How To Buy A Domain Name: A Comprehensive Guide
Are you wondering how to buy a domain name? Well break down the exact steps for you in this guide.
Whether youre a new business owner about to create your first website, a marketer branching out into a new field, or just want a website for your hobby, weve got you covered.
Registering a domain may seem tricky if youve never done it before. But its surprisingly easy after all, there are over 1.9 billion websites online .
In this article, well teach you how to buy a domain name and review some of the best domain registrars on the market .
Lets go.
Why Should I Buy A Domain Name Permanently And How Can I Make Sure It Doesnt Get Taken Away From Me
When you buy a domain name, youre actually leasing it from the registrar for a set period of time, usually one year.
At the end of that year, you have the option to renew the domain name or let it expire.
If you dont renew it, someone else can register it.
However, if you buy a domain name permanently, also called registering it for multiple years, youre essentially locking it down so that no one else can register it as long as you continue to renew it.
How To Transfer Your Domain Registration
If you do decide to transfer your domain registration, the process is relatively simple.
First, youll need to unlock the domain at your current registrar.
Then, youll initiate the transfer with the new registrar.
Once the transfer is complete, youll need to change the DNS settings for your domain name.
And thats it!
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Who Owns Your Website Domain
Because its so valuable, we cannot stress enough the need to OWN YOUR OWN DOMAIN. This is a mistake we see hoteliers make all too often they entrust someone else to purchase their domain name for them, and wind up in a pickle.
For example, they may inherit a website domain through the acquisition of a hotel. Or ask their agency or web developer to purchase a domain name for them while building a new website.
This raises a number of issues around domain ownership. If a third-party purchases your domain name, then you technically dont own it. So if you were ever to leave your agency, switch website providers, or lose touch with the previous hotel owner, you might lose access to your website domain as well.
This has actually happened to one of our customers, a Comfort Suites property in Utah. The owner purchased the property, but the domain name still technically belongs to the previous owner. She now finds herself in a holding pen, unable to launch her new Vizlly website until the previous owner contacts the domain registrar and transfers ownership, which is proving to be a very slow process.
You can see how this scenario could be even worse if your website provider or web designer owned your domain name. If the relationship soured, they could essentially hold you captive for fear of losing access to your website.
Buying An Original Domain Name From Scratch
For many users, creating a domain name is the first step in the journey toward building a consistent, reliable online identityand that step generally involves brainstorming a catchy, original domain name or generating one with one of the many online domain name generators. With a name in mind, users can use name search tools or even a simple Google search to see if the name is available or if other names in use are close enough to cause confusion.
Buying a domain name doesnt necessarily mean making a one-time purchase and owning the name forever. A typical domain name purchase involving an original name actually means that buyers pay for the right to reserve the name exclusively for their own use. To buy rights to a domain name, a user has to register it either directly with a domain registrar or through a hosting provider for terms ranging from a year to several years. To keep rights to the name, a user must renew the registration when it expires or risk losing the name entirely.
Creating an original domain name establishes a new and unique online identity for an individual or business, but it can take time and effort to yield traffic and visibility, especially if the new domain name is poorly optimized for relevant keywords. To reduce confusion, new domain name buyers are often advised to buy as many similar names as possibleeven those with obvious misspellings that reflect mistakes people make when typing in a search bar.
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How To Get A Free Domain
This article was written by Travis Boylls. Travis Boylls is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Travis has experience writing technology-related articles, providing software customer service, and in graphic design. He specializes in Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux platforms. He studied graphic design at Pikes Peak Community College. This article has been viewed 66,018 times.
While a free domain may be sufficient for a personal website, professional businesses should look into web hosting plans that come with a safer, more secure domain. This wikiHow article teaches you how to get a free domain name.XResearch source
How To Buy A Domain Name Forever
No it is not possible to buy a domain name forever like for ever and ever. However, you can register for a longer term. Here is why and how.
When starting out, its easy to miss out on a few crucial aspects that might cost you much in the end. Losing a domain name is one such items that can cause agony to any webmaster. Yet, a large number of domains are lost every day translating to hundreds of lost businesses and brands largely due to expiration of domain names.
So, how can you buy a domain name forever and avoid losing it upon expiration? Unfortunately, this is an impossible mission for anyone today thanks to the ICANN rules that govern domain registrations and ownership. ICANN is the universal body tasked with the responsibility of governing the internet institution and managing its core infrastructure such as domains names registration and ownership.
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What Is A Domain Name And How Do I Register One For My Website
A domain name is your web address.
Its how people will find your site online, and its unique to you.
You can register a domain name through a number of different companies, but we recommend doing so through a registrar like Namecheap.
Prices depend on how popular your desired domain name is.
Fun fact, Carinsurance.com was purchased for nearly $50 million by an anonymous buyer.
Once youve registered your domain name, youll need to point it to your web hosting account.
Can I Own My Domain Name
You may not be the legal owner. Whoever is the legal owner of your domain name, that person has total control over it including what Web site it points to, what domain name registrar maintains it, changing information about your domain name account, controlling who administers it, and being able to sell it.
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Here Are Some Of The Tips To Help You Avoid Missing Domain Renewals
This might cost you a little more but its worth it especially if it involves a domain you no longer use but would like to retain its ownership.
This helps you remember to check all your domains from a single place thereby making it easier to monitor those nearing expiration.
Setting up a group email alias that sends messages to several people in your organization can ease the process of monitoring domain expiry dates.
You can enter your domain renewals in your calendar to help you easily monitor their expiry dates. Try to renew any domain at least 30 days before its expiration. If you fail to do it, your calendar sends you an alert regarding any upcoming renewals.
What Do Icann Rules State
- You can register a domain through your preferred registrar after agreeing to their terms and conditions.
