What is a domain name?

What it means

A domain name is your website’s address on the internet. It is what people type into a browser, like webbuilding.net, and the part after the @ in a work email address.

You don’t own a domain the way you own a laptop. You register it for a year (or several) and keep it by renewing on time. Miss the renewal and someone else can eventually register it.

The domain is also separate from your website. It points to wherever your site lives, so you can change builders or hosts and keep the same address.

How it works

Every domain has two main parts: the name you choose and the ending, called a top-level domain (TLD), such as .com, .net or .org. Three groups are involved when you register one:

• The registry runs the ending. Verisign runs .com and charges a wholesale fee of $10.26 a year, rising to $10.97 from November 1, 2026.
• ICANN, the nonprofit that coordinates domain names, adds a $0.20 fee to every registration, renewal and transfer.
• The registrar is the store you buy from. It adds its own markup, which is why prices vary.

Once registered, the domain uses DNS records to tell browsers which server holds your site and which service handles your email. Here is what a .com costs at a few registrars, according to their own pages:

Because Cloudflare charges at cost, its .com price should rise to about $11.17 after Verisign’s November 2026 increase. WHOIS privacy, which hides your name and address from public domain lookups, is now free at Namecheap, Porkbun, Cloudflare and Squarespace Domains, so don’t pay extra for it.

Why it matters when you build a site

Your domain carries your brand, your email and every link and search ranking your site earns over time. Switching domains later means starting much of that over.

It is also the most portable part of any website. On our exit scores, every platform we track gets full marks for the domain: you can transfer it out or keep it at an outside registrar. Lock-in happens with the design and content, not the address.

Budget for the renewal. Many builders include a free domain for the first year, then it renews at the regular rate. That second-year bill is part of the true cost of a website.

How the big builders handle it

• Squarespace: one year of free registration on annual plans only. If you transfer that domain away, the free offer does not carry over. New or recently transferred domains have a 60-day lock, and a transfer out can take up to 15 days.
• Wix: free for the first year with a paid yearly plan. You can also connect a domain bought elsewhere.
• WordPress.com: free for the first year on annual or longer plans. Monthly plans don’t include it.
• Framer: free custom domain on Basic and Pro with yearly billing only. The free plan uses a Framer subdomain.
• Webflow: no free domain on the pricing page. You connect one from your registrar to any paid site plan.
• Hostinger and GoDaddy Airo: both include a free domain for the first year with qualifying plans. GoDaddy says it “renews at current prices.”
• Self-hosted WordPress: the domain isn’t part of WordPress at all. Many hosts bundle one free for a year, and you can register it anywhere.

Common mistakes

• Letting someone else own it. If a designer or agency registers your domain in their account, you depend on them to renew it or hand it over. Register it under your own login and email.
• Judging by the first-year price. A $0.01 or “free” first year tells you little. Compare renewal prices, since you pay those every year after.
• Turning off auto-renew. An expired domain takes your website and your email down with it.
• Buying inside your builder without thinking about leaving. It works, but a domain at a separate registrar makes a later move simpler. Our guide to leaving your website builder walks through it.
• Running a business on a free subdomain. An address like yoursite.webflow.io looks temporary to customers and is hard to move away from later.

Related terms

• Domain registrar: the company you register and renew the domain through.
• DNS: the settings that point your domain to your site and email.
• Web hosting: where the website itself lives.
• Email hosting: the service behind you@yourdomain.com.
• SSL certificate: what puts the padlock next to your address.

For the full setup, read domains and hosting explained.