How To Buy A Domain Name: Domain Registration Guide
What you need to know about domain names, how to choose the right one, and the steps to take to check if a domain name is available and to register your domain.
If you want to start a blog or a new online business, youll need to register a domain name, the name for your website. Getting the right domain for your needs might sound technical at first, but the process is pretty simple.
This domain registration guide will tell you what you need to know about domain name extensions, how to choose the right one for your needs, and the steps youll need to take to check if a domain name is available and to register your domain.
Is Gmail A Professional Choice For Business
Some countries, like China, revere a Gmail address for business. The business culture there is different from the Western world.
In China, they view Gmail and Hotmail accounts as branding, kind of like online fashion for your emails. However, China banned its netizens from accessing Google accounts back in 2014.
Owning a Google account is forbidden, and communication through Gmail accounts is illegal.
However, having a Gmail address for your business email account is tacky and unprofessional in the Western world.
That said, many small businesses and freelancers rely on gmail.com for its free webmail services. If you want to take your Google account to the next level, consider signing up with G Suite for a $6 monthly subscription.
With G Suite, you have the option of connecting custom domains, replacing the @gmail.com with your custom variant.
You also get access to plenty of inclusions, such as the built-in inbox security features and productivity and collaboration tools like Google Sheets, Docs, and Slides.
Check out YouTube for a tutorial explaining the advantages of using G Suite and Gmail for business.
You May Like: Why Are Some Domains So Expensive
Domain Owners: Outlookcom With Microsoft 365 Family/personal Or Microsoft 365 Exchange Online
When you own a domain and also have a Microsoft 365 Family/Personal subscription, then you can link your domain to Outlook.com so that everyone in your subscription can also use a personalized address with their Outlook.com mailbox .
The benefit of this method is that you dont have to configure any forwarder or Send Only POP3 account. You are however limited to only 1 personalized address per Outlook.com mailbox. The Microsoft 365 Family subscription allows up to 6 people with such a personalized address whereas the Microsoft 365 Personal subscription only allows 1.
To set this up, the one managing the Microsoft 365 Family/Personal subscription will have to do this in Outlook.com via
- Settings-> View all Outlook settings-> Premium-> Features-> Personalized email address
Currently, this benefit is only possible when GoDaddy is the registrar for your domain.
Setting up a personalized email address via Outlook.com Premium.
Also Check: Register Domain Privately
Web Hosts That Offer Free Domains
Launching a new website can be a costly endeavor, so we want to help you save as much money as possible.
Many web hosts offer free domain names and affordable web hosting services for beginners to help you get set up and running as fast as possible. Our top recommendations for this include:
If youre on the hunt for affordable hosting that doesnt feel cheap, Hostinger is the way to go. To qualify for a free domain, you have to sign up for an annual package on the Premium plan, which starts at $2.59 per month for a four-year agreement.
With that plan, youll pay $124.32 for four years of hosting and youll get your domain name free for the first year.
Signing up for two years in advance bumps the monthly price up to $3.99 per month, which is $95.76 for two years. If you prefer an even shorter commitment, Hostingers annual agreement is $5.99 per month, making the first year $71.88.
Regardless of the term you choose, a domain name and all of Hostingers domain name features are included for free for the first year.
Theres also a monthly option, but it doesnt include a free domain.
Hostingers premium plan comes with more than enough resources for new websites or anyone migrating an existing site from a different hosting provider.
It includes:
- Up to 100 subdomains
Despite its affordable price tag, you get everything you need .
Try Hostinger risk-free for 30-days to see if its right for you !
How To Choose The Right Domain Name
When choosing a domain name, it should be:
- Relevant to your content, service or business
- Easy to remember keep it short and catchy
- Easy to pronounce
- Easy to spell
- Not a violation of someone elses trademark
Shorter names make better domain names they are easier to type and less susceptible to mistakes. Longer domain names, on the other hand, have an advantage when it comes to keywords and search engines give preferences to keywords that are also found in your domain name.
You May Like: Find Mail Server For Domain
Free Website With Own Domain Is It Possible
Do you wonder if its possible to set up a website with your own domain without any budget investment? There are several ways to do that due to the availability of domain name registrars that provide such an opportunity. The range of platforms to start a free website and to host it for free afterwards is quite extensive as well.
There is one thing, however, you should be aware of. Free web building and hosting services mostly work well for small projects meant for personal use. If you intend to launch a full-featured website with powerful integrations and design customization options, this variant wont make any sense for you. This is because such a domain name wont belong to you and, thus, you wont be able to manage and set it up with regard to your project/business requirements. Hosting a free website with GitHub pages or other suchlike services may be a suitable solution for simple websites, but not for large-scale projects.
If you still intend to host your website for free, you will face the need to pick a domain name zone for your project. Thats not quite easy as popular domain zones like.com or .gov, for example, are rarely provided at no cost. Instead, you can get a domain with less widespread extensions like a generic , a reserved or a second level domain. The latter usually consist of two parts and belong to financial/governmental projects. To get such a free domain, you may contact a domain registrar or a hosting provider of your choice.
Is It Possible To Create A Free Business Email Address Without Developing Any Website
Yes, you can create a free email address without developing any website. However, you will still have to pay for domain name registration. Domain name registration and email hosting service come free with a web hosting package. You need to sign up on the website of the hosting service provider, and then simply create your free domain email.
You May Like: Io Domain Name Meaning
Make It Brandable Not Generic
Creative, memorable domain names are always better than generic ones. After all, your domain name is how people will find, remember, and spread the word about your business on the internet. Its much better to have something that aligns with your brand instead of a domain name thats made up of a bunch of general keywords.