- Different registrars have different terms regarding how long your domain registration lasts. Most of these companies are flexible and can thus allow initial and renewal of domain registrations in one-year increments. However, the maximum allowed period of the remaining unexpired term is ten years.
- Registrars should alert all its registrants regarding approaching domain expiry date three months before it occurs.
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How To Register A Company Domain Name For Business
Keen to start an e-business? A domain name gives your business credibility. If youve managed to register your company name, and have a landing page that confirms who you are and what your organization does, you gain instant trust points. It might be a good idea to pick up the same name with multiple TLDs, such as companyname.com and companyname.business, so that other businesses dont get their hands on it.
Once you have a company domain name, you can create a website for business, that includes products and service information for potential customers. As with any name, just start by searching to see if its taken. Fingers crossed its not!
Its easy to choose a domain to fit your brand. If you work in finance you can pick up a .loan, .accountant and a .finance domain. If you work with technology you can pick up a .ai, .app, or .digital. With so many options out there, the hard part will be deciding which you like best!
Keep in mind that if youre looking to register a company domain, you may be required to submit details such as your company registration number, specifically when registering for a ccTLD.
How Long Can You Buy A Domain Name For
How long do you have to buy a domain name before it expires? If you need the answer to that question, then this article is for you! We will cover why you need a domain name and discuss the length of time they are available for purchase.
A domain name is the address of your website or blog. Its kind of like the phone number for a home. A domain name tells people where they can find that particular site on the internet. And they help make brands look more professional online than just a social media page.
Domain names are great for businesses because they help them attract more visitors and contribute to the websites SEO rankings. They are also helpful for bloggers since its difficult to remember a long URL or email address when you want to share something with your social followers.
To buy a domain name, you need an account with one of the many domain registrars. These companies make it easy for anyone who wants to purchase or sell domains and register them to be found online. You might have heard of some popular ones like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Register.com, Host Gator or Namecheap.
A registrar will manage the admin of your domain for you and even take care of DNS settings which is the technology that translates domain names into IP addresses so that you can browse the internet.
DNS stands for Domain Name Server, and its essentially a network of servers that keep track of all your requests when youre on the web.
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Some Companies Offer Lifetime Domain Registration
We will discuss 2 registrars which offer this kind of service. The first one is Epik.com and they offer a service with the name Forever Registration. You can use that link if you are interested to use their service .
The process works like that: Epik renews the domain name for the maximum period and then at the end of the year they renew for an additional 1 year.
That way the domain name is always registered for the maximum years allowed. You pay the initial fee and then you dont need to bother for any future renewal. The advantage of this method is that you pay once and you dont need to worry if your card or PayPal has enough money at any future day for your renewal.
You can check a screenshot of the proof here:
There is also another service available on Epik where you pay $888 dollars and they call it resilient. This service helps you to build a more secure site by avoiding the usual methods that hackers use and of course, you get the domain forever registration too.
Here is what they offer exactly with resilient:
Content Delivery NetworkWebsite OptimizerUnlimited VPNs for users
These prices look expensive to the average user but it seems there is interest for them. I believe enterprise clients have funds to invest in these services so they dont bother with renewal and website security issues.
Another registrar that offers a domain name forever is Network Solutions. *Disclaimer there are many bad reviews for this company online
How Do I Buy Domain Names
The concept of being able to buy domain names isnt technically correct nobody can buya .com.au domain name permanently or even a purchase a .com , whether you get a new name or acquire an existing website URL.
A domainpurchaser inreality is a registrant renting the license from the Australian registry to use the website name for a setperiod, with an option to renew the lease.
In the case of getting a new website address, while you cannot buy domain names outright or permanently, what you can do is to registera name. This is like purchasing a lease from the organisation that runswhatever registry the extension is associated with and shouldnt be confused with third party name leasing.
For example, any website name with.au as an extension is regulated by auDA, the Australian Domain NameAdministrator. Our company is an auDA accredited domain registrar which is very different to a website address reseller.
Registration lease times can vary depending on the extension some domain names you can register for upto 10 years at a time. The standard period you can register .com.au, net.au, .org.au, .asn.au or .id.au names is 2 years. That is another myth we can bust you cannotbuy a domain name forever however, you can continually renew registration tomaintain control over it.
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Register A Domain Name Long
Anyone is allowed to register a domain name for the long-term, up to 10 years at a time. While you cant register a domain name for longer, the good news is that there is no 10 year total limit.
This means that after every year that passes, a registrant can add any number of years that it takes until the domain is reserved back up to 10 years out.
A decade is a long period of time and if things are going well with that business or domain, just add more years to continue to extend it back out.
Long-term registration also minimizes the chance that something goes wrong after a year like forgetting to have auto-renew on or having a payment form declined.
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.
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What Are Domain Name Extensions
Domain name extensions help categorize different domain names. Its a special hierarchy, invented for the Internet.
You can choose among popular top-level domain extensions such as:
- .com
- .org
- .net
Or go with a local domain extension such as if you want to focus on building a presence in a specific country:
- .co.uk
- .fr
- .au
Also, theres a bunch of creative domain extensions, launched recently. You can try playing around with them to create a shorter, brandable name. For example:
- Alchemi.st
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What If Someone Has A Domain Name I Want
If someone has beaten you to the punch and the domain you want is already taken, your best bet is to think of a new name or change the domain . If you arent able to find a domain you like but you dont want to compromise, there are still options.
You can use the WHOIS directory to get the domain owners contact information and negotiate a price. Keep in mind, however, that aftermarket domain names can be quite pricey, especially if they are overly broad. They might not be millions of dollars but theyll likely cost you way more than simply thinking of another domain name.
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