INNOVATIVE MEDIA DEVELOPMENT GRAPHICGuides · Plain English
What a domain name is, and who should own it.
The single most important thing in this guide is the last section. If you read nothing else, read who the domain should be registered to.
A domain name is the address people type to reach your website — imdgfx.com, for instance. You do not buy it outright; you register it for a year at a time and keep renewing. For as long as you renew, it is yours and nobody else can have it.
How a domain actually works
Every computer on the internet has a number, not a name. Domain names exist because people cannot remember numbers.
When somebody types your address, their computer asks a directory service — the DNS — which number that name points at, then connects to it. Changing where your domain points is how you move your website between hosts without anybody noticing.
That lookup is why a DNS change is not instant. It can take anything from a few minutes to a day or so to reach everybody, because the answer gets cached along the way.
Renting, not buying
Nobody sells you a domain permanently. You register it for a period, usually a year, and you have the exclusive right to renew. Keep renewing and it stays yours indefinitely.
Miss the renewal and it enters a grace period, then a more expensive redemption period, then it goes back on the open market. Businesses lose their names this way every day, usually because the renewal notice went to an email address nobody checks any more.
Turn on auto-renew. Then check once a year that the card on file has not expired.
.com, .net, .co, and the rest
.com is still the one people assume and the one they type by habit. If the .com for your name is available and affordable, take it.
Country and niche endings — .co, .io, .shop, .la — are fine and sometimes cheaper, but expect to spell your address out loud more often, and expect some customers to land on the .com by mistake.
Watch the renewal price on the unusual endings. A first year at a few dollars can renew at ten times that. The introductory price is a marketing number; the renewal is the real one.
The phone number analogy
A domain is like a phone number you rent from the phone company. You do not own the digits — you hold the right to them while you keep paying. You can point that number at a different office whenever you like, and the number stays the same. Stop paying, and after a grace period somebody else can be given it.
What it costs
| A .com registered through us | $39 a year | We register it and connect it, which is a manual job on our side. |
| A .com registered yourself | $10 – $20 a year | Cheaper, and you handle the settings. Perfectly sensible if you are comfortable doing it. |
| Renewal on an unusual ending | Varies wildly | Check the renewal price, not the first-year price. |
Our prices come straight from our price list, so this page can’t drift out of date. Figures for other companies are typical ranges, not quotes.
Do you actually need it?
Register your own domain if
- You want your own address rather than yourbusiness.wixsite.com, which tells customers you did it on a free plan.
- You want a business email address at your own name.
- You might ever move your website somewhere else — and you might.
Think twice before
- Buying a dozen variations and misspellings. One good domain and a redirect from the obvious alternative is almost always enough.
- Chasing a premium domain for thousands. A clear, memorable, slightly longer name does the same job for twelve dollars.
Mistakes worth avoiding
Letting your web designer register it in their name
This is the one that hurts. If the domain is in somebody else’s account, you cannot move your site, change host or take your business elsewhere without their cooperation. It should be registered to you or your company, with your email as the contact — whoever does the typing.
Using a personal email as the contact
Renewal notices and transfer approvals go to that address. Use one that will outlive whoever set it up.
Forgetting it exists until it expires
Auto-renew, and a calendar reminder a month before. Recovering a lapsed domain is expensive and sometimes impossible.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
Who should the domain be registered to?
Can I keep my domain if I leave you?
I already own a domain. Can you use it?
What is the difference between a domain and a website?
Should I buy the .net and .org too?
Next
Where to go from here.
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