesses such as restaurants, for example.