For example, can you tell the difference between cheapcarinsurance.com and affordableautoinsurance.com? Which one would you trust when it comes to buying insurance? Probably neither. Both sound a little spammy, and theyre terribly generic.
On the other hand, youll probably know where the domain names progressive.com or geico.com are going to point you to. Those companies have invested in their brands, and theyve used them in their domain names. You can trust that these sites are legitimate.
Even if you havent built up trust and loyalty yet, you can start by choosing a strong domain name that fits your brand.
An Email Address As Unique As You
For many of us, email is an indispensable part of our daily communications. So its important to make sure that your new email address is both unique and easy to remember. Dont be limited by a user name like smith29488 and an email domain name you share with countless others. Discover more than 200 free mail.com domain names on the lists below. And if you are looking for inspiration or pointers, weve put together some email address ideas for you.
Don’t Miss: How To Find Out Who Owns Domains
Search For Your Domain Name’s Availability
Once you have found the right domain registrar for you, you’ll need to search for your domain name using the registrar’s search bar. There are millions of domain names out there, with thousands more added daily.
If you have your heart set on a domain name before doing a search, you might be disappointed to find it is already taken. Keep an open mind and incorporate important keywords into your domain when appropriate.
How Can Ionos Afford To Offer Free Domains
First of all, IONOS is not a free domain name service provider in general. We usually have very competitive pricing for our domain customers however, you will not be able to enjoy free domains all the time. The reason we can occasionally give away domains at little or no cost is that our large customer base enables us to attract a lot of registries that work with us.
One example of such cooperation might be a registry that launches a new TLD but does not intend to do all of the marketing and sales activities by themselves. Nevertheless they would like to see quick growth in their user base and to reach this goal they give IONOS very attractive offers. Then, for example, we can sometimes offer free domain registration.
On the one hand, this is a great opportunity for our customers to benefit from fantastic offers, on the other hand it can evoke the wrong impression about the hosting industry in general. In the long run, it is impossible to offer free domain name registration and cheap web hosting services at a high quality level.
Also Check: Transfer From Wix To Shopify
How To Get A Domain Name From Domaincom
Domain.com is a reputable domain registrar, launched in 1998. Over 1.2 million websites are registered with them.
Domain.com features the most popular top level domains such as .com, .net, .org, .co, along with over 25 county-specific domain extensions .
They are mostly selling affordable domain names with most names priced in the $9.99-$12.99/year range. If you are lucky, you can also steal a deal and buy your domain name for as low as $2.99/year.
For that price you get:
- 1-year domain ownership.
- Free SSL certificate for extra security.
- Automatic email forwarding to your domain.
- DNS registration and management tools.
Also, you can purchase extra Domain Privacy+Protection for your domain . In this case, your personal details will not be displayed publicly in the WHOIS/ICANN directories. Plus, the registrar will also run extra security checks.
Sounds sweet? Heres how to register a domain name on Domain.com.
Step 1: Run a quick search to verify that the domain name you are eying is available.
Step 2: Pick your domain extension. Go for .com since its the most familiar option among users and thus, people, tend to type .com before trying anything else.
Your choice gets automatically added to your cart with a 2-year privacy protection subscription. This ones optional, so you can remove it during the next step. Also, you can change your domain renewal period from one year to five years.
Moreover, you can pick some add-on services such as:
Mozello Free Multilingual Websites
This Latvian company is one of the smaller players worldwide. What strikes us about Mozello is that they allow you to create a multilingual website for free something you wont get anywhere else. The range of features includes a blog, an online store and decent SEO options. Fortunately, the advertisement is just a link in the footer that most of your visitors wont even notice. 500MB of free storage is included and should be enough for most of us.
The downside is that the editor, albeit easy to use, is really limited compared to its competitors. Certain elements like a gallery can only be added to a specific gallery page-type, for example. This makes Mozello rather inflexible.
Screenshots:
Our demo website: Beauty Studio
What we liked: the almost unnoticeable ad and the possibility to create a free multilingual website.
Where they should improve: the editor needs to become much more flexible and feature-rich. There is no easy way to add SSL encryption. In our test, not even the Mozello editor was using a secure connection, which is a bit worrying!
Free Trial: www.mozello.com
Don’t Miss: Transfer Domain From Wix To Shopify
Bookmark Websites Created By Ai
The latest fashion in website building are intelligent assistants. Bookmark, Wix ADI and, to a lesser extent, Jimdo Dolphin, all promise to use some kind of magic formula to get your website right with the first draft. Using Bookmarks AiDA assistant we were left wondering where the intelligent assistant should get the information of what to put on your website. All you enter is your business name and the industry. The outcome was not terrible but its also not better than a website created without an assistant.
What we liked: Bookmark has quite a lot of features and modules that you can add to your website. All the websites are responsive and the editor makes a lot of sense. An advantage is that AiDA teaches you how to modify design elements in a couple of steps. They also offer integrated email accounts for $2 per month.
What they should improve: The website we got didnt look particularly attractive. It was very stock-image heavy. With this whole AI-branding, they raise very high expectations which, from our point of view, they cant really meet.
The cheapest ad-free paid plan starts at $11.99, which seems quite high compared to more established platforms like Wix or Weebly.
The URL you will get for free: https://yourname.bookmark.com
Our demo website: Bakery
Tip: Save 15% on your first purchase with Bookmark using this exclusive voucher code websitetooltester15.
Find A Domain Name Registrar
The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers oversees the entire system of domain names, and it allows outside companies, called domain registrars, to sell and manage domain names. You will need to register your domain name through a registrar.
Some of the most popular domain registrars include GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Domain.com, although there are many more to choose from. Be sure to carefully consider pricing and policies for each one before choosing your domain registrar, as it will be managing your domain name.
Read Also: Finding Out Who Owns A Domain